MLB Is Testing Ideas in the Atlantic League
Last week, Major League Baseball and the independent Atlantic League announced a partnership to test certain rule changes that could be coming to MLB. This deal is noteworthy for a few reasons. First, the introduction of an automatic strike zone suggests that the role of big league umpires could be changing. Second, the rule changes themselves, which range from the interesting to the just plain weird, suggest a continued emphasis on more balls being put in play, and greater action on the field. Third, the Atlantic League will become the first unaffiliated league with access to Trackman data, creating a more robust way of seeing potential differences between the leagues’ talent levels, and potentially creating a new pipeline for prospective major leaguers.
Let’s start with the rule changes themselves.
The following new rules will be in place for the 2019 Atlantic League Championship Season:
- Home-plate umpire assisted in calling balls and strikes by a TrackMan radar tracking system
- No mound visits permitted by players or coaches other than for pitching changes or medical issues
- Pitchers must face a minimum of three batters, or reach the end of an inning before they exit the game, unless the pitcher becomes injured
- Increase size of first, second and third base from 15 inches square to 18 inches square
- Require two infielders to be on each side of second base when a pitch is released (if not, the ball is dead and the umpire shall call a ball)
- Time between innings and pitching changes reduced from 2:05 to 1:45
- Distance from pitching rubber to home plate extended 24 inches, in the second half of the season only; with no change to mound height or slope.
Robot umpires? Robot umpires! We’ve talked before about how, given the way the ball and strike rules are currently worded, introducing robot umps would require pretty significant rule changes. Now some umpires have been maligned (often fairly) for the eccentricities of their unique strike zones. Joe West and Angel Hernandez certainly come to mind. But while having an automated ball and strike system might help, the difference might be less than you think.
With news that the Atlantic League will use Trackman to help umpires call balls and strikes, looking up some umpire data. ESPN Stats & Info has Joe West with the worst correct call rate in 2018 (88.8%). Mark Wegner and Will Little the best at 92.9%.
— David Schoenfield (@dschoenfield) March 8, 2019
How accurate robot umps will be relative to their human counterparts remains an open question. Missing 10% of all calls is, well, less than ideal, and the limited spread between Wegner and Little on the one hand, and Staring Joe West on the other, suggests that umpire quality, at least in this one area, is pretty uniform; other research, like this piece from Michael Lopez and Sadie Lewis, suggests that there is an appreciable range of quality among major league umpires.
On the other hand, what limited data we have suggests that an automated strike zone, at its current level of development, might be even worse than the one we see now. As Rob Arthur wrote a couple of years ago for FiveThirtyEight,
Errors in both horizontal and vertical movement have never been higher in the four years that Statcast has made some of its data publicly available.2 So it’s not just your imagination as you watch the game on TV: In-broadcast representations of the strike zone (like FoxTrax) take their data from Statcast, and Statcast’s errors, in turn, have bred anger with umpires and confusion over how pitches are being called.
Statcast runs into the most trouble when it’s quantifying pitch break, or the degree to which pitches move up and down or side to side as they travel between the mound and the plate. Third-party observers have catalogued numerous inaccuracies with Statcast’s break numbers. “It appears that the current Statcast/TrackMan h[orizontal]/v[ertical] break can be up to 3 inches divergent from the truth, simply comparing it to 2016 PITCHf/x data,” said Kyle Boddy, a data-driven trainer with multiple MLB clients.
Three-inch disparities, for the record, are par for the course for Angel Hernandez. Would we really be okay with robot umps that have Hernandez’s accuracy? Probably not, but perhaps this can help move the technology forward.
There’s one more interesting effect of this new partnership for umpires. Major league umpires are potentially watching their employer test their replacements in real time. In fact, if I had to guess, I’d say this is a big reason why MLB chose the Atlantic League, as opposed to an affiliated minor league, to try this out – so as to avoid the umpires’ union publicly protesting the plan. It will be interesting to see what measures their union takes, if any, in response to this development – and if the experiment is a success, how quickly the union will move to preserve its members’ jobs.
A number of the other changes will also have an effect on the balance between pitching and hitting. Moving the mound back can reduce a pitcher’s effective velocity, because it gives a hitter that much more time to recognize and adjust to a pitch. It seems pretty clear that the goal of this change, and of banning the shift, is to increase offense, but it remains to be seen what the other side effects would be. Will the extra two feet increase injury risk? Will fewer infield shifts lead to more outfield shifts? Will the additional balls put in play make a noticeable difference in how fans experience these games?
