Fixing Baseball: The Rule Changes

Major League Baseball finally got around to admitting they have a problem; games are too long and lack action. That being the case, baseball is trying out some rule changes in the minor leagues before trying them at the big league level.

Unfortunately, instead of getting to the root of their problem – the analytics-based philosophy most teams have embraced – baseball is attempting to stick Band-Aids on a tumor.

(Not that I’m biased or anything.)

What follows are a list of the proposed rules, followed by an explanation of each rule (in italics) and those first two parts come from MLB.com. That’s followed by what the rule might mean in the real world.

LARGER BASES (ALL TRIPLE-A LEAGUES)

Just as 90 feet from base to base is the big league standard, so is the size of the base itself. Each side is 15 inches long.

But the Triple-A bases this year will be 18 inches square and will be composed of a material that is expected to perform better in wet conditions.

OK, a couple things jump out here.

The people who run baseball lose their minds whenever a star player gets hurt because star players sell tickets and make everybody money. According to MLB.com, Bryce Harper got hurt when he slipped on a wet base and they speculate that’s what’s behind changing the material that covers the bases.

The increased size of the base is designed to give players more room to operate and reduce the risk of collisions, but plays that risk collisions used to be one of the most entertaining parts of baseball.

Watching a runner try to take out a double-play pivot man and watching a skilled double-play pivot man tap dance his way through a takeout slide was highly entertaining, but MLB is doing what it can to eliminate those plays because they don’t want star players hurt.

(If you’re a bench player, they don’t care nearly as much because you’re easily replaceable. After Buster Posey got hurt, Royals backup catcher Matt Treanor asked me if I thought MLB would change the rules if someone broke his leg. Sorry, Matty, not likely.) 

In an effort to protect their investments and make more money, baseball is actually making the game less interesting and rewarding players who fear contact and don’t go to the trouble of learning double-play footwork or have the guts to flip a pivot man. These days we get to watch a runner peel out of the base path early to avoid any kind of confrontation with an infielder, which – let’s face it – isn’t all that entertaining and that’s part of the problem.  

DEFENSIVE POSITIONING RESTRICTIONS (ALL DOUBLE-A)

The first baseman, second baseman, shortstop and third baseman will be required to have both feet completely in front of the outer infield dirt boundary when the pitch is delivered.

One of the great things about sports (at least in theory) is that your opponent can make you a better player by forcing you to develop the skills to beat him. In basketball, if your opponent doesn’t respect your 3-point shooting and stays under the rim to stop you from driving to the hoop, you might want to develop an outside shot.

Same thing happens in baseball.

If teams are going to put three or four infielders on the pull side of the field or put the second baseman on the outfield grass to give him more range on hot grounders, you’d think hitters would learn to bunt or hit the ball to the opposite field.

It can be done.

In 2014 Mike Moustakas tried to pull the ball through or over shifts and hit .212. Knowing .212 wasn’t going to cut it, during spring training of 2015 Moustakas worked on hitting the ball to the opposite field, did it slightly more often during the regular season which meant teams shifted him less often and Moose was rewarded for his hard work with a .284 average.

It doesn’t take much to get teams to stop shifting. As former Royals manager Ned Yost once said; if someone would go to the opposite field twice (just to prove the first time wasn’t a fluke) Ned would stop shifting him.

But these days hitters aren’t getting paid for bunts or opposite-field singles; they getting paid for home runs and hitters don’t want to work on skills that won’t be financially rewarded. So instead of recognizing the worth of high-average hitters and rewarding players who improve their baseball skills, baseball is changing the rules so players can continue pulling the ball and trying to hit home runs. 

THE “STEP OFF” RULE (ALL HIGH-A)

This change is aimed at increasing the number of stolen-base attempts and, perhaps, the stolen-base success rate. By forcing pitchers to fully step off the rubber before attempting a pickoff, the move by left-handed pitchers -- think Andy Pettitte -- to raise the right knee up in the delivery and then throw to first is eliminated. Snap throws followed by the step off are prohibited.

In 2019, the last full season played, all big league teams combined stole 2,280 bases and got caught stealing 842 times, which means the stolen base was successful over 73 percent of the time, which is a very high success rate compared to other offensive tactics.  

