Less than one week into the 2023 Major League Baseball regular season, the new rule changes have already had a profound impact on games.
Theo Epstein, who works as a special consultant for MLB, told The Athletic's Jayson Stark and Doug Glanville on the Starkville podcast the changes are intended as a response to how the game has evolved over the past few decades.
"So we're really trying to get away from the way the game has changed, unintentionally, in the last couple of decades. … Really, we're course-correcting," he explained.
The main rule changes include a pitch clock to reduce the amount of time between pitches, limited pickoff attempts, limitations on defensive shifts and bigger bases.