Rob Manfred at a Feb. 18, 2020 press conference.

The Major League Baseball lockout has been the talk of the sports world over the past few weeks, with negotiations seemingly still far apart between the MLBPA and MLB owners on a potential return to play.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has already announced the cancellation of the first two series of the regular season after passing their deadline for the season to start on time.

While negotiations as a whole don’t seem to be leading to much, the owners and players have agreed to a number of rule changes that will certainly impact the game of baseball as we know it.

The players union has agreed with the MLB to ban defensive shifts, implement a pitch clock, and make bases bigger. Along with these changes the players have decided to reject “Robo Umps” for the 2022-23 season. These rules are set to change for the league in 2023.

The pitch clock is something that the Triple-A and Double-A levels have implemented since 2018 and has been shown to be a pretty insignificant factor in attempting to cut down the time of games. Meanwhile, the shift has been heavily debated around the world of baseball for years. With the reports of its ban, many are extremely against the new changes coming in 2023.

While there are certainly many out there that believe shifting is a very real defensive strategy that should stay, there are some that are happy to hear that the shift will soon be a thing of the past.

Whether you are for it or not, it’s clear that the MLB is looking to change the game going forward, and it will be interesting to see how these rules affect the overall diminishing viewership of the MLB in the future.

[Jon Heyman]

About Reice Shipley

Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.