Why did Major League Baseball introduce new rules for 2023?


Major League Baseball has long grappled with a stigma that its games were boring because they were too long without much action.  

There were multiple reasons for games to swell to over 3 hours long on average, but notably were more pitching changes, long delays between pitches, batters who would step out of the batters box between pitches, evolving batter strategies to be home-run or strikeout, and increased coach mound visits.  

In 2023, Major League Baseball implemented a number of drastic rule changes in its top flight league that had shortened game times to 2 hours, 30 minutes in lower levels called the Minor Leagues.  These changes included a pitch clock, limiting the number of pickoff attempts.  To increase the amount of offense generated, they eliminated the defensive shift and increased the size of the bases, effectively shortening the distance between bases to encourage more stolen base attempts.  

Through the first week of the 2023 season, the average length of game is down to 2 hours, 30 minutes like the Minors, batting averages are up 15 points to .245, and the number of stolen bases doubled in comparison to the year before.