Baseball rules changes 2023

Is there a consensus on how well the new Major League Baseball rules for 2023 worked out? I don’t watch baseball enough to have an informed opinion, but I’m curious what others think.

Game length is down, attendance is up:

Ratings were mostly flat, but that might be because a lot of the popular teams were out of the running in the fall:

As a fan, I have the following impressions.
–Pitch clock is a good thing. It’s not so fast that it introduces time stress between pitches. Neither the pitchers nor the batters seem impaired by it.
–larger bases. I have no opinion.
–No shift. I don’t even notice this, unless the announcers note “that would have been an out last year.” Changed to increase hits, which perhaps it did. No objection from me.
–Extra innings start with runner on second. Theoretically, I hate this. In practice, it doesn’t ruin the game for me.
–Not this year, but I still hate the intentional walk rule.

That was definitely the case. The Red Sox and Yankees finished last and next to last in the AL East; neither of them ever seriously contended. The White Sox were awful; the Cubs briefly tried to contend for a wild card spot in the second half but faded in September. The Mets flamed out, the Cardinals had their worst season in three decades.

The only big market teams with an established fanbase that made the postseason were the Dodgers and Phillies.

That rule started during the pandemic, in 2020, I believe. It appears that it’s here to stay. I don’t like it either, but I no longer hate it. And it’s not in effect in the postseason, which is a good thing.

I disagree. IMO, this is one of the best things baseball ever did.

Speaking only for myself, it ruined baseball. I stopped watching after a couple of games and I don’t plan to return.

I was recently reading a book by Keith Hernandez (written in the 80s) and he said one of the great things about baseball was the absence of a clock. It set baseball apart from a lot of other sports, and contributed to it’s feel. He was right.

I liked that the game took time and the players weren’t rushed. And I hated, hated, HATED having the pitch clock in the back of my mind when I watched a few games. Completely turned me off.

Some of the other changes affect strategy too much for me, such as the limited throws to first. Seems intrusive. Expanded DH I understand as a safety measure for the pitchers, but… I still don’t like it. I miss double switches, and the situations that developed when pitchers had to hit. I thought it was a bad change in the 70s, and I still think so.

All that to say, baseball has been around a long time. Stop f***ing with it. There are those who will say the games have sped up and that attendance is doing fine or improving. That’s as may be. But I think they’ve taken a good game and messed with it for mostly monetary, marketing reasons. Good luck to them, I won’t be back.

I now enjoy watching full length games from earlier decades on the internet.

I think the jury is still out on that one. I suspect we’ll find out that the increase in pitcher injuries was due largely to the pitch clock.

Oddly enough, if you compared random games from 1978, 2018 and 2023, the two that most closely resemble each other are 1978 and 2023.

1978 was peak baseball for me. More recently, things changed. I can’t pinpoint the time, but I think everyone hated the batters stepping out and walking around between pitches. And the pitchers would stroll around too. I don’t recall nearly as much of that in the “old days.” In my opinion, the players should get the blame for the pitch clock, not the greedy owners.

I loved the new rules this season and it helped reignite my already strong love for baseball.

The very rainy summer and too many days of Canadian wildfire smoke are my memories of this season and not getting to as many games as I’d like.

Wish the World Series had been more competitive , but I put the 2023 season as one of my favorites over the last ten years

Pitch clock and batting clock are both great. The ghost runner is still an unacceptable, bush-league abomination. I’m not sure about the pick off limit yet, nor the shift ban. Time will tell.

Manfred wants more length from starting pitchers and less use of relievers and openers, so I guess that’s the next frontier. I haven’t heard any rational suggestions on how to achieve that, though.

You limit the number of pitchers to a roster and restrict the use of options to shuttle players up and down from the minors. How the MLBPA views that, I don’t know.

The pitch clock certainly worked. Game lengths are down.

Watching at home I like it.

If it’s one of the few games a year I go to in person I hate it. I want a relaxing long day at the ballpark.

If the aim is more offense, I guess it makes sense. I think teams would counter with short starters that pitched more frequently, and more middle and long relievers, rather than one inning guys.

I loved the pitch clock when I first experienced it in the minors. I love it just as much in the majors. What a great innovation. It took away so much dead time; it’s not a coincidence that I went to more MLB games in person this year than in any year since I was a teenager in the 1970s.

I have to say I didn’t really notice the larger bases (didn’t really notice them in the minors previously, either) or the limited pickoffs (never saw someone throw over three times). Banning the shift…I’d kind of prefer not to forbid it, but it’s again hard to say that I noticed particularly. They still swing the infield around a lot more and a lot more often than back in the day, AFAICT.

