What to Watch For as Baseball’s Pitch Clock Era Begins
After months of hypothesis about how new guidelines will change the sport and a spring coaching stuffed with quick video games and loads of flubs, opening day of the 2023 Major League Baseball season is lastly right here. And for the primary time since 1968, each M.L.B. crew is beginning its season on the identical day.
The story strains are plentiful, even past the brand new guidelines. And with greater than 12 hours of dwell baseball anticipated, there needs to be one thing for everybody.
The New Rules
It appears like hyperbole, however M.L.B.’s three main rule adjustments for this season — a pitch clock, a ban on shifts and a few tweaks to encourage extra stolen bases — are maybe essentially the most sweeping single-season adjustments in fashionable baseball historical past. (Switching to overhand pitching within the late nineteenth century was most likely extra excessive, however let’s put that apart.)
While a ban on defensive shifts will undoubtedly elevate some batting averages — Anthony Rizzo of the Yankees needs to be blissful — and everybody appears to agree that a rise in stolen bases could be good, the large factor is unquestionably the pitch clock. In spring coaching, it decreased the typical recreation time by 25 minutes and obtained principally constructive suggestions, even when there have been quite a lot of awkward moments when an automated strike reared its ugly head. There was additionally a 20-second strikeout, so keep alert!
Anthony Volpe’s Debut
Anthony Volpe could have entered spring coaching as one thing of an extended shot to make the Yankees, however he left it because the crew’s beginning shortstop, and he obtained a serious endorsement when the membership assigned him No. 11. For these unfamiliar with Yankees traditions, that’s the lowest jersey quantity the crew has not retired. So it’s secure to say the crew thinks Volpe, 21, has a brilliant future.
As anticipated, he began for the Yankees on Thursday, taking part in shortstop and batting ninth.
What are you able to anticipate from him? In Keith Law’s annual Top 100 M.L.B. Prospects checklist for The Athletic, he ranked Volpe because the eighth-best prospect in baseball and described a participant who sounds a complete lot like Derek Jeter — the shortstop Volpe grew up rooting for in New Jersey.
Volpe has a wonderful right-handed swing — I don’t know why anybody would attempt to mess with it — that produces quite a lot of high quality contact and retains the ball within the air for extra-base energy, though I believe he’ll settle in as extra of a high-doubles man who would possibly hit 20 homers than a 30-homer man. He’s a 55-60 runner but it surely performs up on the bases as a result of he has nice instincts each for studying pitchers and studying conditions. While at shortstop, he’s obtained nice fingers and will get himself into the fitting place to make performs greater than most shortstops I see. I caught quite a lot of Volpe final yr, and he was taking part in a distinct recreation than his teammates.
Top Pitching Matchups Galore
The new guidelines are designed to hurry up the sport and improve the motion. But these adjustments may be onerous to identify on opening day since there are such a lot of video games that includes ace-level starters.
The Mets can have Max Scherzer going in opposition to Sandy Alcantara of the Miami Marlins. So that’s three Cy Young Awards (Scherzer) going up in opposition to final yr’s unanimous winner of the award within the N.L. (Alcantara). The Yankees have Gerrit Cole dealing with a serious breakout candidate in Logan Webb of the San Francisco Giants. The reworked Texas Rangers have their new ace, Jacob deGrom, battling with Aaron Nola of the Philadelphia Phillies. And there are a number of extra matchups alongside these strains.
So it may be smart to order your judgment of the brand new guidelines till these groups flip to their bullpens.
Day 1 of Shohei Ohtani’s Contract Year
After a season wherein he grew to become the primary participant in M.L.B. historical past to qualify for each the batting title and the E.R.A. title — take that, Babe Ruth — Shohei Ohtani and the Los Angeles Angels got here to an settlement on a one-year, $30 million contract that prevented Ohtani, baseball’s solely two-way star, going to arbitration. But with no long-term settlement in place, Ohtani is formally in a contract yr, and the Angels need to be hoping their varied roster adjustments will make the crew extra aggressive. He has made it clear he’ll stroll away to search out an opportunity to win.
Last yr, it was Aaron Judge who stepped up and delivered a season for the ages earlier than his free-agent negotiations. He was rewarded with a nine-year, $360 million contract. If Ohtani performs the way in which he did within the final two seasons, he would possibly make that Judge contract look tiny by comparability.
A Rain Delay in San Diego?
It will probably be chilly in Chicago when the Cubs host the Milwaukee Brewers at this time, and it gained’t be way more nice within the Bronx (Yankees-Giants) or Boston (Red Sox-Orioles), however the one place affected by rain, to date, is … San Diego?
The Padres have been scheduled to begin their opener in opposition to the Colorado Rockies at 1:10 p.m. Pacific, however a rainstorm — the newest in a collection of them in the previous couple of months — has pushed their begin to 6:40 native time.
It is actually a brand new period in San Diego. The crew is so standard that it put a cap on season ticket gross sales.
