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Rob Manfred Sucks But The New Pick Off Rule Is Cool
Rob Manfred Sucks But The New Pick Off Rule Is Cool
Most of the MLB rule changes absolutely suck and cater to the Gen Z crowd who have no interest in watching baseball. If Rob Manfred was smart (he’s not and has an IQ of 35) he would do a better job marketing the sport but that’s a topic for a different day. However, if we’re looking for positives, the pick off rule is cool and should stay in place moving forward.
Back in the day, you could just throw over to first an unlimited amount of times. It was nonsense. I get wanting to speed up games and putting a limit on how many times you could try a pick off move was a great call. For those who don’t know it, I’m just going to paste them below so there is no room for interpretation.
1a. Pickoff/step-off limits
“This is listed as 1a because it is directly connected to the pitch timer. Pitchers have the ability to reset the timer by stepping off the mound. To prevent them from abusing this workaround, pitchers are limited to two of these so-called “disengagements” per plate appearance. If a runner advances during the plate appearance, the limit is reset.”
“What this means is that pitchers can only attempt a pickoff move twice without penalty. They can make a third attempt but, if they don’t record an out, it is ruled a balk and the runner automatically advances.”
“The pickoff limits are expected to greatly elevate the base-stealing environment in MLB, which has seen a big decline in stolen-base attempts in the past 30 years. When these rules were in place in the Minors, stolen-base attempts increased by 26 percent.”
While most of the MLB rule changes are hot garbage, I think we can all agree this is a good one. It creates more strategy. It creates more incentives to steal bases. More action. Less time wasted on nonsense. MLB has gotten very little right over the last few years but the new pick off rules are an exception. MLB has very much gotten that right.
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