And what’s most interesting is the idea that all of these drastic rule changes are going to be tried at the same time. What we don’t know is how the people analyzing the data will be able to separate the signal from the noise and determine which of the changes is having a specific result. Is offense up because of the mound distance change, or the shift ban, or more tired pitchers?
On the flip side, the existence of Trackman and Statcast will suddenly make the Atlantic League, on the surface, a pretty desirable landing spot for players in unaffiliated ball looking for a shot at the big leagues, whether for the first time or as they make their way back from injury or poor performance. After all, they now know that major league organizations will be keeping a pretty close eye on the league this season. Rich Hill might be the most famous Atlantic League alumnus, but he’s hardly the only one.
The presence of Trackman units means that Atlantic League players, and the major league teams scouting them, will have access to a season’s worth of spin rates and exit velocities, which should help to identify talent that could pass muster in affiliated ball. On the other hand, it remains to be seen whether scouts and front offices will discount players’ performance in the unaffiliated circuit as a result of the changes being made. Will they discount hitting performances because they’re inflated by the more distant mound and the absence of shifts? Will they view pitcher performance as just too noisy given all of the variables? New paths to the majors are a good thing, and more eyeballs on the Atlantic League could help accomplish that. But it remains to be seen how those new eyes will consider what they’re seeing, and how big of a role Trackman data will play.
There’s also the possibility that this kind of scattershot testing actually reduces innovation. We’ve seen independent leagues used as testing grounds for new strategies before, made possible by the separation between MLB and unaffiliated ball. It’s possible that this new partnership will lead to greater control of the independent leagues by MLB, thereby making them less, well, independent. But at the same time, we don’t really know how this partnership will really play out. It’s just one more thing to watch as the 2019 season commences.
Sheryl Ring is a litigation attorney and General Counsel at Open Communities, a non-profit legal aid agency in the Chicago suburbs. You can reach her on twitter at @Ring_Sheryl. The opinions expressed here are solely the author's. This post is intended for informational purposes only and is not intended as legal advice.
Where does this antipathy towards the shift come from? The feeling seems to be that people dislike the brand of TTO baseball favoured by analytical front offices. They want to see more balls in play, contact hitting, and stolen bases. So then why try to ban the defensive strategy that is a direct response to that sort of hitting and that most hurts TTO hitters?
Because they (the MLB) want to see more contact hitting, stolen bases, and balls in play? The GM’s react to the best strategies according to the rules, but the best current strategies might not be the most entertaining.
Stolen Bases for example, are really entertaining to me, but in decline. So if there are more SB’s, I might be more inclined to watch!
What’s funny is banning the shift should increase TTO hitting. Less penalty for the sell-out pull power approach (think Chris Davis, Vintage Papi, etc.).
The shift encourages/forces hitters to spread the ball around. That, coupled with the new ball, has led to an increase in all-fields power.
I also think of players like Mauer that would do better without the shift that didnt have a lot of power.
I loved Mauer but I was more upset with the outfield shift stealing left-center and foul line doubles from him than the infield shift stealing groundball singles to right.
I think you’re severely overestimating the amount of players that change their approach because of a shift. The vast majority stick with their same approach and just hope they don’t hit it right at somebody.
Yeah there are actually a pretty substantial amount of players that are pretty outspoken about how they don’t change their approach at the plate to counter shifts.
Their responses come from people that say that players should just ‘go the other way’, or ‘just bunt it’. But in reality, I would say probably atleast 70% of all hitters getting shifted — don’t veer from their strategy.
This could change drastically in the future (if the shift were to stay), as the next generation of players are probably exposed more to defensive shifts; which in turn, I’m sure ‘countering defensive shifts’ could start becoming a new baseball curriculum starting at the high school level.
“…a pretty substantial amount of players that are pretty outspoken about how they don’t change their approach at the plate to counter shifts.”
all this tells me is that there are a substantial number of stupid players, nothing more.
It is interesting to note that Big Papi did not strike out 100 times in any of his last six seasons.
