What about the 3 batter minimum ? Is it a good rule ? If a pitcher stubs his toe will he be suspended if he cant finish the third batter ?

This Is Not Right.

I hate rule changes just because they throw off the stats of the past decades since they don't qualify them with an asterisk that shows that things were way different back in the day...

I mean I get it... the new Extra Point distance is awesomely more uncertain... but that sorta makes missed Extra Points look way different vs. the others who never had to deal with the distance.

At some point rule changes need to find a final junction and since sports isn't like morals in society... there should be a way to finally figure it all out and stick with it.

The rule has an injury clause that allows a change if the pitcher is hurt.

The rule also allows a pitching change between innings. So if your relief pitcher finishes the inning you can pull him and put in a new pitcher the next inning no matter how many batters he faced.

I think its worded so you could pull him at any time. For example if he comes in, pitches to 1 batter and finishes the inning, he can go back out and pitch to 1 batter then pull him. Even though he hasn't faced 3 batters he finished an inning.

So you can pull a relief pitch after ANY of these 3 things happen:

1. He faces 3 batters

-or-

2. He finishes an inning

-or-

3. He becomes too hurt to continue.

As for my opinion on the rule - I have mixed feelings. I don't like them messing with the game. But baseball is getting slow and boring with all the delays. Replay was a necessary evil to fix bad calls but it only made the delays worse. Baseball is rapidly losing popularity compared to Football and NASCAR racing. So they have to make some drastic changes to keep the game moving.

Also, this move favors offense which may lead to a very slight uptick in scoring. All professional sports tend to evolve toward more offense and more scoring over time because the simple fact is that watching people score points (or runs in baseball) is more entertaining than watching defenses prevent scoring, and professional sports are in the entertainment business.

I like this rule, as for the player "stubbing his toe" issue, I think that teams and players can probably get away with it once or twice, but if they keep doing, then MLB may come down on them, speaking for myself, I would have made the rule such  that if  a pitcher claims to be injured and has to come out, that he should not be allowed to pitch for a given number of games, say 3 or 4, because he did claim to be injured,doing that would make teams think twice before trying to pull a fast one.

I like it. In 1969 Cubs pitchers made 249 relief appearances. 50 years later there were 576 relief appearances by Cub hurlers.

In '69 every Cub reliever averaged more than one inning per appearance. Last year just one of the pitchers with 30+ relief appearances averaged more than an inning an outing. 

Players are making more and 'working' less so I fully support the rule.

As for the toe stubbing scenario I'm sure that a pitcher can be removed because of an injury before facing 3 hitters. Think about it: it's a ruse that can only be used once or twice before opponents get wise. MLB players love to cheat so if it becomes a problem I think a 50 game suspension would be appropriate punishment. Tack a postseason ban for that year onto it, too.

The more baseball changes the rules of the game, the less it looks like baseball.

The problem is rapid pitcher substitutions which give your team a bit more time to plot AND it throws the other team off due to the delays. IMHO if you think your pitcher has cooled off then you need to really think about sticking in another one and knowing you will be stuck with that guy for three batters will give the coach some more thought. I think what is more important is to deal with the cheating.

" ...  unless the substitute pitcher sustains injury or illness which, in the umpire crew chief’s judgment, incapacitates him from further play as a pitcher."