But the stolen base fell out of favor because it obviously risked an out.

I once asked a manager (not Ned Yost, but good guess) why managers didn’t play small ball more often and the manager said “the press conference afterwards.” If a manager calls for a bunt or a steal and makes an obvious decision that doesn’t work out, the manager gets blamed. But if the manager lets the batters swing away and that doesn’t work out, the players get blamed.

The stolen base has always been a good play, but after it fell out of favor with analytics advocates – and there are a bunch of them in front offices and the media –managers haven’t always had the guts to use it.

Remember: the Number One goal in professional baseball is staying employed.

PICKOFF ATTEMPT LIMITS (ALL LOW-A)

This limit on pickoff attempts has the same intent as the step off rule in the High-A leagues but with a different method. It can become monotonous when a pitcher makes throw after throw after throw to first base in a vain attempt to pick off a pesky baserunner.

This rule will limit pitchers to just two “step offs” or pickoff attempts per plate appearance. On the third attempt, if the runner is not thrown out, the move is ruled a balk and any runners are automatically awarded the next base.

In Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, Red Sox pinch runner Dave Roberts came out to steal a base and Yankee closer Mariano Rivera was on the mound. Everybody watching knew Roberts was going to steal, which added to the tension.

Moments like that are why you watch baseball games.

It’s one of the most famous stolen bases in baseball history, but if this rule was in place in 2004 it never would have happened because Rivera attempted three pickoffs in a row. So instead of one of the most famous stolen bases in baseball history, fans would have been treated to all the drama and excitement of a balk call.

The cat-and-mouse stuff that makes baseball interesting is being thrown out the window because the people who thought we were going to be entertained by three-and-a-half hour Home Run Derby contests think too many pickoffs are “monotonous.”

THE PITCH CLOCK (LOW-A WEST)

A 20-second pitch clock has been in effect in the Double-A and Triple-A levels since 2015. But while the clock did, in its first year, have a tangible impact immediately (reducing game times by 12 minutes from the previous year), game times have risen in years since as players found workarounds -- most notably by restarting the clock by stepping off the rubber.

This change will be a more aggressive, 15-second pitch clock. One timer will be located in the outfield and two behind home plate, between the dugouts. Inning breaks and pitching changes will also be timed.

Tell ballplayers there’s a new rule and smart ballplayers will ask how it’s going to be enforced so they know what they can get away with and what they can’t. And if umpires choose to ignore a rule (which they occasionally do) in reality there is no rule.

Baseball already has a rule (8.04) that says if there are no runners on base, after the pitcher receives the ball he has 12 seconds to deliver a pitch, but umpires don’t enforce this already existing rule so pitchers feel free to ignore it.

Baseball does not need a new rule; it needs to enforce the one it already has.

“ROBOT UMPS” (LOW-A SOUTHEAST)

Long proposed, the automated balls-and-strikes system will finally become a reality in affiliated ball with this experiment, though a human umpire will still be positioned behind home plate.

This might sound good on the surface, but in reality baseball technology is not infallible. Baseball likes to present this stuff like Abner Doubleday carved it on stone tablets, but read the fine print and you often find disclaimers and reminders that the technology needs to calibrated correctly and it sometimes isn’t.

But forget technology issues for a minute and let’s talk about what this means for catchers.

Great catchers make marginal pitches look like strikes and they do it with subtle techniques like angling their mitts so most of it appears to be in the strike zone as they receive a pitch or shifting their feet so the ball is caught in the middle of their chests or swaying their shin guards so the ball appears to stay between their knees.

Have the pitch called by an automated strike zone system (which may or may not be accurate) and all those sophisticated catching techniques don’t matter and you can be a butcher behind the plate and it won’t make any difference.

Catcher Rick Dempsey hit .233 lifetime and still managed to hang around the big leagues for 24 years.  What Dempsey did behind the plate was more important than what he did at the plate, but use robots umpires and guys like Rick Dempsey will no longer have a place in the baseball. 

Teams will be encouraged to use yet another guy who swings for the fences, but plays Michael Jackson Defense (wearing one glove for no apparent reason) and the whole league will continue to focus on offense and forget defense which is a big part of how baseball wound up in the mess it’s currently in.

And these rules aren’t going to fix that.