The Verlander Rule?

If the rule was in place two years ago it is quite possible Verlander would have been an Astro on July 31.

 

Can anybody explain why they are doing this? Is it player motivated or owner motivated?

 

More certainty for the players who could be traded. More likely for teams to call up prospects if they have a hole to fill late in the season.

 

Actually, there's a very recent article in the Chronicle where they interview Luhnow about this, and he says he's not sure it would have happened if the rule was in place in 2017.

Snippet:

“At the end of July,” Luhnow said, recalling the circumstances in 2017, “Justin may have felt that there were other options for him if he waited. By the time he got to the end of August, he knew there were only two options: staying in Detroit or going to Houston.”


As for the Astros, Luhnow said they needed to watch Verlander surge for another month — he had a 2.36 ERA and 50 strikeouts in 42 August innings — to convince themselves they needed to get him and pay handsomely for his services.


“Without seeing that, I’m not sure we would have been as bold in the amount of prospects we gave up and the money we were able to contribute,” Luhnow said.

 

The Pirates, Ray's and a couple of other teams were playing the shift pretty often before the Astros started. I read that in Astroball last week and I too thought Lunhow started that, he just went to extremes with it. Such a fantastic book for any die hard Stro fan.

 

Yeah - Joe Madden is the one that made the shifts famous when he was in Tampa Bay and they were so competitive. I think the year the Cubs won the WS, they also were crazy in how extreme they were with it.

 

Verlander Ruhle. Interesting hybrid.