No more infielders roaming around the outfield, doing their sneaky hit-burgling! … No more pitchers making eight straight pickoff moves to first base without alerting you to go grab a hot dog first! … Larger bases, to reward America’s frustrated base stealers! … A bigger stage for your favorite robot umpires!
All of these rule-change experiments are coming to a minor-league ballpark somewhere in 2021. We know that because Major League Baseball announced them Thursday in a fascinating news release. We’ll examine the changes one by one shortly. But here is what you might not know:
Next up: the big leagues!
OK, so not necessarily on all of the above. Rob Manfred can’t just wave his magic wand and make stuff like this happen in his kingdom, much as he’d probably enjoy that sort of thing. But think about it.
