MLB announced new rules ahead of the 2023 season that were certain to fix the issues that had plagued the slumping sport for decades. Three seasons later, we’re looking at how much the changes have really done for the league.
The well-liked Theo Epstein was strategically front and center. Commissioner Rob Manfred made the rounds, signaling this was a big deal. And full shows were dedicated to the subject on MLB Network.
The league rolled out the red carpet ahead of the 2023 season to celebrate the new rules that would change the game and fix the issues that had plagued the slumping sport for decades.
The pitch timer and defensive-shift restrictions were the headliners of what was suggested to be the most impactful rule changes the game has seen since the lowering of the mound after the 1968 season.
“We’ve tried to address the concerns expressed in a thoughtful way, respectful – always – of the history and traditions of the game, and of player concerns,” Manfred said in a press conference in February 2023.
“We’ve conducted thorough and ongoing research with our fans, and certain things are really clear. Number one, fans want games with better pace. Two, fans want more action, more balls in play. And three, fans want to see more of the athleticism of our great players.”
It’s been almost three full seasons since those changes were implemented. And while some things are clearly different, we have to wonder how much these rules have actually impacted baseball. Have they really changed the aspects of the game they intended to improve?
In some cases, yes. In others, we’re not so sure. Let’s take a look at the data over the last couple of seasons to get a real indication of how MLB has evolved since the start of 2023.
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2 days ago Tyler GreenawaltThe Pitch Clock
Let’s face it, being a baseball fan had become something of a chore. The average length of a game had gone from an all-time high 3 hours and 6 minutes in 2019 to 3:08 in the 2020 60-game season and a whopping 3:10 in 2021. In 2022, it was only slightly better but still up over a three-hour event at 3:04.
In an effort to create a quicker pace of play, a pitch timer was added in 2023 – a 30-second countdown between batters, a 15-second timer with the bases empty and a 20-second timer with runners on base.
So what kind of impact has this made? A big one.
Over the past 40 years, the game has never been played at a faster pace. In 2023, the average length of a nine-inning game dipped all the way down to 2:40, which was 5 minutes faster than the previous best since 1987 of 2:45 in ’88. In 2024, it was played even faster at 2:36 and this season, the average game has taken about 2:38 heading into Sept. 17.
They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. However, major league pitchers have adjusted – slowly but surely.
There were 1,041 total violations in that initial 2023 season (740 pitcher and 301 batter) or one every 689 pitches. But last season, the total number of violations dropped to 597 (458 pitcher and 139 batter) or one roughly every 1,189 pitches, and they are down to 439 in 2025 (351 pitcher and 88 batter) or one about every 1,511 pitches.
One of the biggest outcries against the implementation of the pitch clock was that it would lead to more injuries. The logic being that in this era of pitchers giving maximum effort on every pitch, hurlers wouldn’t have the same opportunity to recover between pitches that they had in the past. And in April 2024, the head of the baseball players’ association put out a statement that the shorter pitch clock had led to a series of injuries.
“Despite unanimous player opposition and significant concerns regarding health and safety, the commissioner’s office reduced the length of the pitch clock last December, just one season removed from imposing the most significant rule change in decades,” union executive director Tony Clark said.
“Since then, our concerns about the health impacts of reduced recovery time have only intensified,” Clark said. “The league’s unwillingness thus far to acknowledge or study the effects of these profound changes is an unprecedented threat to our game and its most valuable asset – the players.”
However, while pitcher injuries are indeed up, there’s no correlation between the implementation of the pitch clock in 2023 and the rise in time spent on the injured list.
The combined number of days spent on the IL by pitchers has been pretty steady since soaring drastically after the shortened 2020 season.
(2020 was a 60-game season/2025 through Sept. 17)Verdict: Successful Change
Bigger Bases and Pickoff Rules
The bigger bases, which aren’t that noticeable at 18 inches square compared to 15 previously, were added in part for safety reasons (move room to operate around bases and avoid collisions). But in conjunction with pickoff rules, they also were thought to help boost movement around the bases.
Stolen bases, which were once an important, fun-to-watch part of the game, had become an afterthought. The analytics movement told teams that, for the most part, steals were an unnecessary risk, and MLB experienced a slow drop in stolen base attempts until they hit just 2,213 in 2021 – the lowest in a non-shortened season since 1973.
What impact has the bigger bases and pickoff rules – limiting pitchers to two disengagements per plate appearance (the runner automatically advances one base if a third pickoff attempt is not successful) – had on stolen bases?
Probably the biggest change of all.
