MLB's New Rules: November Edition

A journey into the soul of an old crank

Admitting when you’re wrong is never easy, but sometimes it’s better than the alternative. That’s the situation I find myself in a week after the conclusion of a 2023 baseball season that will be remembered for its several major rule changes. The pitch clock, the bigger bases, the pickoff rule: at the beginning of the year, I railed against them all. I went on a podcast and ranted about the pitch clock. I complained on Twitter—a whole lot—about how the idiots at MLB were desecrating the game I loved by trying to replicate the fast pace of the NBA and the excitement of the NFL. Baseball was never meant to be “fast” or “exciting,” I argued. It’s supposed to represent the languid pace of life, where nothing happens for a long time and then everything happens all of a sudden. Where the battle is won and lost in the small moments when no one is watching.

The whole “no one is watching” part is what troubled MLB officials, and according to them, the new rules were a huge success. Attendance and ratings were up! (Please pay no attention to the fact that attendance was up across every major sport in 2023, likely part of a broader Covid bounceback.) But I’m here to tell you that after six months of regular-season games and one pretty fun month of postseason play that these new rules are…okay. They’re not destroying the game, although they’re not improving it much either. 

Let’s start with the pitch clock. In the first couple of weeks of the season, my worst fears about the clock seemed to be coming true. Pitchers were rushing on the mound, afraid of earning a violation, and the pace of the game felt off. Not just fast, but clunky. There were also lots of violations in the early going, some of which had real impacts on the outcomes of the games. We saw weird stuff happen, like when a batter was penalized after Pete Alonso took too long getting back to first base after attempting a steal on a foul ball. We saw a standing ovation for a star player returning to his former home that lasted so long it caused a pitch clock violation. Eventually, the umpires started using some common sense and these absurdities were eliminated.

Just as Theo Epstein predicted, the pitchers and hitters also figured it out. Within a month or so, violations started dropping, and the pitchers started letting that clock get down to a few seconds before unleashing hell on the batters. This was great, and not just because the pace was better and there were fewer disruptions but also because it allowed us to forget about the pitch clock altogether. The pace was normalized, and the pitch clock was mostly a non-issue. By June and July, there were other things to worry about, namely the poor performance of nearly every player in a Mets uniform.

Similarly, the larger bases had little effect on the game or my viewing experience. From my vantage point—either on TV or at the stadium—they look the same size as they’ve always looked, and there’s no evidence that their increased size really changed the game much. Stolen base attempts did increase but that was clearly due to the third major rule change: the limit of disengagements from the pitcher. They created this rule to incentivize stolen bases and, boy oh boy, did it work. There were over a thousand more steals in 2023 than in the year prior. The SB success rate went up from 75.4 percent in 2022 to 80.2 percent in 2023. We saw unthinkable baserunning seasons from Corbin Carroll, who stole 52 bases and was caught only five times in his rookie season, and Trea Turner who went 30 for 30 in SB attempts.

This I have a problem with. Along with the triple, the stolen base used to be one of the most exciting plays in baseball because the stakes were so high. You’ve got a guy just trying to take an extra base. If he makes it, it’s a major advantage for his team. If he gets thrown out, well, he was stupid for even trying. But now a stolen base feels like a fait accompli. With pitchers unable to throw over more than twice (if they attempt three pickoffs without success, the runner is simply awarded the base), base runners have been stealing at will. They’re getting huge leads, sometimes walking leads, and enormous jumps. It used to be that when you saw a runner attempt a steal, your heart started racing in anticipation of the close play at second (or third). Now you see him take off and your heart stays steady because you assume he’ll be successful.

I don’t anticipate MLB changing this. As mentioned, they’re calling the new rules a success. The odds of them changing back are slim to none. If anything, more changes are coming.

The only remaining question is….what’s wrong with me? Why did I rail so hard against these new rules—especially the pitch clock—without giving them a chance to work? I am proud that when I saw how the new rules were playing out, I didn’t cling to my initial anxieties, but I do feel a little foolish that I feared the worst outcomes instead of being open to new ones. I pride myself on being open to change and reveling in new experiences, but when it came to the game I loved, I couldn’t abide by the inevitable.

Maybe I shouldn’t mistake my skepticism for cynicism. For years now, I have observed a creep towards instant gratification in a game whose best quality was that it challenged us to be patient. Something tells me, however, that every true baseball fan has gone through this at some point in their fandom. I can only imagine the outrage felt by some fans of the American League when the designated hitter was first instituted. Or when they created divisions in 1969 and expanded the playoff field to…wait for it….four teams. Or when the “reserve clause” was struck down, free agency was initiated, and players began switching teams with wild abandon. The baseball traditionalist surely hated all these changes. He had to either get used to them or become a cranky old asshole who sat around complaining that the world was going to hell.

My baseball traditionalism runs deeper than the new rules. I hate the new giant scoreboard at Citi Field that draws my eye away from the action on the field. I’m angry about the new plan by Mets owner Steve Cohen to build up the area around the stadium with a casino, music venue, and restaurants (am I crazy, or aren’t the chop shops that surround the Mets’ stadium part of their underdog charm?). And I’m not wild about the MLB playoff system that seems to favor borderline playoff teams against their superior opponents. It devalues the regular season that has always been the spiritual crux of the sport. The long regular season reflects the rhythms of nature. Life is about the grind. It’s about getting up every day and going to work, and trying to have fun while you’re doing it. It’s not a long, meaningless summer with a sudden burst of random excitement in October.

I have gotten used to the pitch clock. I suppose I will get used to the disengagement rules. One day, I will have to get used to robot umpires. Outside of baseball, I’ll have to get used to—or let go of—even more. The world may indeed be going to hell, but, despite my natural inclinations, I’m not going to become a cranky old asshole about it. We’ve got a game to play.