New MLB rules have impacted games in a positive way
The pitch clock is seen as the Rays' Luke Raley stands near the on deck circle in the second inning of a game against the Orioles on Sept. 14 in Baltimore. Credit: AP/Julio Cortez
With the regular season scheduled to end on Sunday, the verdict is in: Major League Baseball got exactly what it wanted with the sweeping rules changes it instituted for the 2023 season.
Adding a pitch clock to speed up the pace of play reduced the average time of a nine-inning game from 3:04 in 2022 to 2:40 (all statistics in this story, unless otherwise noted, are through Friday).
Banning the shift in hopes of increasing offense helped raise the league batting average from .243 in 2022 to .248 and runs per game from 8.6 to 9.2.
Limiting the number of pickoff attempts and making the bases larger to make it easier to steal bases led to an increase in average stolen bases per game from 1.0 in 2022 to 1.4. The successful stolen base percentage increased from 75.4 to 80.2.
“They definitely achieved quicker games, more runs per game,” Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor said on Saturday before a doubleheader against the Phillies at Citi Field. “And they achieved more engagement when it came to ‘is he gonna run, is he gonna run, is he gonna run?’ You have four or five guys who have stolen 50 bases. You have at least 15 guys with 30, I think. That’s a lot. That gets people engaged.”
Three players went into Saturday having stolen at least 50 bases, with Atlanta’s Ronald Acuna Jr. leading MLB with 72. Kansas City’s Bobby Witt Jr. was knocking on the door with 49. Lindor, with 31, was one of 14 players with at least 30 steals, and two others had 29.
But not everyone in baseball is in love with the new rules and the effects they have had on the game.
The increased ease with which players can steal bases nowadays sticks in the craw of some players.
Pitchers, mostly.
“They made it a joke,” Mets reliever Adam Ottavino said on Saturday. “They made it easy to steal. Can’t hold the ball forever. Can’t [tick] ’em off, can’t slow ’em down. And it’s a shorter distance. So all those reasons.”
To be fair, Ottavino has never been particularly good at holding on runners. Going into 2023, the righthander had allowed 130 steals in 148 attempts (87.8%).
This year, with the new rules, 23 runners tried to steal a base with Ottavino on the mound.
Twenty-two made it, including Philadelphia’s Weston Wilson, who stole second and third bases without a throw in the ninth inning of Game 1 on Saturday. That’s 95.6%.
The rules to aid base-stealers included an increase in the sizes of the bases (except for home plate) from 15 to 18 inches and a limit on the number of times pitchers can step off or try to pick off a runner. Plus the pitch clock takes away a pitcher’s tactic of holding the ball indefinitely to disrupt a runner’s timing.
So what does a pitcher do to combat would-be base-stealers, especially if he wasn’t good at it under the previous rules?
“It’s really, really difficult,” Ottavino said. “Really, really difficult. The stolen base success rate is high regardless across the league, so nobody’s really figured out how to completely curb it. Obviously, you try to be fast and use your picks smartly and try to do different things with the timing. Tried 50 different things this year and can’t say any of it really works. So they got what they wanted.”
Said Mets manager Buck Showalter: “When you look at the stolen base percentages and it’s off the charts, that’s what they wanted, and they got it. How’d you like to be the coach in the dugout that’s trying to control the running game in today’s game? It’s the worst job maybe on the staff. Every guy, it’s the same thing, like, ‘What can I do?’ It’s a very helpless situation.
“Usually, you can do things . . . ‘We’ll go quicker to the plate. We’ll do this and that.’ We can keep anybody from running. I mean, we can keep Rickey Henderson from running — depending on what do you want to give up? Sure, we can make everybody real quick to the plate, but they won’t get anybody out. It’s a tough one.”
The Mets have benefited from the relative ease of stealing bases, too. In 2022, the Mets stole 62 bases and were caught 22 times (73.8% success rate). This season, led by Lindor, the Mets have stolen 116 bases and have been caught 14 times (89.2%).
Starling Marte, at age 34 and with two bad wheels (or wheel-adjacent body parts after offseason double groin surgery), stole 24 times in 28 attempts in 86 games.
Lindor, though, said he doesn’t consider it easier to steal even with the new rules.
“It’s more attractive,” he said. “It’s more appealing. It’s not easier. Pitchers are still holding runners. Pitchers are still — they’re actually caring more. It’s not easier. It’s more appealing.”
As if to prove his point, Lindor was thrown out trying to steal second by the Phillies’ J.T. Realmuto in the eighth inning of Game 1 on Saturday. It was the fourth time he has been caught stealing this season.
Lindor said he also found the end of the shift more appealing, and not because it had any big effect on his offensive game.
“I don’t think I had that many more ground balls in between first and second that last year would have been outs,” he said. “Maybe like three or four.”
Lindor, like many baseball fans and most lefthanded pull hitters, was sick of seeing the second baseman set up in short rightfield or the shortstop playing on the first-base side of second.
Banning the shift — there now must be two infielders on both sides of second base and all infielders have to be on the dirt part of the infield — was supposed to lead to more hits, which it did.
According to MLB.com, through Wednesday’s games, lefthanded hitters had seen their batting average on balls in play (BABIP) increase from .283 in 2022 to .295 in 2023.
The ban also was supposed to lead to talented infielders such as Lindor being able to showcase their athleticism on defense instead of being positioned like chess pieces with a glove because that’s what a computer spit out based on batter tendencies.
“It was exciting for me because I get to play shortstop,” Lindor said. “As a shortstop, it made it more fun.”
More fun? Baseball? Go figure.
Perhaps that’s one reason why average attendance is up this season by nearly 2,500 fans per game from 26,565 in 2022 to 29,037.
And the rules apparently are here to stay.
Next up: robot umps (or, more accurately, a computerized strike zone system called the automatic ball-strike system, or ABS, that is being tested in the minors).
But not in 2024, commissioner Rob Manfred said in June.
“I think there’s some sentiment among the [owners] that we made had a lot of changes here,” Manfred said. “We ought to let the dust settle, and there are clearly unresolved operational issues with respect to ABS. Despite all the testing, we still have some things that are unresolved.”
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
