Reese Kaplan - How Have Baseball's Rules Changes Been Treating You?

While most folks are now either celebrating, vowing revenge or already burying their team of choice after completion of one game of the playoffs, it seems a good time to examine some of the recent changes in the game itself and debate whether that new way of doing things was an improvement in the overall experience of playing and watching the game we grew to love.

No other issue smacks National League fans across the face any more vividly than the implementation of the American League's Designated Hitter (DH) to replace the at-bats normally taken by the pitcher.  First implemented for the junior circuit in 1973 (before some of our readers were even born).  

People were horrified at the prospect of artificially adding a batter to the lineup and decried the way it would impact how pitchers were used or removed before necessary.  After its first month in the senior circuit there was probably only a minuscule number of inexorable types who could offer up nothing more profound than, "It just shouldn't be done" when asked why they opposed the whole concept.  

While the Mets are hardly a shining example of how a team could benefit most from an all-bat type of player in the DH role, the fact is not a single person has suggested returning to the designated strikeout taken by the pitcher at the plate.  

Then there are the speed-up-the-game rules that seem to grate on the nerves of most hardcore fans.  One of them that took place this season was the three-batter minimum a new pitcher must face.  Think how many times in the past you saw a manager bring in a lefty to face a lefty, then switch to a righty to face a righty.  That approach is now verboten!  

Another one was the runner-at-second start to extra inning games.  Personally I saw it in its experimental implementation in the minors and just shook my head with consternation that the game became less important than getting the fans out of the stadium that much faster.  When it arrived in the majors it was not well received by anyone, yet bank on it being here to stay.

Over the years the defensive team's manager has been going shift crazy to try to ward off ground balls and low line drives from getting through one side of the infield.  This past season was the last hurrah for moving the infielders around to that extreme as it is promised to end and 2023 will see a return to the old way of doing things.  

Technnology is a good thing in many cases.  For example, who used to envision in their heads what the strike zone looked like and then evaluated whether or not pitchers were hitting it with their deliveries.  Nowadays you get a superimposed graphic of the zone at the plate which makes you see how close the pitcher was to hitting the zone.  

Of course, the danger in this manner of showing the strike zone is that it reinforces the belief that umpires get it wrong and it foreshadows a day in the not-too-distant-future when that decision will be done with mathematical precision technologically instead of by the boys in blue.  

One of the more interesting technological tidbits recently witnessed was a tour of Wrigley Field and its surrounding neighborhood not by a handheld video camera with accompanying narration by a tour guide, but instead accomplished automatically by a flying drone carrying the camera to give the views that otherwise might have required a lot of handheld manpower to accomplish by other means.   

What changes have you liked?  Which things in the games need to remain the same?  What definitely needs some rethinking?