Recently, under new Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred, there were changes made to several rules. This has caused plenty of uproar from fans and people that love the game of baseball.

One of these rule changes limits mound visits per game, which can hurt a pitcher if they are getting too frustrated. Another change is getting rid of the defensive shift, which makes it so fielders cannot play an opponent based on data. Thirdly, MLB has been testing the format of playing only seven inning games for a day when a team has double header games. But soon, MLB wants to make seven inning games a norm, which has never been done previously. In my opinion, I think this is an awful move because that would change the complete arrangement of how the game is played. For example, if a pitcher throws five innings now in a nine inning game, they would only pitch three or four innings in a seven inning game.

   Many coaches have expressed their opinions on these changes, but they still understand that they are going to have to deal with these changes eventually. One change has been really irritating to coaches is that pitchers are now required to face a 3 batter minimum instead of only facing one batter, if they choose to. This change impacts a manager because if a pitcher struggles versus a left handed batter and there’s someone in the bullpen that has better stats against the left handed hitter, they can’t bring them in. In My opinion, these changes get in the way of the manager controlling the game at hand. 

The reason that these changes have come about is because fans are losing interest in the game hurting tv ratings and ticket sales.  In Manfred’s eyes, making changes to rules will help gain younger viewers, but I truly think that he is ruining the game. A lot of people don’t like change, and changing a classic game in order to speed it up will lose more fans than it will gain.

Baseball must wait a few years to see, overall, how fans react to changes of the game’s landscape. In my opinion, Rob Manfred has ruined the fun of  baseball with these immediate rule changes, and he is making the game less watchable and enjoyable because of the rules.