By Angel Ramirez
Even though baseball has been around as a professional sport since 1906, there has not been much change over the years. With a lot of people tuning out of the games, and not going to games, and of course not spending their money there either, the Major League Baseball commissioners have made some rule changes for this upcoming season that are designed to help boost attendance and sales. They are trying to keep baseball fresh for younger viewers.
Major League Baseball has has implemented a slew of new rules for the 2023 season that it hopes will shorten games, increase offense and create a more exciting product for fans. Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said, “Our guiding star in thinking about changes to the game has always been our fans.” He is trying to interpret what his fans want to see on the field, which is always a good business strategy.
So the new rules are going into effect this year because major league baseball has seen their attendance drop by over ten million fans since 2015. That is a lot of cash being lost. Fans want a game that is more interesting and more fast paced. The first set of rules are meant to speed games up to be more interesting to those viewers and fans.
Perhaps the most noticeable change for fans will be the implementation of a formal pitch clock. A lot of time is spent waiting for the pitcher to get the ball across the plate. This season, pitchers will have 15 seconds to throw each pitch when the bases are empty and 20 seconds to throw each pitch when there are baserunners. That should speed things up a bit.
Pitchers will also no longer be allowed to throw to first base or step off of the pitcher’s mound as many times as they want. Instead they will be allowed two disengagements per plate appearance. This should help keep the average MLB game from over three hours to a more reasonable two and change.
The next set of rule changes deal with the team in the field, the defense.
In recent years it has become popular for teams in the field to shift as a strategy. This means that when a team puts their players out of position. for example, with all infielders on the right side of second base or an infielder placed in the outfield— against a batter who has a tendency to hit balls to a certain part of the field. It is a good strategy to put defense in the place where the ball is likely to go, but this will be changed for the season.
The downside of this strategy is that it has become much harder for batters to score. The average batting average has been falling steadily. So this rule change should help games get a bigger score and more excitement for the fans.
The last rule change is that the bases are slightly larger. This change was made to help players safety and to increase the action on the field. First, second and third base are all increasing in size, going from 15 inches per side to 18 inches per side.
Making the bases larger means that there will be more attempts to steal bases, which in turn will be more exciting for the fans and again, a way to run up scores. While it is not certain how making the base a little larger is going to change things, the idea is that it will increase the attempts.
The league also hopes that the increased base size will help reduce collisions on the field by giving players more space to operate and stay out of each other’s ways. So it should be safer as well for players.
It is unclear if these rule changes will actually change anything, but it is good that they are trying. Fans of baseball want to love the game, so being responsive to the fans is a great strategy.
