MLB Announces Experimental Rules in 2021

Like what? A baseball square instead of a diamond? No, silly. Actual rules. MLB has announced that MiLB will play guinea pig to several rule changes in 2021. Some for safety, some for gameplay, and some for game speed. These are just experimental, so nothing is officially going to be added at the MLB level just yet.

Larger bases

Chicago Cubs fans might remember Kris Bryant trying to beat out a grounder in September of 2019. The Cubs were in first at the time, but their lead was getting smaller by the day. When Bryant stretched out, he had an awkward landing on first base, which gave him a pretty bad ankle sprain.

In Triple-A this year, they will experiment with a larger base, increasing the size from 15-inches to 18-inches. This will help reduce collisions, potentially have a small impact on stolen bases, and possibly reduce the number of base-related injuries.

Ultimately, most people will think of this as a big nothing-burger, and it is. But it is a small nothing-burger that can help eliminate unnecessary injury and provide more base runners. Win-win.

Defensive positioning

Gettin rid of the shift!

In Double-A only, the defensive team must have a minimum of four players on the infield, each will need to have both feet completely in front of the outer boundary of the infield dirt. MLB will reserve the idea of having at least two infielders on the right and two infielders on the left of second base.

Some are for the elimination of the shift in baseball. Personally, I think teams should be able to shift, but I don’t like how much they have incorporated these insanely massive shifts in the last few seasons. I don’t like that there is a player basically playing short right field when a lefty is hitting. While, yes, the idea is to beat the shift by going the opposite way, hitters aren’t trained to do that any more and they also need to be pitched in a way that is conducive to hitting the ball to the opposite field.

Now, MLB may ask Double-A ball to eliminate the pull-side shift completely, but I think they accomplish some strong goals by just keeping infielders in the infield.

Step-off, man

In High-A ball, pitchers will need to completely disengage with the pitching rubber before throwing to a base. A similar rule was placed in the Atlantic League in 2019, and it resulted in an increase in stolen base attempts.

Of the first three rules, this one I don’t really care for. One, even with the rule implemented, the stolen base isn’t gone because pitchers were picking runners off at high rates. The stolen base has become less important because teams value outs at a higher level now than ever before. Why run into an out when the eighth batter in your lineup is hitting 25 homers a season? Maybe baseball anticipates some of the changes to the baseball having a bigger impact on home runs, but other than that I don’t get the draw of adding more outs into the game.

Sure, playing devil’s advocate, the stolen base is more exciting. They are usually bang-bang, and it is equally exciting when someone steals a base to when they are thrown out. So, I don’t know… maybe it is something I will come around to?

Limiting pickoffs, timers, and ABS?

These are speed up the game ideas. In all Low-A ball, they want to limit the amount of step-offs or pickoffs to two times a plate appearance. If a pitcher attempts a third time and the runner successfully returns to the base, the pitcher will have a balk called on him. Depending on how this goes, MLB may change this to only allowing “ONE” pickoff or step-off attempt.

I don’t necessarily believe speeding up the game will make kids gravitate to it. I don’t believe only allowing a pitcher to step off or throw over twice will help in any way. If I were a baserunner, after that second throw I would be baiting the pitcher into throwing over again and just get my free base. I see the point of this, and I think it can help increase stolen bases while reducing game time, but it just seems too weird to me.

In Low-A Southeast ball, they will also add the robo-umps, or ABS (Automatic ball-strike system). There will still be a home plate umpire, but the system will be there to back up the plate ump, while the plate ump will be there to back up the system.

Ensuring a consistent strike zone is importante. As I learned, if you give a pitcher two inches on the corners, you increase the strike zone by 35%.

Low-A West ball will also add a clock to ensure pitchers deliver their next pitch within a certain amount of time. I agree with this one. I know everyone has a process, but if they break those longer processes in the lower levels and continue with that clock throughout their playing career, it will speed up the game in a way that quite literally changes nothing in the way you watch or the way you play.

So what do you think of the changes? Let us know in the comments.