DRAMATIC CHANGES

MLB Announces Dramatic Rule Changes for 2023 Season

In yet another defeat for baseball purists, Major League Baseball announced Friday that bigger bases, a shift ban, and pitch clock will be in place next season.

Friday was another day of defeat for baseball purists, as Major League Baseball announced a new round of sweeping rule changes to the sport’s highest level. Starting in 2023, shifts will be banned, pitch timers enforced, and bigger bags will be installed in hopes of “improving pace of play, action and safety at the MLB level.” The banning of shifts, an increasingly hot topic the last decade as teams use analytics to precisely position players and cut down hit totals, has been enacted by the league to “better showcase (players) athleticism and to restore more traditional outcomes on batted balls.” The new rule will force infielders to stay on the infield clay pre-pitch and will ban them from swapping sides for a certain batter. The move to larger bases—from 15 inches squared to 18—has been labeled as a safety measure to limit collisions, namely at first base. MLB says home plate will stay the same size, however, keeping strike zones unchanged. Lastly, a pitch timer will give pitchers just 30 seconds in between batters, 25 seconds between pitches with runners on base just 15 seconds to pitch if the base paths are clear. If a player breaks these time limits, a ball will be given to the batter, the league says. In total, this change alone is expected to cut down the average game time of an MLB game by 26 minutes. All three changes were tried out in the minor leagues this year and voted in by the newly-formed “Joint Competition Committee” on Friday.