So you ban the shift and lower the mound too
the integrity of the game is more important than MLB’s marketing priorities.
if you need max. entertainment, then try watching the NFL… have a heaping dose of the ‘entertaining’ strategy over there – it’s really working out well for them. /sarc
I’m pretty much agnostic to most changes (mound distance, mound visits), or think that there are problems with implementation but it could work well in theory (3 batter rule; robot umps). But banning the shift somehow manages to be both bad in theory and practice. The worst thing about football, aside from the brain damage, is the near-infinite exceptions to every single rule. The worst thing about pro basketball back in the day was the illegal defense rule. Telling defensive players where they can set up shop is pretty much the fastest way to ruin a game.
I am surprised that someone as knowledgeable as you wouldn’t be interested in the mound distance. i cannot think of any other change that would bring more contact back into the game and, with that, more hits and, one of my favorite plays, more use of the hit and run. That is lowering the effective velocity by 3% which could do a lot to return the balance between pitching and hitting. I agree with you completely on the shift and second your reasoning behind it.
I like the game as it is now. I think I would like the game just as much with the mound distance further back (or lowering the mound). It’s not so much that I think it wouldn’t make a difference, it’s that I think I would be fine either way.
I have loved the game for a zillion years, today being my 77th birthday, and it has never been anything but fascinating to watch the hitter-pitcher confrontation. Having said that, however, I believe that key element of the game has tilted too much in favor of the pitcher and the game is better with fewer strike outs and more balls in play. If you haven’t, go read the link to “that much more time to recognize and adjust”. It was written in 2014 but a lot of the ideas that are becoming popular in today’s game are there.
Happy birthday!
I don’t think people who dislike TTO baseball also enjoy watching ground balls hit into the shift? Why would they? Hitting into the shift isn’t just unexciting, it deflates excitement without even giving the viewer a defensive gem to gawk at. It’s conducive to TTO baseball because it gives lefties all the more reason to go all or nothing with their swings.
Uhh no. TTO hitters get shifted because they swing for the fences and sell out for pull-side power…. hence the shift to that side. The shift kills TTO hitters (like Chris Davis) and helps baseball to get rid of these one-dimensional hitters by turning them into out machines.
Contact hitters who spray the ball to all fields don’t get shifted.
It’s mostly one Rob Manfred. I haven’t seen any concerted opposition to the shift in the real world, and in fact the pull shift is more old school baseball than analytics.
Banning the shift will reduce the number of balls in play, going against what MLB wants… Chris Davis-type TTO sluggers will return. Nice one MLB!
Very strange experimental design, doing them all at once like this.
I wonder if people will be surprised by robot umps’ uniform zone driving more walks and strikeouts, without human umps’ tendency to call a small zone in pitchers’ counts and vice versa.
That was my first thought. It’s not much of an experiment, and while you could try to piece back together what change was responsible for an outcome, it’s possible that, say, the interaction between robot umps and banning the shift could cause some weird outcomes.
Right, and how are they planning to isolate the strike zone effects of the robots versus the strike zone effect of the extra mound distance?
That is why mound thing is only done in second half
It’s perfectly good experimental design, because none of this is being done to actually learn how any of these things work. It’s being done to find out which of them players and fans hate most and which they’d be willing to put up with. So it makes sense to throw them at the people all at once.
Where did the bigger bases thing even come from?
Maybe baserunners stepping on the feet of fielders? I’m not really sure though, that’s just my first thought.
To prevent “accidents” like Machado?
Bigger bases is the one idea where I think pretty much everyone wins. It’s safer and doesn’t impact competition. On double plays at 2B it gives the 2B/SS more room to avoid the runner. On close plays at 1B, there is more room for 2 large cleated feet (and as an added bonus, on bunts etc., a late-covering player will have an easier time finding the 1B bag with their foot while fielding the throw).
What I really want to know is this: Are the bases being expanded uniformly, or 3″ in the directions away from the infield/base paths? The latter is my preference (you’d have to design a base with the post off-center). If the bases just stick out 1.5″ farther from the existing centered post, you’re reducing the effective distance between 1B-2B and 2B-3B by 3 inches (1.5 inches for H-1B and 3B-H since the plate isn’t changing). I think that would be enough to increase offense slightly (bases expanded away from the base paths would not do that).
Yep I think the change to the bases are sort of killing two birds with one stone..
It’s improving safety for reasons docgooden just mentioned, while also taking 3″ away from the distance to each bag, except from third to home and home to first, obviously.
