1:27 p.m.: In a statement, Tony Clark, executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, announced that players on the Competition Committee voted against today's change list.
“This afternoon, player representatives voted against the 2024 rule changes proposed by the Commissioner’s Office,” the statement said. “As they have made clear to the Competition Committee, the players strongly believe that following the sweeping changes to the fundamental rules of the game last season, immediate additional changes are unnecessary and provide no significant benefits for fans, players or the competition on the pitch. “This season should be used to collect additional data and fully examine the impact of reduced recovery time on health, safety and injuries. That’s what we’re going to focus on.”
1:15 p.m.: Major League Baseball announced a series of changes to the Official Rules of the Game, approved by the MLB Competition Committee (consisting of six owners, four players and an umpire). According to the league's press release, the changes are as follows:
- Runner track: The runner's lane will be widened to include the unpaved area between the foul line and the infield grass. By widening the lane, batters can take a more direct route to first base while maintaining protection from interference. The distance between the foul line and the infield grass will be between 18 and 24 inches at all parks, with MLB allowing some limited grace periods due to the difficulty of modifying the field (e.g., artificial turf field).
- Game pace: MLB proposed minor changes to the pace of game regulations to account for an increase in playing time over the course of the season – the average nine-inning pitch increased by seven minutes from April to September (five minutes after accounting for the number of pitches , breaks and runs). dotted).
- Timing between pitches: Reduce the time from 20 seconds to 18 seconds with runners on base. Pitchers began their throws in 2023 with an average of 7.3 seconds remaining on the 20-second timer. Pitchers retain the opportunity to strike out up to two times and reset the clock without penalty. In 2023, violations occurred least often with runners on base (14% of all violations vs. 32% of all pitches). A universal 17-second clock used for the final month of the Triple-A season did not result in an increase in violations with runners on base.
- Dough timeouts: Based on player feedback, MLB withdrew a proposal that would have required the home plate umpire to immediately reset the pitch clock after a batter called a timeout.
- Pitching changes: If a new pitcher enters the warning bar with less than 2:00 minutes remaining on the inning break clock, the clock will reset to 2:00, rather than 2:15, as was the case in 2023. Inning breaks that included a pitching change averaged 2 minutes and 35 seconds in 2023 (broadcasters are only guaranteed two minutes of commercial time).
- Hill visits: The number of mound visits will be reduced from five per game to four, and an additional mound visit will continue to be granted for the ninth inning if the defensive team has zero players remaining at the end of the eighth inning. Mound visits are one of the fans' least favorite events in baseball. In 2023, clubs averaged just 2.3 mound visits per game. Last season, 98% of games would not have exceeded the limit of four mound visits. To further improve the pace of the game, referees also allow defensive players to signal visit to the mound without actually visiting the mound.
- Workaround: The FTC (Field Timing Coordinator) will now restart the timer after a dead ball (e.g. a foul ball) when the pitcher has the ball and play is ready to resume. It is no longer required that the pitcher be on the mound, eliminating the pitcher's ability to delay the start of the timer by walking around the edge of the mound.
- Pitcher warming up must face at least one batter: A pitcher sent to warm up for an inning must face at least one batter (in addition to any requirements under the three-batter minimum rule). This season, there were 24 instances in which the pitcher warming up between innings was substituted before throwing a pitch (meaning about three minutes of rest per occurrence). There were two such cases during the 2023 World Series.
Runner track photo courtesy of Major League Baseball Communications Department.