Group Chat: MLB’s new rules set to debut on opening day

Baseball season's opening day is here and this season it's bringing some new rules as well. Pitchers will now be on the clock with 15 seconds to start their throwing motion if the bases are empty and 20 seconds if there are runners on base. The league is also restricting defensive shifts so now two infielders have to stay on either side of second base and all four need to have both feet in the infield dirt before the pitch. The bases are also getting bigger from 15 square inches to 18 and this change in the minor leagues last year led to a 13 percent reduction in injuries near the bases. Larger bases could also mean more stolen bases. The league's commissioner says it's all about making the game faster and more exciting. Our research showed that the game had evolved and changed in a way that fans didn't like and we decided it was time to intervene to make sure we put the best form of baseball on the field. But not all fans are on board. We want to take this to our group chat with ESPN baseball analyst Jessica Mendoza, sports editor Neil Payne of ABC's FiveThirtyEight and ABC's political director Rick Klein who you can tell by his baseball card rule is a complete baseball nerd. Rick, I still can't believe you have an entire room dedicated to baseball cards but that's for another day. But that's how it should work. Welcome to you all. Jessica, I want to start with you. These new rules, they led to some issues in spring training. Walk me through that. And I also want to say this is a chat. So if you feel like you want to chime in with something, feel free. You don't have to wait for me to specifically ask you a question. But Jessica, let's start with some of the issues here that we saw in spring training. Yeah. You know, honestly, a lot of the pitchers and players love it because the games have been shortened close to 30 minutes in spring training, which I mean, any fan, any player that's dead time. So that's been a positive thing. The issue has come to your point, actually, with the hitters. So one of the things that's not talked about is it's 15 and 20 seconds runners on for the pitchers. But for hitters at eight seconds, they have to be in the box and attentive to the pitcher, meaning that they have to be square and facing the pitcher. That's where we saw most of the violations come. The one that came with a walk off third strike called was to the batter, the violations. And it's the hitters that are actually doing the most complaining. The pitchers are loving it. Rick, you've been a baseball super fan your whole life, basically. So what do you think about these changes? Well, I have complicated feelings about the changes with the general statement. I agree with Jessica. Anything that speeds up the game, I'm a fan of it. It gets fans engaged. That's great. I don't think the bigger bases, anyone's really going to notice that I'm actually a fan of the pitch clock because it keeps things moving. I didn't think I would be the shift. I have a problem with something of a baseball purist. I was sad to see the D.H. get implemented fully. I don't love the runners on second and X ratings, and I really don't love telling a defense where they can and can't play their their their defenders. I do think that hitters eventually would have to adjust to it. I get that it is taken taken away from the offense. That to me is going to be a big adjustment that will take some getting used to. But on by and large, I applaud Commissioner Manfred and baseball for taking seriously the challenges that has made these games simply unmanageable and often unwatchable. And Neil, 538. Go ahead. I was going to say one of the one of the interesting thing for me is just how clearly some of these rules have worked in spring training as well. Like Jessica mentioned, the games are down by almost 30 minutes in time. You're also seeing more stolen base attempts, higher stolen base success rate, which I think you can attribute to the larger bases and also reduction in pickoff throws. And we're even seeing batting average on ground balls go up a little bit, especially to the batter's pull side, which is where they used to put those shifted over defenders. So it's amazing that it confirms what they did research wise in the minor leagues, that these little tweaks, they might actually really work and pushing the game toward the direction that baseball wants it to go. Now, Neil, the knee jerk reaction is if it makes the game faster, more exciting to Rick's point, you know, why not? But 538 has created a metric for assessing negative or favorable rule effect dynamics. So talk me through this. What are you finding? Yeah, it's totally coincidental, by the way. That spells out Manfred, but the metric that we did, what we wanted to look at was which teams would either win or lose based on the rule changes. So for instance, which teams had the slowest or fastest tempo pitchers last year? Which teams had the most speed? That's something that comes into play with the larger bases and the reduction in pickoff throws and also which teams shifted the most or the least. So if you did a lot of the things that are now sort of being downplayed by the rules, you might get hurt by the new rules. And that we see that with the team like the Astros or the Dodgers. Those were teams that were among the most shift heavy teams, slow teams, slow pitch tempo teams. They might get affected. A team like the Cleveland Guardians, by contrast, though, they're a fast team, you know, kind of an exciting team that didn't shift that much. They might be the winners from these new rules. So, Jessica, what are you watching for as the season gets underway today? Well, we're just coming off an amazing world baseball classic that was unbelievable. And I think the biggest storyline is watching Shohei Itani. We saw him win for Team Japan in the World Baseball Classic against Mike Trout. I mean, an epic, epic last inning battle. But just, I mean, what we're being able to see in history, I know we've talked so much about it, but the best hitter pitcher combination in Shohei is definitely one of the biggest storylines continuing and where he's going to end up after this year. He's a free agent. And then in New York, who's the best team, Yankees or Mets? I mean, we haven't seen in a long time the Mets be able to contend and be one of the best teams. What Steve Cohen has done, three hundred and fifty five million dollar payroll, the most we've ever seen in the history of the sport. That's what the Mets are doing right now. I mean, I think the answer is obviously the Yankees. But Neil, I'll pose that to you. What are you watching for? Yeah, I'm watching for actually a team like the Dodgers. I mentioned them. But when we ran our preseason forecast, we found that they were still the favorites, but they were one of the weakest favorites that we've seen since we started doing these forecasts, only 11 percent to win the World Series. And that has to do with a lot of things. Personnel losses. They were the team that lost the most talent over the offseason. I think also some of the rule changes might hurt them, like I mentioned. So in some ways, that seems to indicate more of a wide open type of season because the Astros are another team that defending champs, but maybe might be poised to take a little bit of a step back and maybe open up opportunities for other teams. So this could be one of the more sort of ambiguous, like we don't know who among the best teams is going to really win the World Series. And that's pretty exciting, I think, for fans. It sure is. And we can't let you go without playing our favorite game. Stump Rick Klein. Rick is a fountain of knowledge on lots of things. So we love to play this. Feel free to answer if you know the answer, by the way. So here we go. Since the league is banning defensive shirts, when did the shift start and who was it used against? Defensive shifts, that is. Oh, it's the Ted Williams shift. I believe it was the Cleveland Indians. Now the now the Guardians, the Indians using it against Ted Williams. And of course, that's wow. We're going to go older than Ted Williams. You better. This better be right. I'm going to fact check you if this is wrong. Go for it. So I'm seeing here the shift goes back to the 1920s. National League managers started shifting their defenses to make up for Philly's left handed center fielder Cy Williams pulling his hits. That's a deep if that's a deep cut. If true, I'll give it I'll give it to you. I think Ted Williams popularized it for what it's worth. And that to me is an argument for letting shift stay in the game. They have been a part of the of the game, according to your research, at least for a century. All right. Well, we will leave it there. Thank you all so much. Rick Klein, Jessica Mendoza, Neil Payne. Thank you. Looking forward to it. For breaking news alerts. Thanks for watching.