Major League Baseball has been tweaking various rules over the last few seasons. The ostensible reason is to improve the pace of play. The way I see it: Some of these rule changes, particularly the automatic intentional walk rule and the reduction in mound visits, have shaved a few seconds off game time. If MLB really wanted to improve the pace of play, they’d institute a pitch clock and enforce it. When they did that in Double-A and Triple-A in 2015, 12 to 15 minutes per game were saved.
Unfortunately, that probably won’t happen at least until the next round of collective bargaining, if then.