In addition to speeding up the game, the new rules were intended to tip the scales back toward offense.
teams were employing in an effort to give their hitters a fighting chance against the modern pitcher’s all-but-unhittable arsenal. But you don’t have to go that far into the weeds to see how the scoring environment — by which I mean the lack thereof — has been a growing crisis in the game.
But you watch baseball, so you already know this, or at least the gist of it. Non-home-run offense has been at an all-time low, and batters are swinging for the fences not because they lack appreciation for the aesthetics of small ball but because that’s often their only hope of scoring in an environment so hostile to hits.
“So much of the early stages of the information revolution favors the pitcher because it’s just easier to put that information into play,” Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said. “Which doesn’t mean it’s impossible to do with hitters.”But even the people whose job it is to find that way aren’t so sure.
Among the other new rules, shift bans are billed as a chance for infielders to demonstrate their athleticism and defensive range, but that’s just another way of saying they won’t be able to get to as many balls in play, thereby, hopefully, boosting the league-wide BABIP .
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