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What if Baseball Games Were One Whole Inning?

Austin Hedges prepares to catch the ball at home plate while playing for the Cleveland Guardians.

In the middle of the baseball offseason, imagining different rules for the sports is what counts as entertainment.

The rules of baseball often feel sacred, but they have changed dramatically since the inception of the sport, including in the last few years. Like a certain omniscient Marvel character, I like to play the “what if?” game. For example, I have thrown around the idea of league-intervening free agency.

Today I am wondering what baseball would be like if each team got to bat for exactly one inning. No, the game would not be over in 30 minutes, because instead of three outs per inning, each team would get 27, the same as a standard nine-inning game. The road team would bat until they get out 27 times, and then the home team would have 27 outs to match and surpass the total the road team posted. Even the two teams would have the same number of opportunities as a current nine-inning game, there are some clear knock-on effects worth exploring.

In the world of one-inning baseball, roster building and in-game strategy would both be meaningfully different from the MLB games we are familiar with watching.

Changes to Playing Time

When one team goes through all of their at-bats before the other team, the balance of offense and defense shifts dramatically. It is easy to imagine that managers on the road would only put their nine best hitters in the lineup and then substitute some of them for defensive specialists after 27 outs. Managers at home, of course, would do the opposite by starting their nine best defenders and then pinch hitting for the weaker batters.

That means front offices would be more comfortable adding players with a limited skill set to the active roster. Bat-only players would rarely take the field, and glove-only players would rarely step up to the plate. Everyday players as we know them would still be very valuable since the size of the roster would not be changing in this alternate reality. In most cases, only four position players would be available off the bench.

To extrapolate further, the defensive spectrum would widen further than our present conditions. More teams would likely acquire DH-types even though there is just one DH in the lineup since others would be immediately substituted out on defense. Similarly, front offices would place even more emphasis on elite defense at catcher, centerfield, and shortstop since those are the toughest positions. Just as DH JD Martinez and 1B Justin Turner could continue their careers, so too could C Austin Hedges and OF Kevin Kiermaier.

Pitching time, meanwhile, would not change much. Sometimes road teams would throw far less than nine innings when the home team quickly outscores them, but often both teams would pitch nine innings, or at least something close to that.

Manager Strategy

Before I go any further, I want to make it clear that players, especially pitchers, would not be totally exhausted playing one long inning. And I am not trying to take opportunities away from advertisers, either. There can still be commercial breaks every three outs, but the base-out state would not revert to zero when that happens. For example, the broadcast would come back from break with a runner on first and 12 outs.

That said, I do think pitching coaches would use more of their mound visits. Teams rarely use all of their visits, but they probably would here to give their defense a breather. Plus, extra innings would likely stay the same, or perhaps the league would finally allow ties to happen.

In the dugout, managers would adjust their strategy to some extent, and I think bunts would be en vogue again. As I said earlier, they can aggressively pinch hit for weaker batters, but some managers would still have a thin bottom of the lineup. Even some playoff teams like the 2024 Kansas City Royals would rather skip the bottom of their order. Since innings wouldn’t reset every three outs, managers could afford to sacrifice some outs. Only with 26 outs in the inning would they have to act like there are two outs as we know them. Weaker hitters would definitely practice bunting more often since getting one down would be a bigger part of their job.

More importantly, road managers would be more aggressive with their bullpen. If their team only scores a couple of runs, they couldn’t afford to let a backend starter go too long. Perhaps some would still give a long leash and accept a likelier defeat.

Fan Effect

I will admit, some fans wouldn’t be as invested watching their team pitch a whole game and only then come to bat. They might wander into the stadium late or only focus on the game after a certain number of outs. But plenty of fans today use the game on the field as an excuse to be in a ballpark atmosphere, so that is a negligible difference.

But home teams would have a significant advantage, much larger than at present. Home teams get to bat last, which only really helps them in the ninth inning. But if the game is only one inning, then they have an advantage the whole time. The home team goes to bat knowing exactly how many runs they need to win, while the road team simply tries to score as many as they can.

Whenever the road team is batting, they have no idea whether their opponent’s batters are going to show up that day. Even if the road team scores a dozen runs, no one will know if a game is close until the home team goes through the lineup once or twice. Similarly, if the road team gets shutout, the home team could end the game with a leadoff home run, or they might also need 27 outs to score.

Ultimately, no baseball league in the world has a reason to try this out. But it would be a fun experiment to see how the sport changes when each team gets one super long inning to score.

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