Major League Baseball won’t reverse course on any of their instituted rule changes for the 2023 season. They will, however, make a few tweaks to them with days remaining until Opening Day. MLB sent a memo to all 30 clubs addressing these tweaks according to ESPN MLB insider Jeff Passan.
Passan wrote,
Major League Baseball is making slight changes to its new pitch clock rules but will not alter the most significant portions of the mandates that have shaved 25 minutes off game times this spring, according to a memo obtained by ESPN.
The document — the fifth of what a source called “clarification memos” sent by the league this spring — was distributed Wednesday after players on the joint competition committee between the MLB Players Association and MLB requested various changes earlier in the week.
MLB, which has control over on-field rules, will continue with the parameters of the pitch clock that players have been using all spring: 15 seconds with the bases empty and 20 seconds with runners on base, plus the hitter needing to be “alert” in the batter’s box with 8 seconds remaining.
So according to the league, they will persist with the pitch clock parameters they’ve used throughout Spring Training. As Passan noted in the article, a key piece in the memo deals with replay reviews.
The clarification memos have addressed more obscure issues and potential for attempts to circumvent the rules. The most important piece of the memo distributed Wednesday was the league changing replay review rules on potential violations of the infield shift ban. With the possibility of teams regularly issuing challenges after outs in hopes that one of the four infielders was positioned with his feet on the outfield grass — which would negate the out and return the batter to the plate — the memo said on batted balls that only the positioning of the defender fielding them could be challenged.
So, MLB stated that teams can only challenge the positioning of the defender fielding a batted ball. Nothing else.
Umpires will also “delay the start of the clock and, if the clock operator starts it early, have the ability to wave off the timer” in the event of brushback pitches or big swings that topple the hitter in the box.
New also is a guideline on hitters calling a timeout. “Under the new guidelines,” Passan wrote, “a player, regardless of where he is standing, must indicate to an umpire that he is ready to resume play, at which point the umpire will tell the operator to wind the clock.”
The controversial rule has gotten vitriol from MLB fans. But the league, citing information from Spring Training games, claimed that pitch clock violations underwent a pretty big dip. They went from 2.03 per game to 1.03 this week, according to the memo and Passan.
It sure sounds like everyone is going to have to adjust to these new rules whether they want them or not.
[ESPN]
