(Phoenix) It’s the beginning of a new era in Major League Baseball — and it could greatly benefit speed pushers like Trea Turner and Ronald Acuna Jr., and hurt the pace of veteran pitchers like Gerrit Cole and Yu Darvish.
The pads will be bigger and the rules for pinning a runner have changed. The clock to time each shot has finally arrived and special inside defenses have been banished.
Sorry, Shohei Ohtani, you took too long to complete your throw. Bryce Harper, return to the batting zone. Xander Bogaerts, you can’t stand by while Mookie Betts is in the hitting zone.
Only one thing will remain the same: everyone will try to defend themselves, hoping to take advantage of the drastic changes in Major League Baseball’s regulations.
“If there’s one thing we know about our industry, it’s that if there’s an aspect of the game we can take advantage of, each team will do everything they can to exploit it to the best advantage,” said Chris Antonetti, President of baseball operations for the Cleveland Guardians.
Much of the talk revolves around it this spring at Major League training camps, after a series of measures were passed last September in hopes of making the sport more attractive to young people – who complain mostly of a lack of action and of the slow progress of the matches.
As the players reported to their respective training camps in Florida and Arizona ahead of next season, Commissioner Rob Manfred said he was optimistic about the future of his sport – although there may be a slightly more difficult transition period ahead.
“I think you’ll see a sport that happens faster,” said Manfred. You’ll see more balls in play, you’ll be able to watch the players on the field playing in positions that we are used to in our youth. And I really believe that you will be able to see changes that will obviously improve the quality of the show. »
However, of all the amendments that have been passed, the one relating to downtime is likely to cause the most controversy. An illegal forgery will be called as soon as a player leaves the plate or tries to pin a runner for the third time, unless there is an exit, and this count will be reset to zero if a runner progresses on the tracks.
Pitchers’ time-out tendencies – who will be able to use it at the right moment, who will be willing to exploit regulation to the fullest and who will be willing to accept an illegal fake when trying to pin a rider on the trails – will come under scrutiny early on. of the season as the teams try to extract a competitive edge on the trails.
“It’s going to be very competitive,” admitted Chicago Cubs General Manager Carter Hawkins. We will therefore have to find the best way to deal with this. I’m sure it’s going to be a lot of cat and mouse, and there are going to be a lot of pitchers on the mound with different game plans that we’re going to have to adapt to, just like runners elsewhere.
“It will be exciting to watch, and some changes could lead to competitive advantages.”
