SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- We know how Major League Baseball’s new rules for 2023 look on paper. But how will they look in practice? The arrival of the pitch timer, restrictions on extreme infield shifts and bigger bases combine for the most significant alterations to MLB rules in decades, and that’s

Baseball’s new era arrived as many new eras do. With a lot of intrigue and a little awkwardness. With the excited embrace of some, the miffed objections of others and the ultimate conclusion that the game -- and the world -- will, indeed, go on. It’s Spring Training, so --

The 2023 Major League Baseball season brings a wave of rules changes collectively aimed at improving the game’s pace of play and increasing action on the field. The arrival of the pitch timer, restrictions on defensive shifts and bigger bases makes for one of the more ambitious adaptations to the

This year, Spring Training will not just be about players showing up in the “best shape of their lives” and “getting their work in” and uttering all of our other favorite camp clichés. We are about to embark upon a spring exhibition season unlike any other in baseball’s history. Because

This story was originally published during the 2022 season, but we are resurfacing it in light of the announced rule changes for 2023.

Earlier this winter, we dug into the upcoming positioning ban, attempting to use Statcast data to identify which hitters might benefit the most from the new rules. As we discussed at the time, it’s complicated -- mostly because teams can still position intelligently within the rules, and because we don’t

HOUSTON -- The slugger went deep, then the console went beep. As Central Missouri infielder John Prudhom crossed home plate Saturday after hitting a towering two-run home run in the first inning of a game at the Houston Winter Invitational at Minute Maid Park, Billy Cannon pressed the button that

Nestor Cortes walked down the mound, received the throw back from his catcher and did what so many of his pitching heroes would do. He took a short stroll through the grass around the mound, thought about the next pitch and what he wanted to do with it, then climbed

One of the most intriguing storylines heading into the 2023 MLB season is how the new rules being implemented will impact the game. With new infield shift restrictions, a pitch timer and larger bases among the changes this year, it will be exciting to watch the resulting effects. MLB Network

This story was originally published earlier this season, but we are resurfacing it today in light of the announced rule changes for 2023.

The changes coming to Major League Baseball in 2023 -- the pitch timer, defensive shift limits and bigger bases -- are significant. Merely reading about them creates a feeling of unfamiliarity. But are they unprecedented? Hardly.

Baseball is back now, and that is always the best possible news at this time of year, with players on the field in Florida and Arizona. Here is even better news: The game is going to be better this season. It just is, because of three important changes that have

Think of an MLB star's Baseball Savant page as the back of a Statcast baseball card. At the very top of that Baseball Savant page is a snapshot of how the player is performing in all of the key Statcast stats, presented by Google Cloud, and how he stacks up

Here’s the setup: In May, a middling team abruptly installs a top catching prospect into a starting role and, seemingly overnight, its season is transformed. In fact, the club starts to look like a contender. That sounds awfully familiar, but the script is a little different this time around. A

Braves third baseman Austin Riley has played in all but four of his team’s games over the past three seasons. So he is as good an authority as any on what it takes to post up day after day, night after night in The Show. Appearing in every single game

Not just in baseball, but across all sports, it’s rare for the fastest people to also be the strongest. After all, you don’t typically see an Olympic 100-meter sprinter double up as a professional Sumo wrestler in his or her down time. But the world’s best athletes find ways to

Because we’re all old enough to remember those days when the only “fans” in the stands were cardboard cutouts, the sight of any living, breathing people coming out to the ol’ ballgame is still a very welcomed one. Yet a notable aspect of this 2023 season is just how many

We all know what contending teams will be looking for ahead of the Trade Deadline, and that’s the same thing they’re always looking for: pitching, especially relief pitching, and maybe a bench bat to fill a specific role, like hitting lefties or playing shortstop. It’s the same every year. But

There's no better figurehead for the 2023 stolen-base movement than Ronald Acuña Jr. With the new rules creating more freedom of movement on the bases -- pickoff limits, the pitch timer and bigger bases -- no one is taking advantage like the Braves' electric superstar. After 100 games, Acuña leads

Surveys were conducted. Plans were concocted. Experiments were administered. And decisions were made. At the outset of the 2023 season, Major League Baseball ushered in a series of rules changes -- the pitch timer, bigger bases and defensive shift limits -- that were arguably the most ambitious in the modern

One half of the way through the first season with baseball’s new shift limitations on the books, the rules have done more or less what they were expected to do. They’ve definitely made some impact (batting average on balls in play is up by 7 points), but not by an

The Reds are baseball’s fastest team. Let’s get to that part straight away: By Statcast metrics, they are baseball’s top collection of speedsters. Not, of course, that this should come as a surprise. Every night one or another of them do something incredible on the bases -- need we remind

When MLB had its usual spate of pitching injuries at the start of the 2023 season, some questioned the impact of the pitch timer. But updated data and historical trends both throw cold water on the theory that the pace created by the timer is to blame for ailing arms.