MLB Cracking Down On Obstruction In An Effort To Encourage More Aggressive Baserunning – News18

SURPRISE, Ariz.: Ronald Acuña Jr. and Corbin Carroll simply received a bit of extra harmful. Same for Bobby Witt Jr., Elly De La Cruz and the remainder of baseball’s quickest gamers.

Major League Baseball needs umpires to crack down on obstruction, and the commissioner’s workplace went over its plans throughout a name with massive league managers this week. The elevated emphasis is just on the bases and never at house plate.

The focus is on infielders who drop a knee or leg down in entrance of a bag whereas receiving a throw, appearing as a deterrence for aggressive baserunning and creating an elevated threat of accidents.

“I think with everything, they’re trying to make the game a little safer to avoid some unnecessary injuries,” Phillies shortstop Trea Turner mentioned Friday on the workforce’s facility in Florida. “The intentions are always good. It comes down to how it affects the players and the games. I’m sure there will be plays where one team doesn’t like it or one team does.”

With extra place gamers arriving at spring coaching on daily basis, the subject probably will come up increasingly as groups ramp up for the season.

“We’ll touch on that. We’ll show them some video of what’s good and what’s not,” Texas Rangers supervisor Bruce Bochy mentioned. “You know, it’s going to be a little adjustment.”

Making obstruction a degree of emphasis suits in with an ongoing effort by MLB to create extra motion. Obstruction calls should not reviewable, which might result in some disgruntled gamers and managers as enforcement is stepped up, nevertheless it additionally means it gained’t create lengthy replay deliberations.

A package deal of rule modifications final season — together with pitch clocks, greater bases and limits on defensive shifts and pickoff makes an attempt — had a dramatic impact. There had been 3,503 stolen bases within the common season, up from 2,486 in 2022 and probably the most since 1987.

MLB modified a special baserunning rule this offseason, widening the runner’s lane approaching first base to incorporate a portion of honest territory. MLB additionally shortened the pitch clock with runners on base by two seconds to 18 and additional decreasing mound visits in an effort to hurry video games.

“When a pitcher gets the ball that clock’s going,” Bochy mentioned. “So yeah, you have to adjust with what’s been thrown at you as far as the rules.”

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AP Baseball Writer Ronald Blum in New York and AP freelance author Chris Nelsen in Clearwater, Florida, contributed to this report.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB

(This story has not been edited by News18 workers and is revealed from a syndicated information company feed – Associated Press)