After there had been 2,213 steals in 2021 and 2,486 in 2022, the number of stolen bags skyrocketed to 3,503 in 2023, 3,617 in 2024 and 3,244 heading into Thursday’s action in 2025.
The 3,617 steals in 2024 were the most in MLB in over 100 years (4,106 in 1915) and the third-highest single-season number of the modern era (since 1901). In addition, the stolen base success rates in 2023, 2024 and 2025 have been easily the best in MLB over this span.
(2020 was a 60-game season/2025 through Sept. 17)Verdict: Successful Change
Limiting Defensive Shifts
We heard about the offensive crisis on an annual basis. Major League Baseball was on pace to have its lowest batting average in decades – year after year.
In 2018, the league-wide batting average dropped to .248 after it was .255 in 2017. That was the worst MLB-wide performance at the plate since a .244 average in 1972. But it bottomed out even worse at .245 in 2020 and .244 in 2021 – just percentage points behind that woeful 1972 season.
It then hit rock-bottom in 2022 as the league average sat at .243, which was the lowest mark since the previously mentioned “Year of the Pitcher” in 1968 that led to major rule changes to boost offense.
But the defensive shift was public enemy No. 1 this time around.
The number of plate appearances that ended with an infield shift rose from 8,505 in 2012 to 39,484 in ’19. Over that span, the percentage of plate appearances that featured shifts skyrocketed from 4.62 in ’12 to 21.17 in ’19.
Not to get too much into the weeds, but instead of the shift leading to more bunts or hits to the open side of the field, it led to the birth of the launch-angle swing. Players didn’t try to find a hole in the defense; they tried to hit the ball over it.
It was bothersome for fans, who had become accustomed to line drives up the middle and to short right field being singles instead of outs. Nobody liked what the league had become offensively – station-to-station baseball with a lot of strikeouts, a lot of homers, and not much else in between.
So it made sense that limiting the defensive shift might be the change needed to heal a diseased game. Defensive teams now must have a minimum of four players on the infield, with at least two infielders completely on either side of second base.
These restrictions were originally intended to increase the batting average on balls in play (BABIP) by taking the short right fielder or third player on the left side out of the equation. In addition to overall batting average, the league-wide BABIP had also plummeted from .300 in 2016 and 2017 to just .290 in 2022.
The changes were also supposed to allow infielders to better showcase their athleticism and restore more traditional outcomes on batted balls. But have they really impacted anything?
Aesthetically, yes – for whatever that’s worth.
For the traditional fan, the game has reverted back to the way it’s supposed to look. Line drives to right field are, once again, base hits. And shots up the middle are not always singles, but they are more often than they were during the defensive-shift era.
However, the new restrictions have changed little else. After a promising jump to .248 in the first year following the changes, the league-wide batting average fell back to .243 – the seventh-worst mark in MLB history – and it’s at .246 in 2025 heading into Thursday’s action.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the league leaderboards.
In 2021, there were 14 qualified batters who hit .300 or better. Eleven players hit .300 in 2022 and nine reached that plateau in 2023. Then, only seven batters hit .300 or better in 2024 – one more than the record low in 1968. There are eight players currently hitting .300 or better in 2025, though Trea Turner’s National League-leading .305 batting average is dangerously close to Carl Yastrzemski’s .301 BA in 1968 – a record low for a league leader.
So what about the BABIP? Again, it did move up to a promising .297 in 2023, but it dipped back down to .291 in both 2024 and this season.
Overall scoring, which had dropped to one of the bottom 20 rates since 1969 at 4.28 runs per game in 2022 has improved, but just barely, to 4.62 in 2023, 4.39 in 2024 and 4.47 to date this season.
Why? Moving the infielders around only impacts balls that are put in the field of play. The fact remains that this continues to be a home run-or-bust league – even more so than it was in 2022. There were 1.07 homers per game that season, but that average has jumped to 1.21 in 2023 (the fifth most since 1969), 1.12 in 2024 and 1.16 in 2025 (seventh over this span).
And the number of plate appearances per strikeout remains uncomfortably high, going from 4.46 PA/K in 2022 to 4.40 in 2023 (fourth-worst mark since 1969), 4.43 in 2024 (fifth worst) and 4.53 this season (eighth-worst).
Unless something is done to drastically alter the all-or-nothing approach at the plate, this doesn’t figure to change any time soon.
Verdict: Unsuccessful Change
Research support provided by Sam Hovland and Jesse Abrahams of Stats Perform’s data insights team. For more coverage, follow along on social media on Instagram, Bluesky, Facebook and X.
Looking Back at the 2023 MLB Rules Changes: Have They Actually Fixed Anything? Opta Analyst.
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