Ben talked about it on EW, and basically him and his co-host (I forgot his name.. Sam?) determined it was the only way to really try and bring back stolen bases as well, as they couldn’t possibly change the 90-foot layout of the infield. Three inches could make a pretty visible difference for base runners. We shall see!
The mound change, though.. ?? So now all of college baseball and high school will have to make the same change..?? That just seems over the top.
A larger base also gives a baserunner a larger target when trying to beat the tag. It probably makes it easier for a baserunner to stay on the base as well, hopefully reducing the number of times we go to replay for those ‘gotcha’ moments when the runner comes off the bag for a split second.
The 1.5″ reduction from the distance between home and first may also ever so subtlety promote contact.
This is a super interesting topic that isn’t being covered enough. Thanks Sheryl!
Any idea what the reasoning is on increasing base size? Less pick-offs? More steal attempts?
Likely an overreaction to Machado being a d-bag…
A subtle 3 inch decrease in the distance between bases, and a larger target for baserunners trying to take the extra base. This will have a slight positive effect for baserunners and base stealers.
I can’t see how robo-umps actually endanger umpires jobs. You’ll still need a homeplate umpire for HBP, swing or no swing, foul tip or not, and half a dozen other calls. And it makes no difference to any other umpire’s duties.
Now, since with robo-ump you can argue an umpire is easier to replace, it may reduce their leverage in pay and benefits discussions, but they won’t let any of their umpires go because they have robo-ump calling balls and strikes.
When I go to baseball games, it’s to watch the umpires. Sure, some people enjoy watching a batter try to catch up to a 99 mph fastball as is sinks down and away. Me? I get just as jazzed wondering how Blue is going to make the call. Taking that away is every bit as bad as what the designated hitter does to the pureness of the sport. It’s just wrong.
Unless my sarcasm detector is broken, this is the opposite of my opinion. Umpires are by far the worst thing about baseball and I want them to go far away. Especially when they try to redefine reality by being clearly wrong (Joe!).
Umm, rather than “broken”, how ’bout ‘phasered into nothingness’?
Fair enough, I suspected but it should be slightly more unhinged to be obvious sarcasm! It sounds like a plausible position to me. There are a ton of people out there who actually enjoy umpires and whatever the heck a “human element” is (seemingly it just means wrong calls). The only thing I would miss is manager meltdowns a la Cox and Weaver.
I would imagine that robo-umps will ultimately not have much of an affect on the human umps. From what I can tell, the umpire union is pretty strong; and I doubt they will be willing to budge as far as having to essentially fire or lay off a bunch of umpires.
And like you said: You still have to have human umps for literally everything else other balls/strikes… so why not just take the ‘used-to-be-home-plate-umpire’ and stick him out on the field to help out the other three?? That would improve the balls-in-play calls and keep these guys from losing their jobs.
Because you actually still need him where he is, even with a robot calling balls and strikes.
Foul tip or not is more a matter of hearing than seeing, he needs to be there. Calling time-out, he needs to be there. Fair or foul on a ball that bounces near the plate, he needs to be there. Hit by a pitch or not, and if hit is it a free base, strike, or ball (all three are possible calls), he needs to be there. Swing or no swing, well, that one can usually be handled by 1st or 3rd base ump, but it’s still an umpire call. Out or safe at home, definitely needs to be there, and one of the most important calls in the game.
What’s the purpose of moving the pitching rubber back 2 feet?
Yah, that one confused me a little. I think it’d be better/safer if they just lowered the mound…
I’m skeptical that lowering/moving the mound will have any significant impact on balls in play or hitting. I could even see a scenario where moving it back makes hitting a bit tougher because while it may reduce velocity it also gives pitches more time to move. Instead of a 8″ break on a slider from 60′ maybe a guy now has a 10-11″ break from 62′.
Just a thought.
I’ve thought for a while that if at some point when the technology is favorable, if MLB would put in “robot umps” for the strike zone but the only signal from the robot ump would be, say, a small vibrator on the “real” umps index finger that tells him/her the robot ump thinks it’s a strike – the real ump can call it whatever he/she wants to. I think over time that would lead to more consistency, but only if the technology starts doing good and gets better over time.
Thanks for the article, Sheryl.
