NEW YORK- Major League Baseball wants more offense and their new experiment will be to move the mound away from the pitcher.
The test will consist of establishing a distance of 12 inches between the mound and home plate for part of the season of the Atlantic League, an independent minor league circuit. The end? Try to reduce the number of strikeouts and give more offense.
The distance between the hill and the plate remains 61 feet 6 inches throughout the experiment.
“It’s a direct response to more strikeouts, giving the batter about one-hundredth of a second to decide whether to swing a pitch, which would only have an effect in terms of reaction time, through the pitch by almost 1, 5 mph. ”Said Morgan Sword, MLB’s executive vice president of baseball operations. “The end of the experiment and the hope is that that small amount of time will allow the hitters to have more contact and reduce the number of strikeouts.”
In 2019, the last full season, strikeouts set a record 42,823 for the 12th consecutive year, an increase of 33% from 32,189 in 2007. Strikeouts surpassed the hits of the past three seasons, something unheard of in the history of the majors.
MLB calculated that the average speed of a fastball was 93.3 mph last year, and estimated that increasing the distance to the plate will reduce it to 91.6 mph.
The hill has maintained its current distance since 1893, when the National League decided to move it five feet farther. Strikeouts fell from 8.5% in 1892 to 5.2% in 1893 and the batting average rose from 0.245 in 1892 to 0.280.
Jed Hoyer, the president of Chicago Cubs baseball operations, compared the changes to lowering the mound height from 15 feet to 10 feet prior to the 1969 season.
“We need to do something to take more offense in baseball, whether it’s moving the mound back a foot, having different ways to eliminate defensive formations, or taking action by using resources to get the most out of the game. manipulate the ball, ”said Hayer. ‘We need changes. The batter resulted from these changes. Going down the hill obeyed these changes. And I am of the opinion – someone who loves baseball – that the rules are not etched on stone tablets. ”
Many baseball purists are against changing distances on the field. But Commissioner Rob Manfred has been more willing to innovate in a sport so obsessed with tradition.
“It seems pretty drastic to me, but it’s these kinds of things, sometimes the craziest things, that eventually get going,” said New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone. “I think it’s important to put them to the test.”