It’s the start of a new era in Major League Baseball — and it could greatly benefit speed dealers like Trea Turner and Ronald Acuna Jr., and hurt the pace of veteran pitchers like Gerrit Cole and Yu Darvish.
The pads will be larger, and the rules for pinning a runner have been changed. The clock to time the time between each pitch finally came, and special infield defenses were banned.
Sorry, Shohei Ohtani, you took too long to complete your throw. Bryce Harper, returns to the batting zone. Xander Bogaerts, you can’t just stand there while Mookie Betts is in the batting zone.
Only one thing will remain the same as the past: everyone will try to hold their own, hoping to take advantage of the drastic changes to Major League Baseball regulations.
“If there’s one thing we know about our industry, it’s that if there’s an aspect of the game where we can take advantage, then every team will do everything they can to exploit it to their best advantage. advantage, ”said Chris Antonetti, president of baseball operations for the Cleveland Guardians.
Much of the talk revolves around that this spring at major league training camps, after a series of measures were passed last September in the hopes of making the sport more attractive to young people — who mostly complain about the lack of action and the slow progress of matches.
The optimistic commissioner
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 — even though there could be a slightly more difficult transition period ahead.
“I think you’ll see a sport that happens faster,” Manfred said. You will see more balls in play. You will be able to observe players on the field playing in positions that we have been used to in our youth. And I really believe that you will be able to observe changes that will obviously enhance the quality of the show. »
However, of all the changes that have been passed, the one relating to downtime is likely to cause the most controversy. An illegal fake will be called as soon as a player leaves the plate or attempts to pin a runner for the third time unless there is an out, and this count will be reset if a runner progresses on trails.
Pitchers’ time-out tendencies — who will manage to use it at the right time, who will be willing to exploit regulation to the fullest, and who will be willing to take an illegal fake by attempting to pinning a rider on the trails — will come under scrutiny early in the season as teams attempt to extract a competitive advantage on the trails.
“It’s going to be very competitive,” Chicago Cubs general manager Carter Hawkins said. We will therefore have to find the best way to negotiate with that. I’m sure there will be a lot of cat-and-mouse, and there will be several pitchers on the mound with different game plans that we’ll have to adapt to, just like the runners elsewhere.
“It will be exciting to watch, and some changes could lead to competitive advantages,” he concluded.