By Logan Sellers, JRN 111 Student

Jack Hoh has been playing and following baseball passionately his whole life. It is second nature to him. But he has a problem.

During games, Hoh, a catcher for the Moraine Valley Cyclones, suddenly has to process and think about the rules. Or rethink them. In fact, it’s not just an issue for Hoh, but for most baseball players.

Just over a year ago, Major League Baseball introduced a new set of rules that has trickled down into all levels of baseball. A sport that lives on its history was dying a slow death. And while it has always been reluctant to change a thing, this time baseball felt it was important to make fundamental changes to bring the sport into the modern era.

It was wholesale changes to a game that was getting too slow and, in the opinion of a dwindling number of customers, boring.

Baseball is changing, and it might be for the best…though it’s not without problems.

“I do keep the new rules in mind because they are still pretty new to me,’’ Hoh said. “I’ve been playing and watching baseball my whole life, but last year I had to learn a few new ones that are a big factor in a game if you are not aware of them.’’

Among the changes, MLB introduced a pitch clock, forcing pitchers to start their windup within 20 seconds of stepping onto the mound and batters to hurry back into the batter’s box to be ready for the next pitch after 8 seconds. The bases have been made larger, slightly cutting down the distance between bases so players will consider stealing bases or laying down bunts.

On defense, pitchers are limited to two disengagements from the mound per batter. And baseball banned extreme shifts: Teams can’t put extra defenders on one side of the infield but instead have to keep them spread out, which allows for more base hits.

Baseball has reintroduced, well, baseball, to the sport. All the nuance and grace of the game had been reduced to batters swinging as hard as they could and hitting home runs or striking out. In eternal games.

Moraine Valley freshman Danny Baeza had strong opinions on how the rules changed how the game is perceived.

“Baseball’s biggest problem is there’s such limited action,’’ Baeza said. “Football has big hits and superhuman athletes. Basketball has crazy dunks and deep threes. The new rules make hits more likely, players steal bases more often because of the bigger bases and limited pitcher disengagement, and the games are more bearable because pitchers can’t stall after every pitch.” 

Still, these rules have the biggest impact on the players, as they have to relearn a game they’ve been playing and watching their whole life. 

Nathan Montalto, a freshman pitcher for Saint Xavier University, has observed some difficulties with the new pitch clock.

“Some guys are having arm issues from the pitch clock making them move faster,” Montalto said. “It also causes players to think a little less and just react due to the higher pace of play, and it can cause more errors on the field.’’

The players are putting the game at risk trying to learn the new rules and having to make changes to how they play in order to accommodate them.

One rule change is that in extra innings, a team starts with a runner on second base. The hope is to keep the action going and prevent games from slowing down and lasting forever while players get too tired to force action.

But it was not uncommon in the Major Leagues last year to see runners just get stuck there on second base. With the old nuances of the game, a batter would have simply bunted or intentionally sacrificed himself by hitting the ball to the first base side of the infield. That would have simply moved the runner from second to third base. And then a fly ball or maybe another ground ball would have scored the runner.

Instead, those skills had become lost arts.

There are some differences in the new rules in each level and some difficulty implementing them as well. It makes it harder for players to learn the rules as they play and develop but also makes it harder for them to be aware of the rules if there are challenges incorporating them. 

“Some guys are having arm issues from the pitch clock making them move faster. It also causes players to think a little less and just react due to the higher pace of play, and it can cause more errors on the field.’’

Nathan Montalto, Freshman pitcher for Saint Xavier University

Hoh thinks the rules should be the same at all levels of baseball, and that not being the case makes things difficult on the players.

“I think it is too confusing,’’ Hoh said, “especially with new rules being implemented that the MLB and college are using similar yet different rules.’’

Montalto has witnessed the issues with the rules firsthand and believes that the rules should be the same but that the difficulties need to be ironed out first.

“I think most rules should be the same but as for pitch clock rules, it’s hard to enforce that at younger ages because there isn’t a pitch clock for the pitcher, hitter and umpire to see,” Montalto said.

Despite the difficulties the players can have adapting to the new rules, the effect on the game is exactly what the MLB and baseball fans wanted. Ratings are up, enjoyment is up, and players are having more fun. 

MLB’s attendance was up 9.6 percent in the 2023 season, and it was also the first time since 2017 attendance had reached 70 million, getting up to 70.7 million on the year, according to Forbes magazine. 

One of the biggest complaints among fans and players was that the games took too long to finish, causing the game to become boring and making the players exhausted.

In 2021, the average run time of an MLB game was 3:10, an all time high for baseball. In 2023, with the new rules, the average run time was 2:38. This was a major success for the MLB and made the fans and players extremely happy. 

“I would say the new changes were a good thing from my perspective,” Hoh said. “A big plus is that games are now moving at speeds that they never did before. Playing wise, I like how quick the game moves now. I feel like I can stay mentally locked in even better than before.” 

The new rules made things complicated when they were first implemented, but as time went on and the players and fans got used to them, things changed. The game became more fun to play and was more enjoyable for the fans. 

“The game is better now than it ever was,’’ Baeza said. “There’s excitement in every game, and baseball as a whole has gained so much popularity and more fans over the last few years. The new rules are the best thing to ever happen to baseball.”

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Featured image graphic by EMILY MERAZ