Each time I sit down to establish my feelings about the new MLB rules going into the 2023 season, I flounder. I have a hard time separating the baseball I know and love from the inevitable future version it must become if it’s to survive and hopefully thrive. I can only imagine what the players faced with learning these new rules must feel, because some of the changes are rather drastic.
Consider this post a snapshot of my mind right now. It’s not clean or concise, and my feelings will change once I get a few games under my belt this year and see the practical ways these rules affect gameplay. But here’s where my heart and my head lie for now.
Pitch Clock
I’m in favor of a proper pitch clock that is tyranically enforced. While the timers were chosen to hit close to the league average time between pitches, the existence of a plainly visible clock should provide a feeling of momentum after each pitch and keep the crowd more engaged in the action as it happens. If nothing else, I’ll love scoring some weird ball or strike calls when the clock is violated.
Pick-off Rules
My intuition says this is the worst rule change. In essence, a pitcher is now only allowed to “step off” twice during an at-bat with runners on base. That means they are limited to two attempts at throwing over to a base to keep the runner honest. What happens when they’re out of options? That is unclear, but this rule is going to cause many balks and some level of chaos during the first month or so.
Shift Ban
I think locking players into positions that are representative of their intended locations is both sensible and a shame. It’s an odd rule: if this was created back in the 1920s, it would be a fun piece of trivia that everyone would be used to now.1There is some precedent here: MLB did have to codify in the rules that the catcher is the only position player allowed to begin the play in foul territory. But that didn’t happen. Instead, teams began noticing patterns in modern hitters and made aggressive adjustments to counteract what they saw. MLB got upset that these big sluggers with no secondary skills were having a tough time, and made a rule. I agree with the broad philosophy that infielders should field “their positions”, but the pathway of getting there has me annoyed.
Manfred Runner
In exchange for rationalizing this rule being made official after three seasons of it being “temporary”, I will never stop calling it the Manfred Runner.
In short, any regular season game that goes into extra innings will have every inning start with a runner on second. While I’m philosophically opposed to this “overtime” adjustment to how the game is played, and I think putting them on second is a poor choice,2If we get to play Calvinball here, I’d say put them on second with one out, so you can’t just have two sacrifice plays to score them. and I think extra inning games are super fun, I can see why this rule is made. If the reporting is true that most players and coaches are in favor of it, I’m not going to call down from the mountain against them. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and it’s annoying to score in a scorebook, but I can get by.
- 1There is some precedent here: MLB did have to codify in the rules that the catcher is the only position player allowed to begin the play in foul territory.
- 2If we get to play Calvinball here, I’d say put them on second with one out, so you can’t just have two sacrifice plays to score them.