Baseball committee recommends a change to its mercy rule
AURORA — The baseball committee on Tuesday recommended an addition to its mercy rule on Wednesday, one that brings it in line with softball.
Currently, baseball’s mercy rule ends games when one team is up by 10 runs after five innings. Their recommendation is to end games when one team is up by 10 runs after five innings, 15 runs after four innings, or 20 runs after three innings.
The recommendation will be voted upon by CHSAA’s Board of Directors at their meeting next month. If approved there, the change will go into effect for the 2019 season.
Additionally, the baseball committee discussed how to handle upcoming reclassification and realignment. There was talk about adding a sixth classification, which had support from the coaches association.
Another discussion topic was creating a top-level open division consisting of the top 16 or 24 teams, and then reclassifying the remaining schools into other classifications. Ultimately, they created a subcommittee to spearhead this effort.
The committee also recommended a universal pitch count rule for all levels. Currently, there is a different rule for varsity and sub-varsity players. If approved by the Legislative Council next April, this change would go into effect with the 2020 season.
There was also discussion about moving regionals to a double-elimination format. There was strong opposition to a true double-elimination format from the administrators on the committee. But there was some support for a modified four-team format which has a single-elimination first round, and then a best-of-three series for the remaining two teams.
No recommendation was made, but the topic of postseason format is likely to re-emerge next year.
The group also talked about implementing a minimum number of games in order to qualify for the postseason via the RPI. That is also likely to come back next season.
