The sport that is still sometimes affectionately called America’s National Pastime has been losing more and more ground to sports like American football, basketball and soccer for years. To turn the tide and make the sport faster, more spectacular and more surprising to a younger audience, several rule changes have been tested in recent years. In this first installment from a triptych about The Future of Baseball the three changes that were supposed to bring more action, more hits and more stolen bases in 2023.
PITCH CLOCK
A baseball game is a day out, and most diehard baseball fans have no problem with the fact that a game can take as little as an hour or three, but if you want to tap into new audiences, you’re going to have to offer them a little more pace of play. One place where there seemed to be gains to be made at that point was the time pitchers took between pitches, and so it was limited by what was called a pitch clock or pitch timer.
With no base runners, the pitcher may only take 15 seconds for another pitch, while adding five seconds if someone does get on base. The implications of this rule change are enormous. Matches are on average half an hour shorter and there is clearly more momentum in the game. Moreover, it also makes stealing bases more attractive, but more on that later, because for that you need base runners first.
NO MORE SHIFT
The ubiquitous use of data has overwhelmingly changed the sport. Offensively, they are more frequently looking for home runs, while the defense was nailed shut with shifts: repositioning outfielders and favorable match-ups calculated to the inch. All this ensured that a huge percentage of at-bats ended in one of three outcomes: strike three, a walk or a home run. The ball, in other words, came back into the field only sparsely.
As beautiful as a home run can be, this development made the sport more static, predictable and therefore more boring. Part of the solution would be to get more runners on base and so it had to become rewarding again to go for a base hit. It was decided to ban the shift. So from now on, no more middle infielders setting up on the other side of second base when the data shows that that is where the batter is hitting most of his hits.
Although the number of home runs, strikeouts and walks per game actually increased, the new rule did provide more base runners. Now if those base runners also dare to be a little more adventurous, it will be a lot more spectacular to watch, and let that be the last change we are going to discuss today: the bigger bases.
GREATER HONKS
Not that the bases are suddenly much bigger now. First, second and third base go from 15 to 18 square inches, while home plate retains the same dimensions. The main purpose of this change is to protect the players, as this gives both the defender and the base runner more space and thus they are less likely to collide with each other. These new bases were already being tested in the Minor League and indeed the number of injuries caused by such collisions dropped by 13%.
A side benefit of this is that it makes it more tempting for base runners to attempt a steal. Helped by the fact that pitchers still get only two pickoff attempts, the base runners clearly came out a lot more aggressive last season than in previous seasons. The number of stealing attempts increased by 25%, while the success rate of those attempts also increased significantly.
So the new rules did what they were supposed to. The sport has become faster, more spectacular and more exciting, but above all, it has returned to the sport of old.