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ATLANTA — A day after he was hit in the back of the head by a 95 mph fastball, Atlanta Braves veteran Whit Merrifield predicted the MLB Competition Committee he serves on will have a rule in place by next season with penalties for pitchers who hit batters with similar high-and-inside fastballs.
The 11-member committee, which includes six club representatives, four players and one umpire, had a previously scheduled meeting Wednesday. The automatic strike zone, or ABS (automated balls and strikes), was the main topic of discussion, but not the only topic. Merrifield made sure of that.
He is among many players who want a rule punishing pitchers for plunking hitters with fastballs that break hands and wrists or hit players in the head or neck. He said the committee was quite receptive.
“Yeah, we’ll have something in place by the time the season starts next year,” Merrifield said. “I’d be shocked if we didn’t.”
Merrifield passed all the concussion protocol tests administered Tuesday at Truist Park, then went to a local clinic for a CT scan late Tuesday and said he got a clean bill of health with that, too. He didn’t have the headache he anticipated Wednesday but still felt “a little hazy” and said it hurt to wear a hat.
He thought he might be ready to play Thursday in the Braves’ series finale against Colorado, but Merrifield and manager Brian Snitker agreed they’d wait to see how he feels before deciding.
Whit Merrifield said the punishment would force pitchers to think: “Alright, you’re calling for a fastball in, let’s try to command this thing.” (Brett Davis / USA Today)
Meanwhile, the angry diatribe delivered by Merrifield after Tuesday’s game quickly gained traction throughout baseball. In it, he used words such as “pathetic” and “bulls—” to describe the state of MLB pitching and lack of recourse for hitters or punishment for pitchers who hit them in the head or hands with fastballs.
“I can’t tell you how much my phone was blowing up with players saying, ‘Thank God somebody’s finally talking about this,’” said Merrifield, 35. “Pitchers, too, which is a bit surprising. I’ve had a lot of pitchers reach out to me and say, ‘Yeah, this is ridiculous what some of these guys coming up are doing.’
“So, it’s just a matter of how you write it, what the fine print of the rules are. If a guy ducks at the ball and gets hit in the head, does that count? Stuff like that.”
The meeting, by coincidence, came the morning after Merrifield became the latest in a series of Braves players hit by fastballs in the past 2 1/2 weeks, including third baseman Austin Riley, who’s on the injured list for six to eight weeks after having his hand broken by Los Angeles Angels rookie Jack Kochanowicz.
Snitker said after catcher Travis d’Arnaud and Riley were hit on consecutive days by Angels pitchers — d’Arnaud had a forearm contusion that sidelined him five games — that he thought MLB should do something about the rash of HBPs. Asked Wednesday if he agreed with Merrifield, Snitker said, “Yeah, I do. We’ve had multiple guys hit. Yeah, I can see the frustration from those guys, because I do think it’s a concern.”
Told what Merrifield said about having a rule in place by next season, Snitker said, “For the safety of the players, I think they need to.”
Snitker was asked if the rule should perhaps be something that discourages teams from bringing pitchers to the majors before they’re ready and to have young pitchers realize they don’t have to throw every pitch at max effort without regard for command and control.
“All that,” Snitker said. “All of the above.”
Merrifield was hit by Rockies rookie Jeff Criswell, who also issued three walks in his 1 2/3-inning relief appearance, the seventh of his career. Afterward, Merrifield told a few reporters that he was sick of seeing teammates and other players hit, that it was “driving me nuts.”
“I just took 95 right off the head. I’m very lucky that it got me in a good spot, and I’ve got to go get a CAT scan,” he said late Tuesday. “I’m out of the game, he gets to stay in to pitch, I’m probably not going to be able to play tomorrow.”
He added, “It’s frankly pathetic, that some of the pitchers that we’re running out there don’t know where the ball’s going, at the major-league level. It’s got to be fixed. It just pisses me off to no end.”
Merrifield said he would broach the subject during the committee meeting the next day, and he did that Wednesday. Baltimore Orioles pitcher Corbin Burnes, San Francisco Giants outfielder Austin Slater and Chicago Cubs outfielder Ian Happ are also on the committee.
“It was good,” Merrifield said of the meeting. “It was mostly about the ABS, the challenge system. But we talked about (hit batters). Everybody’s in agreement, it’s just about what is the punishment going to be, and how are we going to word it.”
They discussed how other sports have addressed eliminating elements of their games that were detrimental or dangerous.
“NFL has a hefty fine, college (football) is ejection,” Merrifield said. “NBA has levels of flagrant variations, soccer does too.”
Merrifield is confident that MLB will seek to reduce batters hit by up-and-in fastballs by putting a rule in place that will leave some discretion to umpires in deciding when an infraction occurs. But in many instances, it would be obvious.
“I think if a guy gets hit up and in with a fastball — hit like I got hit last night, hit in the head with a fastball — I think (the pitcher) should be ejected,” Merrifield said. “I think you should get docked a day’s pay, or two days’ pay. I think if a guy runs one in on a guy, breaks his hand, there should be a fine. Not necessarily an ejection, but there should be a fine.”
He added that the intent of such a rule and penalty would be, “Pitchers have to have some sort of thought, like, ‘Alright, you’re calling for a fastball in, let’s try to command this thing.’ Instead of just trying to rip it.”
Regarding potential penalties, Merrifield said, “It’s got to be substantial. I mean, you look at football players, they’ve had to totally rework how they tackle. Or they’re losing tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of dollars. So …
“It’s just got to happen before something bad happens.”
(Photo of Whit Merrifield: Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)
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Courtesy : https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5746145/2024/09/04/braves-whit-merrifield-mlb-hit-batter-rule/