Equipping the umps with small vibrators on their fingers you say? Sounds like the post game umpire locker rooms are about to get craaaazy
The issue with robo-umps not calling breaking pitches correctly is huge, and single-handedly defeats the purpose. Some baseball fans enjoy the “human element” of the game, which includes not getting every call right (and presumably, the effects of “pitch framing” and the like). Others, like myself, would much rather prefer that the calls just be made as accurately as possible.
If the technology simply isn’t there yet though, then what’s the point? Given a human or occasionally screws up or a machine that screws up an equal amount of time, then yeah, I’ll side with the “human element” people. Fix the technology, then we can talk.
From my understanding of the quoted portion, robo-umps have trouble determining how much a pitch breaks, which is not relevant to calling balls and strikes. It doesn’t mention anything about an inability to measure where the pitch crosses home plate.
robo ump is sad and will be end of baseball if implemented. The best pitch framers in the game only steal about 2 pitches a game…yet the commisioner wants to make drastic change for those 2 pitches. SAD.
Whats really sad is that fangraphs doesn’t even acknowledge pitch framing is real and won’t implement into war calculations for catchers. FG war for catchers only tell you how can a C can hit….well i don’t need FG to tell me that. FG always comes up with many many excuses….but at same time think their should be robo umps. SAD
I’d imagine that the umpires would still be the umpires, with less mistakes, which is what everyone wants, right? I am a bit surprised by the moving the mound back, as I thought they would lower the mound first. However if decreasing strikeouts is their goal, I think moving it back would work more than moving the mound down, so that might work ultimately.
I like the three batter minimum rule, two might of worked as well, but three would certainly get rid of the importance of loogys, ultimately helping the players association as well likely lengthening the careers of bat only players who have been in the union the longest.
No mound visits makes sense, and I think we can agree with that.
Not a fan of the shift rule. While I might like the bat only pull happy veterans more than most, I think this rule is ultimately very stupid, and won’t accomplish anything.
Last, moving the mound back midseason is a very weird thing. That is going to change the game considerably, and I can’t imagine that pitching prospects are going to like it.
I remember reading that moving the mound back could, counter-intuitively, increase strikeouts, since it would give breaking pitches more time and space to break, thus increasing the frequency with which batters are fooled. That could more than make up for the slightly decreased fastball velocity. I guess we’ll see.
This was my first thought as well. If I lose 2mph or so on my fastball but gain 2-3″ of break on my slider/curve/cutter/change etc etc I’m not mad about it at all.
The hitter has longer to recognize it too. The extra 2 feet will aid pitch recognition and let the hitter start the swing later. That should mitigate the benefits of the late movement.
How much is 2 feet really going to aid pitch recognition though? a 95mph pitch is moving at 139 feet per second. Which means it takes 0.431 seconds to reach home from the current mound distance. Moving the mound back 2 feet bumps that number up to a “whopping” 0.446 seconds. So hitters have an extra 0.015 seconds to react.
Granted this is all back of the envelope figuring (and does not even account for the fact that pitchers dont release the ball at 60′) but not sure that is going to make any perceived difference at all.
Nothing like changing 7 (!) variables at once and then parsing through the data to try and figure out what the heck changed what.
Lol yes this. You’d think they would do it month by month or something of that nature. That would be difficult as roster turnover is usually quite high, guys sometimes get 5 at bats before being released, and weather, etc, but you would think 1 change per month would be ideal.
100% agree. It smacks of desperation by the commissioner to improve the on-field product – pace of play, “action on the field”, etc.
To me, it smacks more of the Commissioner not giving a single crap as to what actually happens TO this independent league as a result of the changes. It’s just a lab with lab animals so far as he’s concerned.
He has more autonomy to play with potential changes in the Atlantic League than he does in the minors, especially if some of these ideas prove to be awful. Hey, the Atlantic League could have said no, so they are willingly accepting of being guinea pigs here.
What happens to this independent league is that they get free tech equipment paid for by the MLB, additional exposure, increased interest from certain demographics, and probably non-negligible quantities of actual cash.
This is how race car setups work too. Start by throwing stuff at the wall and see what sticks. Then add millions of dollars. There are just hopelessly too many variables (inside the car and outside it) to really isolate one thing, so they do the best they can, with the aid of lots of data and computing power (and a dose of intuition). However, when they find a “package” that works, then they will start to tweak things individually to gauge effects but it’s still an art and a science. (I highly recommend The Physics of NASCAR to those who enjoyed The Physics of Baseball…and the latter to anyone who somehow hasn’t read that one yet!) Note-I don’t particularly enjoy racing but I find the R&D/science fascinating.
