What to Expect from the Upcoming MLB Season

Baseball is a game that’s been played for over 100 years. With any sport that’s as old as this one, there are bound to be some changes. The MLB has made several rule changes in recent years, and many more are coming soon. These rule changes will impact the way baseball is played in the upcoming season, and hopefully make it even better than it already is. Don’t forget to check out the MLB odds for the upcoming season as you prepare for it.

Pitch Clock

The pitch clock will be used in the MLB. The clock will be 15 seconds, and umpires will signal when the first half of that time begins and ends with a white rectangle appearing on the scoreboard. The pitcher must have possession of the ball in his hand before starting his wind-up or other motion to deliver a pitch. If he does not do this, then four seconds are subtracted from their allotted time.

The MLB has stated that they would like to introduce a 15-second pitch clock for all games by 2023 at which point teams may challenge it by using instant replay if they feel there was an incorrect call made against them because of it being used incorrectly.

The MLB version in 2023 will alter slightly. When the bases are empty, there will be a 15-second timer between pitches; when there are runners on base, there will be a 20-second timer. The time between hitters is 30 seconds, much like in the minor leagues.

Pickoff Limit

This rule change will be a simple one: pitchers will be limited to three pickoff attempts per inning. This is in response to the rise in stolen base attempts over the past few years, which has led to significantly more strikeouts than ever before.

The hope is that this rule change will reduce the number of strikeouts and increase scoring. There are some concerns that pitchers may throw fewer pitches per batter due to the limit on pickoffs, but both sides seem happy with this decision for different reasons.

Defensive shift restriction

In 2023, baseball will make defensive shifts illegal. Defensive shifts are when defenders move their position away from where they would normally stand when not shifting to take advantage of an offensive player’s tendency to hit one side of the field more than another.

A popular example is having three infielders on one side of the second base while an outfielder covers shallow center field; this prevents any balls hit through that gap from being knocked down by infielders who are usually positioned closer together on each side of second base (and thus unable to get there before the ball).

Nowadays almost every team uses some form or another of defensive shift throughout games (even if it’s just swapping positions with each other during half innings), but baseball decided it was time for a change after years spent watching managers utilize this strategic maneuvering tool at every opportunity imaginable:

Bigger bases

Baseball, as you know, is a slow sport. The rules of the game are designed to favor pitchers over hitters and vice versa, resulting in a game where balls and strikes are called more often than they should be and players spend huge amounts of time standing around waiting for the other team to do something.

Baseball is a slow game because the bases are too small. Many people don’t understand this fact; they think it’s because batters take so long to hit that it slows down the action. But if you watch closely enough, you’ll notice that most pitches are thrown within 10 seconds or less (the fastest pitch ever thrown was recorded at 98 mph). So if batters were able to reach base faster than once every 3 minutes, then we’d see some progress in terms of speeding up baseball!

Conclusion

This MLB Season certainly has the potential to be interesting. At the very least, it is worth keeping an eye on as game time approaches. Will this season be a triumph for fans’ pastimes or just another in a long line of failures? Only time will tell, but until then there’s still plenty of baseball fandom to indulge in.