Cleveland Indians: Jason Kipnis Tweets About New MLB Rule Change

Cleveland Indians second baseman Jason Kipnis offered a quick thought on the newest MLB rule change allegedly intended to speed up the game.

To some, baseball games take too long. To others, the length of game is all part of the experience.

Regardless, MLB decided to make a rule change yesterday, allowing managers to signal when they want to issue an intentional walk instead of having the pitcher lob four pitches to the catcher.

The move has had mixed reactions, as it doesn’t really seem to speed up the game all that much. It also takes four pitches out of the game that can result in a wild pitch, or even a batter reaching out over the plate and hitting the ball.

Jason Kipnis offered up a passing thought on the rule change last night on Twitter.

While simply signaling for an intentional walk is convenient, it does take away the possibility of something happening in the case a pitcher gets the yips and overthrows the ball.

It is also hard to imagine anyone turning off a game when an intentional walk is issued. Changing something like the number of mound visits per inning, or the amount of time a pitcher has before delivering a pitch would do more to speed up the game than this.

But as with all rule changes, it is possible things go back to how they were in a year. However, this change may be such a non-issue the players and managers just don’t care and it will stay as it is.

The new rule is a nice gesture by MLB to speed up games, but it is a miniscule step toward fixing a larger problem, for those who even consider it a problem in the first place.

Players, such as Kipnis, know the countless things that can happen on every pitch. And fans would be much more excited to watch a player score on an overthrow than to watch a manager point to an umpire to send a player down to first base.

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Baseball may be the hardest sport to implement rule changes, based on its tradition, but this new rule change should not cause too much stress in 2017. It takes away the possibility of something happening during an intentional walk, but it was not like players were reaching over and hitting home runs on every occasion. And as time goes on, there won’t even be any energy spent arguing on the matter.