Skip to main content

Baseball's New Rules

In this episode – Baseball's New Rules . . .

In the final out in a Major League Baseball (MLB) spring training game on Saturday, February 25, 2023, the Atlanta Braves and Boston Red Sox ended in a 6–6 tie after Braves player Cal Conley struck out for not getting set in the batter's box "in time."

Yes, baseball is back. Spring training began on February 24, 2023, with a few new rules. Let's face it - it's a game, and don't you adjust the rules when you play a game to suit the players? Major League Baseball did this year for a few good reasons.

Look at the end of the first paragraph of this post, "In time." That's not a phrase you often hear connected with baseball; get used to it because baseball has entered a new era this season. Overly concerned it's getting overshadowed by faster-paced sports. This year's goal is to speed up the game and generate more offense. These rules include the following; 

  • A pitch clock so pitchers (and hitters) can't lollygag between pitches. Pitchers will have 15 seconds to throw a pitch with empty bases and 20 seconds with a runner on base. Hitters must be in the batter's box with eight seconds on the pitch clock. How will this be enforced: If a pitcher has not started "the motion to deliver a pitch" before the clock's expiration, he will be charged with a ball. If a batter pauses too long before entering the box, he will be charged with a strike.
  • Number two; The elimination of extreme defensive shifts to encourage more offense. This one was way overdue! The radical defense shifts in the past few years because the millions of stats recorded on each player were bogus. Without this shift, players will be "engaged" - their athletic ability will be fully displayed! Watching a third baseman shift to a position between second and first base was ridiculous. They left a gaping hole at the 5.5 positions that hitters could not find! Last season watching Freddie Freeman of the Dodgers get base hits through that hole was hilarious. At the same time, most batters grounded out into the shift. Were they blind, stubborn, or just victims of poor bat control? With the defense perfectly positioned, players just stood there, raised their gloves, caught the ball, and threw out the batter - simple. How boring was that! You gotta love this quote: "My biggest complaint about the shift is, how do you explain it to kids?" Phillies reliever David Robertson said. "What's the point of having a shortstop if he can't play shortstop?" 
  • Number three; Bigger bases to increase the number of stolen bases. The size of the bases has been increased from 15 to 18 inches. Common . . . it's speed, desire, and cunning that defines a stolen base leader. Rickey Henderson holds the MLB career stolen base record with 1,406. He's the only MLB player to have reached this 1,000 stolen bases milestone. Let's ask Rickey about the size of the new bases.
  • Finally, Limit the number of mound "disengagements" as pickoff throws. Pickoff throws, huh some pitchers approach pickoffs like an elephant crossing a road, slow and deliberately. Pitch the ball, for heaven's sake, don't just stand there!
  • Yes, I'm sure it will take some getting used to, and there will be a lot of critics. On Friday, San Diego Padres star Manny Machado became the first MLB player to begin an at-bat down 0–1 in the count for stepping into the batter's box "too late."

According to ESPN, the big picture: Fans who love baseball but can't justify spending three-plus hours watching it, these could be welcome changes. Oh, that same Padres–Mariners game on Friday took just 2:29 minutes to complete—about 40 minutes shorter than last year's regular-season average.


It's a new season with 162 games to play – let's see how all this shakes out.


I'm Patrick Ball; thanks for listening; see you in the next episode.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most Popular of All Time

Epictetus, Ego, and Acronyms

In this episode, Destroy Communication, One Three-Letter Acronym at a Time This week, I want to explore a deeply relatable, universally feared workplace character: the "know-it-all." Now, I’m not pointing fingers here. If we are being completely honest, we have all played this role. We've all uttered some version of, "Yes, absolutely, that aligns with our strategic objectives," while our internal monologue is screaming, "I don't even know what the objective is, let alone the strategy." What got me thinking about this was a chapter in Ryan Holiday's book, Wisdom Takes Work . Holiday leans on a powerful piece of Stoic truth from the ancient philosopher Epictetus: "It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows." It's a brilliant quote that strikes right at the heart of the human ego. You can't learn what you already know, and you certainly can't learn what you pretend to know to save face. Though to be ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Breaking the Script

In this episode, The Art of the Short-Circuit. We spend a surprising amount of our lives on conversational autopilot. You see it everywhere. At the hardware store. At the post office. In office hallways, where two people can exchange greetings, discuss the weather, and continue on their way without either one actually hearing what the other said. "How are you?” "Good. You?” “Busy." “Yep." It's less of a conversation and more of a system check. Most of us aren't being rude. We're just moving fast. We have emails to answer, meetings to attend, errands to run, and a hundred other things competing for our attention. Before long, our interactions become little more than verbal lane markers helping us navigate the day. I like to break the script. When I run into someone, instead of the usual greetings, I'll ask: "What's the good word?” The reaction is almost always worth it. You can practically see the gears stop turning. People pause. They blink....
Post a Comment
Read more

The Yellow Legal Pad

In this episode, the Art of Refiring July 1st is staring me in the face, less than two weeks away. For years, retirement seemed like something that happened to other people. Suddenly, it's on my calendar. I've been thinking a lot about the dreaded "R-word" lately. Not because I'm worried about having enough to do. Quite the opposite. What fascinates me is this strange paradox: Why does retirement make so many of us nervous, while having a job—even one that regularly drives us crazy—somehow feels comforting? Let's be honest. Most of us spend years complaining about meetings that should have been emails, reply-all disasters, impossible deadlines, and that one coworker who insists on microwaving leftover fish in the breakroom. Yet when the idea of walking away finally arrives, we hesitate. I think I've figured out why. A career isn't just a job. It's a highly structured coping mechanism. For forty-plus years, somebody else has basically decided what I...
Post a Comment
Read more

That Fateful Four-Letter Word

In this episode, A Masterclass in Efficiency. For nearly four months, the western border of our property has stood as a living monument to determination, dubious planning, and forensic-level lumber acquisition. Since February, our neighbor Steve has been conducting what can only be described as a masterclass in deliberate calculation. This was never going to be one of those slick home-improvement shows where a cheerful pair of men installs a fence between commercial breaks, sipping lemonade. No. This was real life in retirement. We scaled the vertical wilderness of our hillside. We mixed concrete with the precision of medieval alchemists. We bled, we sweated, and we fought hand-to-hand with a buried tree stump that had the structural integrity of a Cold War bunker. By this week—May 16th, for those keeping score—the glorious end was finally within reach. The fence stood proudly, the line was straight, and victory practically hummed in the air. Only one major task remained: installing t...
Post a Comment
Read more