Everything you’re not thinking (but should be) about baseball’s rule changes

There are the new rules. And then there are the new lessons being absorbed within the new rules.

The classroom has been open for a few weeks of spring training as 30 organizations try to prepare players, coaches and managers for the largest infusion of rule changes in history.

But it is one thing to be told there will be a pitch clock, the removal of extreme shifts, larger bases and fewer pickoff throws.

The other part of the agenda is finding all the nuances within the edicts. The true education only comes from playing games and experiencing the alterations.

So I figured I would use 3Up this week to offer insights that I would not have thought about without seeing the rules in play and talking to those on the ground who are learning in real time:

1. Watch this version of the game, and you know what really stands out? How long 20 seconds is.

With runners on base, pitchers must be into their delivery within 20 seconds of receiving the ball, generally from the catcher.

MLB’s new pitch clock will demand a focus from pitchers and hitters that did not always appear to be present in recent years.USA TODAY Sports

Hitters must have eyes on the pitcher ready to hit with no fewer than eight seconds left on the clock.

What those two strictures remove is all the wandering (around the mound and batter’s box) and all the quirks (constant visits to a rosin bag or the adjustment of batting gloves). It forces seriousness of purpose for both pitcher and hitter, and once there is seriousness of purpose, 20 seconds is a long time.

And that is important in conjunction with another rule: A pitcher may disengage from the rubber twice within a single plate appearance with a runner on base. Essentially that means the pitcher can throw over or step off the mound just two times as a way to deter a baserunner from trying to steal. On the third disengagement, there is either a successful pickoff or a balk is ruled and the runner(s) advance a base.

MLB surveying found fans wanted more action on the bases. And the disengagement rules in tandem with bigger bases (18-inch sides rather than 15-inch) that shorten the distance between bases by 4 ½ inches should deliver more steals and probably a better success rate.

There were roughly as many stolen bases attempted (3,297) last season as there were just successful steals 10 years earlier (3,229 in 2012).

This is mainly due to the analytics revolution. The groupthink was to avoid outs on the bases to — in general — create more opportunities for multi-run homers. The success rate in steals remained basically static for the decade. It was 74 percent in 2012 and 75.4 percent in 2022.

Judging by spring training games, the use of larger bases and limit on pickoff attempts should generate more stolen base attempts.Getty Images

This spring, steal attempts are up roughly one per game.

Last year, for the entirety of spring (remember, due to the lockout, it lasted just three weeks), there were 300 stolen bases in 411 tries (73 percent). This spring (through Wednesday), base stealers were 335 out of 413 (81.1 percent).

This appears to be validating the concerns of pitchers that they have been stripped of weapons to counter the running game.

Which brings us back to the 20 seconds and just how long it plays on a field.

A pitcher who comes set at, say, 10 seconds and waits for the hitter to be ready with no fewer than eight seconds left has those eight seconds to play with before beginning his delivery. As many of you probably noticed, Max Scherzer has been varying his times to the plate during his starts, experimenting with what will unsettle hitters and baserunners.

This is going to be a valuable tool to attempt to slow runners, who are trying to time a pitcher to get the best possible break. Pitchers can disrupt timing by delivering a pitch quickly or slowly or somewhere in the middle.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts stole 245 bases during the regular season and postseason during his career, including (sorry, Yankees fans) perhaps the most important steal in history in Game 4 of the 2003 ALCS.

When I asked him what bothered him most in trying to steal — a step-off, a throw-over or pitchers holding in the set and varying their times to the plate — he said: “A hold and varying times. That’s it. And our guys [pitchers] are trying to do a better job at valuing that part of the game. I have talked about this for years: I think we have the smartest players in baseball. That doesn’t get quantified. But it shows up in stuff — in stuff like this. Smart players are going to understand. They are going to learn the rules, and then they will work within those parameters to find advantages and benefits.”

Max Scherzer has experimented this spring with varying his pitch delivery times in hopes of unsettling hitters and baserunners.Corey Sipkin for NY Post

One pitching coach stated: “The dumb, unathletic pitcher is going to have lots more trouble.”

Translation: It takes intelligence and poise to adjust to new rules within real-time game situations, and athleticism to create multiple new practices on how to deliver the ball with runners on base.

One veteran scout added: “We are going to set a record — if the record is even kept — on the number of back picks [throws by the catcher behind the runner at first base]. Those are unlimited, and teams will use that [to go after runners].”

2. I was chatting with Diamondbacks GM Mike Hazen about the new rules and he said, “In aggregate, this will be one of the best things that has ever happened to baseball.”

He then pursued a subject I had never considered with the pitch clock, which, in particular, is expected to shorten the lengths of games (spring games were being played 25 minutes faster on average than last year) and perhaps kill the interminable four-hour game that seemed to become an AL East speciality.

So I will let his answer run in full here:

“For me, it’s about the players,” Hazen said. “The players are going to be on their feet so much less. That is going to have a beneficial impact on injuries to me. Standing on your feet for four hours on a Saturday night, turning around and playing a day game the next day for another four hours, and then getting on a plane and flying across the country, and instead you’re playing the game in two hours and 30 minutes to two hours and 45 minutes. On aggregate over a 24-hour period, you’ve chopped two hours of a player standing on his feet, and then multiply that by 162 [games]. How can that not be a benefit to players? And that will improve the game because we’re going to keep our best players on the field. We always talk about that: Keep the best players on the field. Fans want to see the best players. I just think that’s going to be the result. I might be wrong.

