Saturday, May 21, 2016

MLB Wants To Make Two Rules Changes

During the owners' meetings, a competition committee agreed to a couple of adjustments to MLB rules.

The first change would be to the strike zone. The current strike zone calls for a strike to be called at the bottom of a hitter's kneecap, however the new rule would make it a strike at the top of a hitter's kneecap.

This change isn't exciting or life changing, but it certainly doesn't come without reason.

In 2015, on average, batters struck out 20.4% of the time. However, ten years ago, batters struck out 16.4% of the time. Furthermore, in 2015 20,647 were scored, while in 2005 a total of 22,326 runs were scored. So offense is definitely gone down in the league.

The second change would make it so pitchers would no longer have to throw four balls to intentionally walk a batter. The team could simply signal its intention to walk a batter.

I'm sure many will point out plays such as this...


But let's be honest... how often does something like that happen? More often than not, an intentional walk  is the most boring thing that happens in a baseball game. You're just sitting there waiting for those four uneventful pitches before finally getting on with the game.

So while I don't believe either rule change is earth shattering, they are improvements.

NOTE: That while the competition committee has approved these rule changes, they will not be implemented until the rules committee does the same. Also, while rules changes do not need to be approved by them to be implemented, the MLB Players' Association and umpires' union will also get to review the proposed changes before they go into affect.

1 comment:

  1. I like the intentional walk call. Also speeds up the game!

    ReplyDelete

Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)