Sports Reference Blog

2023 MLB Rule Changes Page Live on Baseball Reference

Posted by Jonah Gardner on April 20, 2023

Exciting news! We've created a new page for 2023 on Baseball Reference to track the impact of the rule changes that MLB implemented for this season.

As a baseball fan, you're likely aware that every plate appearance now includes a pitch clock and limits on timeouts to keep things moving, the bases are slightly larger to encourage more base stealing, and the shift has been banned to create more balls in play.

But are these changes having the designed impact? That's what this new page is designed to show. For example, with pace of play, here's a look at some of the stats on game time, baserunning, and the shift ban, as of today.

Time of Game For Season
Year G AvgTime %≤2:30 %≥3:30 Avg Tm Btwn PA Avg Tm Btwn BIP Pos.Pitcher %
2023 255 2:37 34.1 0.4 2:05 3:10 0.755%
2022 2204 3:03 3.8 10.5 2:29 3:42 0.632%
2021 2089 3:10 2.5 18.7 2:33 3:52 0.413%
2020 720 3:07 2.9 15.6 2:31 3:51 0.402%
2019 2211 3:05 4.6 13.5 2:28 3:43 0.420%
2018 2210 3:00 6.9 8.9 2:25 3:37 0.307%
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 4/20/2023.
Baserunning
Year G SBatt SB CS BK SB%
2023 558 0.88 0.71 0.17 0.05 80.6%
2022 4860 0.68 0.51 0.17 0.03 75.4%
2021 4858 0.60 0.46 0.15 0.03 75.7%
2020 1796 0.66 0.49 0.16 0.04 75.2%
2019 4858 0.64 0.47 0.17 0.03 73.3%
2018 4862 0.71 0.51 0.20 0.03 72.1%
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 4/20/2023.
Defensive Shift
G GrndBall BA LHB GrndBall BA RHB GrndBall BA LineDrv BA LHB LineDrv BA RHB LineDrv BA
2023 558 .246 .225 .260 .652 .652 .652
2022 4860 .241 .226 .250 .631 .628 .633
2021 4858 .241 .232 .248 .637 .636 .637
2020 1796 .237 .215 .255 .643 .637 .647
2019 4858 .242 .233 .247 .632 .633 .632
2018 4862 .246 .235 .253 .626 .627 .624
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 4/20/2023.
That's just a taste of what's available on this new page. Head to Baseball Reference to do a deep dive into how MLB's changes are affecting the game.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 20th, 2023 at 11:44 am and is filed under Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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