Shorter games should allow players to keep off their feet and stay healthier while navigating the 162-game season.AP

“How long does a Saturday night Red Sox-Yankees game take (Hazen worked for the Red Sox from 2006-16)? A player is getting home, what, not before 1 a.m.? Then you turn around and play at 1 p.m. the next day. Even if you’re playing Sunday Night Baseball and [afterward] those two teams are flying — one to the West Coast and one to Texas. The [Sunday night] game starts at 7 p.m. Eastern, which is an improvement [it used to be 8 p.m.], and the national game lasts longer because there are longer commercial breaks in between innings. That’s just the biggest thing for me — the game is going to be sped up. We’re all going to speed up. We’ll be pushing action. That’s great for the fans and everything else, but definitely great for the players. That is what the game is about, and I think that is what these rules are going to do.”

3. Let’s visit a familiar slow dance from the game: Seventh inning. A pitcher in trouble. A reliever begins to warm up.

The manager wants to get that reliever into the game for the next batter. So a signal goes to the catcher to slowly walk to the mound to fake chat with the pitcher. Wait until the ump comes to break it up, which varies in timing based on the tolerance of the ump. The catcher then slowly walks back to his position, and begins to reposition himself,

Then the manager calls time from the dugout and begins his slow procession to the mound. Again, what is the tolerance for the ump to let this go on? The manager then waits for the ump to come out, and maybe he chats a bit before signaling which reliever he wants.

Now that reliever makes a long, slow walk to the mound, and is afforded eight warmup pitchers before — finally — a fully ready reliever gets set and the game can be renewed.

It is hard to believe this amount of dead time was tolerated.

Pitching changes also will be governed by a clock starting this season, limiting the time a manger has to call someone in from the bullpen and the pitcher’s warmup time.Getty Images

It won’t be any longer.

The rule now is if a catcher calls time, he has 30 seconds to wrap up his conversation, at which point the pitch clock will begin. The manager and pitching coach also have 30 seconds from when time is called in the dugout to leave the mound because the pitch clock starts again.

That also counts as two of five permitted visits by anyone (manager, pitching coach, catcher, infielder) to the mound for the game (one extra visit is allowed in the ninth inning if a team has run out).

If a reliever is summoned, he has 2:15 from that point until the next pitch has to be thrown. If the umpires determine the reliever is trying to get extra throws in the bullpen, the clock will be started. If the reliever takes his time from the bullpen to the mound, it will mean fewer pitches to warm up and acclimate to a new mound. The umpire will signal with 40 seconds left that there is just one more warmup pitch allowed.

All of this will decrease the stalling when the ill-prepared manager/pitching coach does not have a reliever up in time.

“Managers probably in the past have thought, ‘OK, I’m three hitters away, that’s when I have to get my reliever warming up,’” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “But if the at-bats are going faster [because of the pitch clock] and you are shaving, what, 90 seconds off [in a stall], which may be another, what, seven warmup pitches, you may have to think about getting someone up a batter earlier.”

Giants manager Gabe Kapler concurred with that, but also noted another potential side effect: If you are getting relievers up a little sooner, it also raises the probability of more times when an inning ends without them being used. Still, that reliever had to go into full get-hot-and-ready-to-pitch mode and therefore might not be available either that game or the next game.

To that end, Kapler said that if you only have two relievers you really trust, it will be more problematic because you don’t want to risk making them unavailable without being used.

Baseball’s new time constraints won’t give managers but a handful of seconds to decide whether they want to ask for a replay review.Getty Images

“That’s a real challenge,” Kapler said. “If you have a more mix-and-match bullpen, where on some days you can get a group hot and then sit them back down because you had to be out in front of having a pitcher ready, it’s a little less stressful because you have a group of bullpen arms you depend on and have trust in, and so you can use those guys the next day.”

Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi brought up one other potential fallout from this:

“It’ll be really interesting to track mid-inning pitching changes and whether we see a drop in those for exactly these reasons,” Zaidi said. “Between innings, you have a lot of time to think about what you want to do. But managers always talk about how quickly things happen, and now they are going to be happening quicker.”

OK, because we love our readers in this little corner of the world, let’s add a fourth item to think about:

4. There is no replay being used in spring training. So there is no preparation for another system that is going to go quicker in the regular season.

The rule will be that a manager will have to alert a designated umpire — usually the home-plate ump or crew chief — immediately after a play ends if he wants to challenge. At that point, a 15-second clock will begin and the manager must decide within that window — a window that might be so quick that he cannot get a proper read from his replay reviewer in the clubhouse.

And only the manager can alert an ump he wants to consider a challenge after a play, so if the manager is doing something else on the bench, he may not have the time to do this.

“I wonder if this is going to force managers who, say, sit on the bench or talk to their pitching coach about taking a guy out during innings to [forgo that] and be on the top step of the dugout at all times,” Zaidi said.