Major League Baseball is updating some rules for the 2016 season.
There will be a new pace-of-play rule, as well as updates to the already-existing slide rules, MLB announced Thursday. The pace rule changes manager and pitching coach visits to the mound, which now will have a 30-second timer. MLB also slightly altered the timers between innings.
As for the updated slide rule, the changes attempt to reduce the risk of serious injury to infielders, as we saw in 2015 with Pittsburgh Pirates third baseman Jung-ho Kang and New York Mets shortstop Ruben Tejada. Unlike the home-plate-collision rule, umpires met and watched 20 plays at second with questionable slides and determined the rules from there, per Yahoo! Sports.
All in all, it seems to be a good rule, as it simply eliminates sliding after the bag, rolling into the infielder and kicking up above the infielder’s knees.
The part of the rule that might end up being a point of contention, however, is that neighborhood plays now are reviewable. Players previously could be called out if the infielder was near but not on the bag, which infielders used as a safety measure in order to avoid being taken out.
Thumbnail photo via Jayne Kamin-Oncea/USA TODAY Sports Images
