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- Major League Baseball’s joint competition committee is considering more rule changes for next season.
Mar 27, 2024 · With the pitch timer, defensive shift restrictions and bigger bases, the 2023 MLB season featured arguably the most ambitious series of rules changes since the dawn of the game’s Modern Era.
- MLB rules changes refresher for 2023 season - MLB.com
Here's a complete list of the changes that have come to MLB...
- MLB rules changes refresher for 2023 season - MLB.com
Nov 17, 2023 · Now, per Ken Rosenthal in The Athletic, MLB is also proposing other rule changes for next year, tweaking those that control batter timeouts, pitching changes and mound visits.
Aug 16, 2024 · A new rule change could be on the way for MLB next season that will fundamentally alter the way the game is played and managed. The league is considering a mandate that all starting...
- Overview
- The Runner's Lane
- Pitching changes
Major League Baseball on Wednesday announced even more changes are coming to baseball next season that aim to speed up gameplay and keep fans interested in America's favorite pastime. The new rules build off notable changes to the game that were introduced last year, including a pitch clock, which gave pitchers a limited amount of time to throw the next ball.
Changes include an even shorter pitch clock, a wider lane for runners going to first base, and more rules affecting pitchers.
A news release detailed the changes for the 2024 season that were agreed upon by the Competition Committee, which is comprised of six owners, four players, and an umpire. The committee was created as part of a 2022 collective bargaining agreement.
"From its inception, the joint Competition Committee's constructive conversations between players, umpires and owners have produced rules that significantly improved the game for fans," said John Stanton, Chairman of the Competition Committee and Chairman of the Seattle Mariners.
"These modifications will improve on last year's work by the Competition Committee, which was a resounding success with our fans and for the sport."
Here's what changes are coming to the field in 2024.
The runner's lane, which is the space a player is allotted to run to first base, will be widened in the upcoming season, expanding to include the dirt area between the foul line and the grass on the infield.
Widening the lane is intended to allow batters "a more direct path to first base," according to the MLB, and also aims to limit interference in gameplay.
The distance between the foul line and the infield grass is now required to be between 18 and 24 inches in all MLB baseball parks.
The new rule overrides one from 1882, which stated that players were required to remain within the 3-foot box on the foul side of the base line while running the final stretch between home base and first base.
Building off the success of the 2023 changes, which were shown to reduce game time, the committee is implementing additional 2024 changes that will continue to increase the pacing.
Even one of the newest changes, the pitch clock, is also getting a refresh. Previously, pitchers had slightly more time when a runner was on base to throw the next pitch — a full 20 seconds, whereas they only had 15 seconds if no runners were on base. Now, pitchers will only have 18 seconds to throw the next ball with runners on base.
The pitch clock will also restart after a "dead ball" — meaning a ball that is out of play, such as a foul ball — when the pitcher gets the ball, when previously, the clock only began when the pitcher had reached the mound.
Visits to the pitcher's mound will be reduced from five to four per game, with an extra mound visit awarded in the ninth inning if the defensive team has zero remaining at the end of the eighth inning.
"Mound visits rank among fans' least favorite events in baseball," according to MLB, who said that last season, 98% of games would not have exceeded a limit of four mound visits.
MLB is also implementing a new rule that states that any pitcher who warms up at the start of an inning must throw to at least one batter before being removed from the mound. According to the league, there were 24 instances in the 2023 season where a pitcher who warmed up between innings was replaced before throwing a ball, which added approximately three minutes of dead time per event.
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Nov 16, 2023 · Are MLB's new rules putting the action back in baseball? The results will surprise you. The committee technically has 45 days to consider proposals, but extensions can be granted. Last season,...
Mar 28, 2023 · Here's a complete list of the changes that have come to MLB in 2023, starting with the three that have gotten the most attention. 1. Pitch timer. To create a quicker pace with less dead time, there is now a 30-second timer between batters and then a shorter time limit between pitches.
Aug 15, 2024 · Could one big rule change make starters stars again and inject offense into the game?
