This is another post that expands on the idea that the three-true outcomes dominate baseball too much. Too many walks, home runs, and strikeouts tend to lead to longer, more boring games, and the three feed on each other. Swinging hard leads to more strikeouts, but also more home runs. Pitchers limit hits via the strikeout, so batters need more bases per hit to balance the loss. Selectivity at the plate leads to more walks, while pitchers can use walks as a tactic to avoid dangerous hitters. All three are valuable to players, so if baseball wants fewer plate appearances ending in one of these events, the game needs to devalue them.

Let me propose that a home run over the fence be devalued to a bases clearing double. Note that before over the fence home runs became common, a ball that bounced into the stands in fair territory resulted in a home run. That hit was devalued into a bounce double in 1931, with each runner advancing two bases. So there is a small precedent for the change.

The over the fence double would be the most valuable of the doubles, as it guarantees all runners score, so it wouldn’t discourage hitting the ball out of the park. It might, however, encourage more triples and inside the park home runs. It might also encourage most diverse offenses to make up for the loss of runs by keeping batters on base.

The value of a home run depends on the number of runners on base when it the event occurs, and the run expectancy at the end of of the play.

From 1974 through 2021, the majors saw 204,144 home runs, a good sample size. The average value of those home runs was 1.86 runs. With the double rule in place, the value of the home runs would have been 1.28 runs, or 68.7% of the actual value. These values are consistent across the seasons in the study, varying between 1.82 and 1.91 for the current rule, and 1.24 to 1.31 for the doubles rule.

Note that in the spreadsheet linked above, the rule would lead to a large loss in runs without teams compensating for the rule. In 2021, 22,010 runs score, 4.53 per team game. With 5,944 home runs hit, the new rule would have reduce that total by about 3458, reducing scoring to 3.82 runs per team game.

In a lower home run environment the loss would not be a big. In 2014, there were 4,186 home runs and 19,761 runs scored, 4.07 per team game. This rule would have led to 2,420 fewer runs, or 3.57 runs per team game.

In both cases, the rule creates a low run scoring environment. When runs are scarce, one-run strategies become more prevalent, especially bunts and stolen bases. Speed should be come more valuable, as the person who leads the league in home runs will have legged out all of them. The value of the triple should increase as well. Runners might take more chances on the bases. The rule should increase everything that seems to be in short supply in the current game.