Another offseason, another set of rule changes to Major League Baseball’s pitch clock and base paths.
MLB’s 11 man competition committee voted in favour of several tweaks to the pitch clock and rules around the runner’s lane on the base paths ahead of the 2024 campaign.
The first change is a relatively straight forward one. The pitch clock will be shortened by 2 seconds down to 18 seconds with runners on base in an effort to keep games moving along. 9 inning games averaged out to be roughly 2 hours and 40 minutes long during the 2023 regular season. That mark was down 24 minutes from 2022, but the committee has been steadfast in seeing that number trimmed even further.
In addition to the pitch clock change, mound visits are being cut from 5 to 4 with the defensive team still maintaining an extra visit in the 9th inning if they have none left after the 8th inning. Major League Baseball will also require any pitcher who warms up on the mound to face at least one batter in 2024. Although that rule will have minimal effect on games, as such an occurrence took place only 24 times all of last season.
The final rule change will see a rule adopted in 1882 that required runners to be within the 3 foot box on the foul side of the base line during the final 45 feet between home and first overridden. The new rule widens the lane to include 18-24 inches of fair territory until the edge of the grass.
The aim of this rule is to remove any kind of ambiguity in the language which could cause umpires to interpret it differently on a game to game basis. Runners have been called out for interference in several high profile games as a result of this “grey area” including Game 6 of the 2019 World Series when Trea Turner was called out for interference by plate umpire Sam Holbrook.
Overall, the casual fan likely won’t see much change in the rules implemented Thursday. However that hasn’t stopped the player’s union from voicing their displeasure about the modifications. In a publicly released statement from the union, the player reps told the press “Following last season’s profound changes to the fundamental rules of the game, immediate additional changes are unnecessary and offer no meaningful benefits to fans, players or the competition on the field. This season should be used to gather additional data and fully examine the health, safety, and injury impacts of reduced recovery time.”
Photo: Rachel Nicastro. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.