No.Just. Stop.This, folks, is a horrible idea. The powers-that-be of Minor League Baseball announced Wednesday that, as part of new pace-of-play regulations for 2018 in partnership with MLB, .No, really. This isn't the first time baseball has Shaquem Griffin Jersey had this horrible idea. That's how it played the game in the most recent World Baseball Cla sic. , and it's bad now.MORE: The minor leagues are MLB's testing grounds, as they should be. That's where MLB tries out theories and potential rule changes. If they work, they get implemented in the majors. If they don't, the ideas go away. This one needs to go away. This one can never reach the major leagues.I'm not opposed to changes that make the sport better. I admit, I wasn't a fan of adding a wild-card team early on, but I recognized the value. And now, honestly, I can't really imagine how baseball would be if only four teams still made the postseason. That was a good idea.But this idea, starting every extra inning with a runner on second, this is different.This isn't like the NBA adding a 3-point line, and this isn't Mike Iupati Jersey like the NFL adding a two-point conversion. This isn't even the NHL making regular-season overtime se sions 4-on-4 (and now 3-on-3).MORE: This fundamentally changes the way the game is played. The most challenging part of scoring a run is getting someone on base. And now we're going to eliminate that?This would be like the NBA saying you can't guard anyone beyond the 3-point arc in overtime, orthe NFL declaring wide receivers can line up 15 yards downfield in the extra se sion, or the NHL demanding the goalie has to lose his blocker after regulation.For the sake of what?Baseball's problem, of course, isn't 12-inning games. It's not 15-inning games or the once-in-a-blue-moon 18-inning games, either. Baseball's pace-of-play problem is with nine-inning games that last three hours, on average, and push toward four hours way too often.And there's this: Any time a rule change is proposed or enacted, you have to think about how that rule change will not only impact the moment where the rule change is applied, but also how it will impact the rest of the game. The ripple effects.GATTO: And the reality of the situation is this: If a manager knows the game isn't likely to last more than two extra innings, at the very most, you can be damn sure he is going to use every single one of his pitchers in the first nine innings. That thought that's always been in the back of a manager's mind "Maybe I had better save a guy who can give me a couple innings in case this goes extras." is gone. Eliminated.Which means, the result of this rule is pretty obvious: We are going to see more pitching changes. Instead of holding back a guy or two, just in case Steve Largent Jersey , why not make righty-lefty pitching matchup changes in the fifth inning of a tie game? There's no need for a safety net.Think about that. This rule is almost certainly going to slow down the first nine innings.I mean, what are we doing here?In the MiLB.com release, player safety was mentioned. This, , president of Minor League Baseball:"Player safety has been an area of growing concern for our partners at the Major League Baseball level, and the impact that lengthy extra innings games has on pitchers, position players and an entire organization was something that needed to be addre sed."I gue s I have a hard time with that. If player well-being is really the problem, then there are ways to addre s that i sue without changing this fundamental aspect of the sport.For starters, add a roster spot or two to every team. The 25-man roster is an arbitrary number anyway. What's wrong with adding two more players to every minor-league team? The Red Sox, for example, have eight minor-league squads. Why not give 16 more players a roster spot and Mychal Kendricks Jersey an opportunity to chase their dream? That's an easy, non-fundamental fix to the problem of worrying about the impact of extra innings on tired players.And, let's be honest, if player well-being in the minors was really at the top of MLB's priority list, the most powerful people in this insanely profitable sport wouldn't be doing everything in their power to keep from paying minor-league ballplayers a livable wage.If tired arms after extra-inninggames really is the worry with MLB players (and, mostly, the owners' large investments in their health), and they want to arbitrarily keep a 25-man roster in the bigs, go with the hockey roster approach and have a "healthy scratch" that can be changed an hour before every game. Extra-inning games do tax a pitching staff, and that's an easy way to addre s the i sue. There are options.Speculation alert: The cynic would look at this proposal as a negotiation tactic. It's hard to believe any baseball person actually wants something like this to happen, right? It's not hard to believe that the powers-that-be in baseball are introducing this as a negotiation point in the next round of collective bargaining talks. "You don't want extra innings to start with a runner on second? Well, we do. What are you willing to give up for us to take that out of the equation?"Again, pure speculation. But I don't know why they're trying to make this happen.I only know it needs to stop. Related Articles Chris Carson Jersey Baseball must embrace technology in pitcher-catcher communication