CHICAGO — Here’s what you need to know about the impact of baseball’s big rule changes: Action and offense is up; game time is down. The latter significantly.
Sure, it’s only been a little more than a week. Sure, there will be other checkpoints along the way, but what more needs to be said to pronounce this a raving success and be done with the whole process? To — gulp — laud Rob Manfred for bringing life back to the game?
We know it’s been a lot to digest, with bigger bases, pitch clocks and different ready moments for batters and pitchers, and pickoff limitations. We know there are some folks who like things just the way they remember. Like that guy who used to sell Pepperidge Farms cookies on TV. Believe he did it while driving a horse-drawn carriage.
So why don’t we check in with somebody in the age group who might just be reluctant to change. Late 60s. Been watching baseball since the ‘50s. Remembers when Nolan Ryan pitched. Well, mostly because he played with Ryan and also hit the only walk-off homer Ryan ever surrendered.
“I like it,” said the man, Rangers manager Bruce Bochy, who turns 68 in a week. “I like the pace. I’ll start there. I think the game did get away from us a little bit. We are in the entertainment business and fans like more action. I think it’s been good for the game. It’s closer to what I was used to when I first came up, to be honest.”
Which is the money quote. Because it’s almost impossible to wrap your head around this: Baseball has somehow revolutionized itself by making things feel more familiar. Pitchers are pitching. Batters are swinging. Fielders are fielding. Athleticism matters.
Nobody ever went to a baseball game to see a batter adjust his batting gloves and cup after every pitch. Nobody went to baseball games to see the pitcher play with his hair and his hat before every pitch.
And that literally is all that has disappeared as game times went from 3:09 in the first week of last season to 2:36 this year heading into the weekend, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. More than a half hour of standing around has disappeared. It’s been nearly 40 years since games averaged less than 2:45.
But here’s the other thing: That’s the game that a huge swath of baseball fandom remembers. From 1920-85, games never averaged more than 2:44.
At the same time, everything that constitutes action in baseball is up.
— Batting average: Up. It was .230 through the first week of last year on the way to a 50-year low of .243.
You know the only time MLB batting averages fell below that in the last 100 years? It was 1968, when MLB teams combined to hit .237. In 1967, they had hit .242. You know how MLB responded to the decline in offense? Rule changes. It lowered the pitching mound. The game survived. Some might even say the ‘70s ranked as a pretty good decade in baseball history.
So, you say, batting average doesn’t mean as much as it once did. True enough. There are other offensive numbers.
— OBP: Up from the first week of last year.
— Slugging, OPS, stolen bases and runs per game: Up, up, up and up.
Just consider the first week. Marcus Semien once again looks like an artist at second base. He’s had to cover more area than the last couple of years because of the elimination of the shift. He had only one more chance over the first six games than a year ago, but he’s had to go farther to his left or right to make them. And he has.
“It’s fun for me to showcase what I can do,” Semien said. “This is a rule change I’ve always been for. We understand the product we can put out there for fans. It’s fun to see what balls we can get to.”
The biggest complaints: There have been frequent occasions when a batter has felt rushed, particularly if leading off an inning, and the bigger bases still look like pizza boxes.
Counterpoint: If you are fortunate to grab a seat where the media does at Globe Life Field, which we think is technically the exosphere, they still look exactly the same. Like tiny little specks on a Google satellite map.
As for real tweaking of rules, MLB proved it was willing to do that as it got feedback from teams during spring training. This system isn’t perfect. Nothing is. Nobody wants to see a big at-bat influenced or a regular-season game ended by a clock violation. Baseball needs to be vigilant about making further tweaks because if it doesn’t, well, video lives forever. A regular-season game ends on a pitch clock violation and YouTube will break.
But, we should also mention, did anybody see C.B. Bucknor’s strike zone last week during the Rangers series with Philadelphia? Counts can be changed by arbitrary umpire calls. Well, at least until there is an automated ball-strike system. Trust us, there will be some issues there, too.
No system will be perfect, but the results from the first week suggest that, if not perfected, the game on the field has been greatly improved.
What more could MLB ask for?