Despite the fact that I live less than five minutes from New Britain Stadium, the former home of the Double-A New Britain Rock Cats, I have not been there since they became the Yard Goats and moved to Hartford. The Atlantic League New Britain Bees play there now and I cannot wait to go this spring and see what the Angel Hernandez Destroyer does, but just what does “assist” mean? The other experiment that seems to be relevant is moving the rubber back to 62’6, In addition to lessening the value of velocity, there will certainly be a large impact on how breaking balls react but I will have to wait until the second half of the season to see what that looks like.
You’re from the George Springer neck of the woods?
He used to workout at the same gym as we do. What a physical specimen he is.
Shift rule can be easily manipulated…
SS moves to LF spot. 3B stays at his typical “SS” shift position. Two infielders on left side of second base. Do what you will with the other 5. One of the outfielders becomes the deep second base position playing on grass.
It can always be manipulated unless they say, “this is your spot and you have a 20 foot radius pre-pitch.” Not advocating that at all. The positions became the positions because that’s where batters tend to hit the balls.
Goddamn, they are trying to ruin baseball.
i dislike a lot of these rules, but the no shifts rule really bugs me. telling teams they have to play a standard defense at all times really kills strategy-more so than universal DH. imagine if in football there was a rule that all teams had to play a 4-3 defense with zone coverage at all times. it would be a disaster.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t any changes that are designed to increase offense also serve to make games last longer, at a time when the league is otherwise trying to make games shorter…?
I think it’s pretty well established MLB isn’t trying to make games shorter per se, rather just eliminate all the dead time (mound visits, Ryan Braun at bat routine, pitching changes, Ryan Braun at bat routine, Ryan Braun at bat routine, etc.) within the game itself. The ‘more balls in play’ thing is kind of a standalone, something they figure it’ll be more fun in and of itself to see.
its pretty well established its not about making the time of the game shorter so people can go home faster, its about making it shorter so they can throw in more commercials in that time saved. Game will always be same amount of time just with more commercials. Just more money that won’t go to players or teams wanting to get better.
This is why I’ve never understood why they word it as ‘improving pace of play’, but then reference the time duration of games like they’re trying to shorten the length of the games. I know they go hand-in-hand, as dead-time adds to the total length of the game, but it’s sometimes difficult to determine which one they’re trying to shorten…
As long as there is 500 commercials after every half-inning, then I don’t see how they will move the needle in terms of game length. I’m all for getting rid of dead time, but there are people who literally want baseball to go to 7 innings.. whaaa??
Frankly I just don’t see what’s so wrong with baseball the way it is. Yes they should continue to keep up with the times, but I don’t see why we have to change basically how the sport is played. The uniqueness of baseball… the parts that separate it from any other sport… seem to be on their way out, and it’s sad!
The bigger bases will change a few ‘out’ calls into ‘safe’. Otherwise there’s nothing here to encourage more stolen base attempts. (Bill James long ago suggested 1 free pickoff throw per pitch to the plate, the second one either gets the runner or he gets an extra base; with stepoffs after coming to a stretch and any other folderol also counting as a pickoff attempt)
I’ll accept that the “no-shift” rule makes baseball more fun if, and only if, it results in the infielders scrambling around to assume better positions as soon as the pitcher releases the ball.
Which frankly is what you should be doing. How many poker players routinely display their hand and dare the other side to beat it?
so sad that manfred is destorying baseball. Fire him
Is it so wrong to allow sports to evolve organically…?? Does every new trend or dominating feature — short or longterm — have to have a reaction with intentions of “fixing” it??
Don’t get me wrong, baseball is a rich business and it must continue to do things in order to stay a rich business. But a league that’s been around since the 1800s has had like maybe a handful of serious alterations, must now require all of these changes? I get that there are people out there that are just trying to come up with ways to make the sport better… draw more fans… increase excitement..etc. And all of that’s great, but some of these changes (moving the mound and banning the shift) aren’t being done for those reasons. Those changes are simply reacting to something that may or may not continue.
Robot umps… long overdue, can’t happen fast enough.
Bigger bases? is there any rational argument for this?
Adding 2′ b/t the plate & rubber is a bad idea. If I were a pitcher, I’d refuse to do it.
Banning infield shifts is just sour grapes… silly & fascist.