First off, I loved baseball as a kid. Loved it. Lived it. As a 7 year old in 1982, I knew every batting order in the National League (who cares about the American League until you have to see them in the World Series). I gradually grew less and less enamored by baseball as I got into my teens and now as a middle-aged man. I mean, I still like baseball but I do not love it like I once did.
I couldn't even tell you the starting lineups for last year's All Star Game.
The reason I say this is that is my context of baseball's rule changes for 2023. The two more prominent changes are the elimination of the shift and the pitch clock.
Let me quickly start with the shift. I'm all for going against the norms and finding loopholes in the rules and exploiting them if you can. That's what the shift was, and I was good with that. But it was a bit of a drag to see it used so often that it was choking offenses. Spare me the "well then hit 'em where they ain't" lines because baseball is hard to just to get a hit let alone be able to cue it to where you want. We have witnessed some off-putting baseball. So the easy fix was the new rule of two infielders ... actually in the infield ... must stay of opposite sides of second base. So you can still like the shortstop or second baseman close to the bag accordingly but we don't have three guys on one side of the field stuffing every ground ball. This is great.
Now for the pitch clock. I love it.
Is baseball's biggest problem the length of time it takes to complete a game? Probably not. The shift actually is worse. But the pitch clock has made baseball more fun to watch for me. I like cutting all that fat from the game. All the unneccesary time wasted walking around the mound, stepping off the rubber, or hitters adjusting batting gloves, helmets, guards, pants, junk, whatever. We don't get less baseball -- we get the same amount of baseball in a much more viewer friendly format.
I know there are traditionalists crying over this because baseball isn't supposed to have a clock. While that's cool and all, baseball has had issues with games going too long and that hurts developing a fan base. I'm the generation that began to see all night games in the World Series where I had to wake up the next morning to find out who won. I'm the generation that had to leave stadiums early because my dad ... and then me ... had to be at work early the next morning. I'm the one who has baseball games on as background noise instead of intently watching each moment like I'd do with the NBA or NFL. Especially in 2023 where if anything cool happens that I missed watching that second, I'd just rewind and view it. But other than the World Series, I never really sit and watch each pitch of a game. But I've been doing so with this pitch clock. The game doesn't lose me like it did because the next pitch is less than 15 seconds away.
And this must be great for baseball as a whole just as far as scheduling. If games begin around 7-ish, and they are lasting around 2.5 hours, you're on the road back home before 10pm. You can stay up and watch an entire game before going to bed. And TV-wise, baseball will be able to schedule somewhat similar to what all the other sports enjoy.
The NFL knows it can schedule a Sunday for a 9am game, 1pm game, 4:30pm game and an 8:30pm game and that rarely overlap. The NBA does so with games at 1pm, 3:30pm, 6pm, 8:30pm and 11pm. Baseball can try, but there was so much fat in there that it was impossible to plan. Imagine a playoff round with games at noon, 3pm, 6pm and 9pm that would wouldn't have to miss a pitch in any game? Plus there should be adequate time for a studio show round up.
Whatever.
For the people who don't like it ... I get that. But I'm not on your side. Baseball is better for this.
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