As for the invisible runner. There never were that many games that went to the 14th or 15th inning anyway. And as I alluded to earlier in this post, it’s not so much the length of the games that’s an issue as it is the pacing, and while the invisible runner helps with length it doesn’t have any particular effect on pace. So it doesn’t really solve any significant “problem” with the game. I’d prefer it not to be there, but realistically I can take it or leave it.

In sum, though, the changes are a thumbs up from me.

FWIW, BABIP (average on balls in play) went from .290 to .297, overall average from .243 to .248, so the anti-shift rules did seem to help there.

I voted with my feet, or at least my eyeballs. My viewing of MLB was down this year by maybe 90% from the past few seasons (which was down from my peak, when I watched every game I could find time to watch.). The extra-innings runner really turned me off. the universal DH has bummed me out for years, and the pitch-clock was one I actually liked, though it seemed needlessly complicated to me. I would have much preferred the umpires simply ignore batters calling 'time out" themselves and permit pitchers to throw when the batter stepped out of the box without calling time. In itself, that would have sped up the game without introducing an extraneous element, the clock, into the game.

I hate that the pitch clock is necessary, but it is. 2022 games were painfully slow.

I hate the extra inning ghost runner. Maybe I’d tolerate it if it started say in the 12th inning.

I love the shift being outlawed. The analytics were ruining baseball. Every batter was defensed perfectly, so they all swung for the fences. Homers and strikeouts reigned supreme, the game sucked.

What’s next: I predict pinch runners who can come in at any time and the player being substituted for can stay in the game. This would be a bridge too far.

All the changes were done in the minor leagues first. My local team recently became the Yankees AA team but before that they were in an independent league. MLB pumped money into the Atlantic League to and used it as a test bed for new rules. They don’t experiment with the big leagues. Just look at the minors to see what is next. The next thing will be the robot ump calling pitches. There will be a big shift in catchers since all those who are so good at framing will now have a useless skill.

I’ve loved baseball since I was 12. Changes and the game evolving will not make me stop watching so I don’t understand those saying they stopped watching just because of rule changes. I guess they weren’t big fans to start with. I’m not saying I like every change.

Pitch clock, good. Game times down nearly 30 minutes. That makes a big difference and to tell the truth, I was getting tired of 3+ hour games, it’s just too long. These playoffs, it was nice to go to bed at a more reasonable 11:00 than past midnight for games starting at 8:00.

Larger bases. Really no opinion. Has it made a difference? The intent here was to reduce injuries, don’t know if that happened. At any rate, a bigger base is not noticeable and does not affect the game.

A couple of years ago, the rule about a pitcher having to face three batters was instituted. I don’t like rules that change the game’s strategy. The intent was to improve the pace of the game. Had they put the pitch clock in place first, we may not have that rule and all may have been fine.

No more shift allowed. Again, it affects strategy so I’m against it but it’s here to stay. I can live with it, it hasn’t changed my enjoyment of the game.

Another that was meant to affect pace of play is no more than two throws per plate appearance to a base. I’m sure it helped with pace and made it more exciting as stolen bases went up dramatically this year. I’m sort of OK with this rule.

The one I really hate is runner on second in extra innings. That’s not pure baseball. The intent there was during the pandemic to limit player contact and limit spread of the disease. Also I suppose so that games wouldn’t last four hours and 16 innings. It seems to be here to stay so I have to live with it. As it affects maybe 10% or so of games, not so bad.

The DH in the National League was inevitable, I’m surprised it took that long. I used to be more of an NL guy and liked that pitchers batted, why shouldn’t they? It affected strategy too. Fun fact, it could have been implemented in the 1980s. Interesting story why it wasn’t and one vote was all it took to defeat the motion.

Expanded playoffs. It did make it more exciting for many teams this year, in it until the very last day. I just don’t want it to become like th NHL where half the teams are in.

Intentional walks just take first without throws. I’m fine with it, although it was another stupid improve pace of play rule which really did nothing. There’s not that many IBBs that it would have any effect. And although rare, we are not to see wild pitches, or Miggy getting a hit on a pitch that wasn’t outside enough or Johnny Bench being faked and striking out when he thought he was being walked.

So overall, it’s just the ghost runner in extras that I truly object to. The rest doesn’t affect my enjoying the game. I don’t see any major rule changes for a while but I’m sure someone can come up with an idea. I probably won’t like it at first.

I like every rule change except the runner on second in extras.