MLB makes extra-inning baserunner rule permanent (2024)

Major League Baseball’s Joint Competition Committee voted to make the rule automatically placing a runner at second base at the start of every extra inning in regular-season games permanent Monday, MLB sources confirmed to The Athletic. ESPN first reported the news. Here’s what you need to know:

• The competition committee also voted to further limit the use of position players as pitchers to only extra innings, or by a leading team when it is up by 10 or more runs in the ninth inning, or by a trailing team any time it is down by eight or more runs, the sources confirmed. Teams could previously use position players as pitchers when they were leading or trailing by six runs.
• The extra-inning “ghost-runner” rule was first implemented during the 2020 COVID-19-impacted season and continued through last season as the lockout-shortened spring training created additional risk for potential injuries.
• MLB is also implementing a number of other rule changes for 2023: the use of a pitch clock, eliminating the shift, using larger bases and limiting the number of times a pitcher can step off the rubber per at-bat.

The Athletic’s instant analysis:

How has the ghost-runner impacted play?

Starting extra innings with a runner on second has had large ramifications to date. In 2019, baseball saw 37 games go 13 innings or longer, with eight over 15 innings. Last year, there were only 11 games that lasted 13 innings or longer, and none over 15. The idea behind reducing marathon games might be that, with pitching staffs built with more and more one-inning pitchers over time, and injuries continuing to stay prevalent, putting pressure on the game to end quicker could be good for arms on every team.

Certainly, everyone working at the game appreciates avoiding 20-inning marathons. But those attending the game might disagree, and cite the fact that, with this rule in place, extra-inning runs have scored at over two times the rate they score in the first nine innings. That’s fundamentally different baseball! Their retort might ask baseball teams to build their rosters with more pitchers capable of going longer in emergency situations. — Sarris

Why limit position players pitching?

Five years ago, there were 78 pitches thrown under 60 miles per hour during the regular season across all of baseball. Last year, that number soared to 856 as teams increasingly turned to position players to soak up innings. Baseball chose to limit that ability in a rule that might seem complicated but really just boils down to the fact that the rules now limit something that was once unique and has become commonplace and less interesting.

The funny thing is that these new rules wouldn’t have changed anything about what might have been the high water mark for position players pitching: catcher Luis Torrens became the first Mariner position player in franchise history to get the win on the mound as he pitched the tenth for a playoff-bound squad that wanted to rest its arms in the first game of an October doubleheader last season. — Sarris

Required reading

• What MLB players and managers are saying about the rule changes for 2023
• How MLB’s new rules are shaping the 2022-23 offseason and changing the art of team building

(Photo: Bill Streicher / USA Today)