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How will MLB rule changes impact a few Texas Rangers in particular?

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ARLINGTON, Texas — It didn’t come as a huge surprise when Major League Baseball announced the latest round of rule changes, least of all to the general manager of the Texas Rangers. After all, Chris Young spent nearly three years as MLB’s head of operations, working extensively on the research and development of some of these rules.

“It was a big part of my job,” Young acknowledged Friday night, minimizing his importance in the process. “I was along for the ride for one small portion of a long period of development of these rule changes. So I got exposure to some of the things that they’ve been talking about for a long time.”

Young is now tasked with leading and building a team that will be playing under those rules, and there are a few players in particular for whom the rule changes might have quite an effect.

Corey Seager, Marcus Semien and hitting into the shift

The first player who came to a lot of people’s minds when the shift ban was announced was former Ranger Joey Gallo. But two current Rangers players could benefit mightily from the requirement to keep two infielders on either side of the infield.

“In (Corey) Seager’s case, we’re not mad that he’s gonna add 10, 15, 20 hits to his profile here,” hitting coach Donnie Ecker said. That might sound like an exaggeration, but it isn’t, as the illustrious Jeremy Frank pointed out in this tweet:

Not only does Seager have more outs in those instances than anyone else, but it’s also not even close. A shift ban doesn’t mean 90 more hits for Seager — some of those line drives and groundballs went to first basemen and would inevitably still find a second baseman in a more traditional position — but Ecker’s estimation of 15 to 20 more hits isn’t an absurd guess. Seager has already hit a career-high 29 home runs this season. Going into Saturday’s game, Seager’s line was at .247/.322/.457 (.779 OPS). If he added even 10 more singles, it would improve to .267/.339/.477 (.816), and that’s not factoring in any additional walks, should pitchers choose to be more careful with him, knowing they don’t have a shift behind them.

I showed Seager the tweet, and his eyebrows shot up.

“So it sounds like I want the shift to be banned,” he said with a laugh. “I think it’s two-sided. You’re excited about it offensively, obviously, especially now that you’ve told me it was that many. But then again, you think about the defensive side and how much it is beneficial.”

We’ll get to that in a minute.

As Frank points out with Kyle Tucker, Marcus Semien could also stand to benefit a bit more because of his speed. He has a career-high 23 stolen bases this year and has been caught only five times. But Semien downplayed his inclusion in the above list a bit.

“I think I just play a lot,” Semien said with a shrug. “I get a lot of at-bats. I’m always up there in outs. Until I turn into a .300 hitter, I’m gonna make outs, whether they’re in the shift or not. Usually, I try and hit it over the infielders, but when I hit groundballs pull side, there’s usually three guys there. So let’s see how it changes.”

Seager, Semien (and Nathaniel Lowe) and defending without the shift

Ah, yes, the flip side of the coin. Although Seager and Semien should benefit at the plate, both will be forced to cover a bit more ground as infielders.

At second base, Semien should be fine. Entering play Friday, he had an ultimate zone rating (UZR) of 2.5, good for fourth-best among qualifying second basemen.

“It’ll be different,” Semien said. “I always thought I was valuable because I could go over there to the left side, too. I just want to get every ball that’s hit somewhere near me. Wherever I’m standing now with the new rules, it’s going to be the same.”

Seager’s defense, however, could be impacted more negatively. His nine fielding errors are the most in the major leagues. (He has seven throwing errors, for a total of 16, which is fourth-most among shortstops.) As with Semien at the plate, some of this can be attributed to the fact that Seager has played a lot of innings at the position ( sixth-most), but his UZR is just 0.3, 16th-best among the 23 qualifying big-league shortstops. How might this rule affect Seager’s play at shortstop?

“That’s something I think you always stay on top of,” Seager said. “I just think that it becomes more important (with) the personnel you pick. Now, third baseman, first baseman, it’s becoming more important because you only do have two people on the same side (of the infield). First base, especially, because (in the shift) they just guard the line; you can throw somebody way out there (in right-center field). And you don’t really know how they are defensively because if it’s not hit at them, they go to the bag.”

Seager brings up a good point: Nate Lowe’s UZR is 0.4, which ranks seventh among qualifying first basemen. Lowe’s defensive issues haven’t been about getting to the ball but about handling it cleanly once he gets there.

There has been speculation that Seager might be better suited at his big brother’s old position (third base), but perhaps you’ve heard that the Rangers just called up the guy they hope will be their third baseman of the future. Some manner of shakeup could happen in 2023 — Josh Jung to second base and Semien to shortstop? Seager to first and Lowe to designated hitter? — but that’s a question for spring training.

Bubba Thompson, Jonah Heim and the great base burglary

It finally happened earlier this week in Houston: After 10 successful attempts, Bubba Thompson was caught stealing. Under the new rules, the theft of bases should become a little easier. First, pitchers will be limited to two pickoff attempts per plate appearance (unless the runner advances). After that, if the pitcher throws over and the runner gets back safely, the runner will be awarded the next base. In theory, this should lead to runners taking a more confident jump after a second throw over (or perhaps even before, knowing pitchers don’t want to put themselves in that position by throwing over unnecessarily).

“The two throw-over (rule) is definitely going to be challenging,” catcher Jonah Heim said. “I know they’re trying to get some offense going, some excitement, base-stealing stuff. But as a catcher, we already kind of have a hard time with this because guys are outrageously fast and they’ve got all the data in the world. So it’s gonna make our lives a little harder, but I guess it just means you’re gonna work harder.”

Might the old Pudge Rodriguez-style pick-back from catcher to first base see a resurgence in popularity?

“Probably,” Heim said, nodding. “I would think so, seeing as how (pitchers) can only pick over two times, but they didn’t say anything about catchers throwing. So (that) might keep (leadoffs) a little shorter.”

For Thompson, who stole 49 bases in 80 Triple-A games before being called up in August, this rule change could be an invitation to run wild and become a very valuable big-league player.

One other factor could lead to more stolen bases, for Thompson and others: the increased base size. Bases are going from 15 square inches to 18 square inches. If you’ll pardon a crude diagram, this means first and third base will extend a bit further towards second base.


Sorry that I made the foul line out of … tire tracks?

The impact on stealing second base will be that runners can extend their lead another 3 inches since first base will be a bit closer to them. That benefit will work the same way when stealing third — the slide will find the bag a few inches earlier. With so many stolen-base attempts already decided by a matter of inches, Thompson has the potential to go from a guy who steals a lot of bases to a guy who steals a tone of bases.

The bullpen and the pitch clock

“I hate the pitch clock,” Joe Barlow said flatly when asked about the rule change. Barlow is among the Rangers’ slowest pitchers in the “tempo” stat on Baseball Savant, clocking in at 21.7 seconds between pitches. Of note: This stat is not the same thing the new rule will be measuring, as it counts the time between when a pitcher releases one pitch and when he releases the next one. (The pitch clock will start when the pitcher receives the ball from the catcher.)

For Barlow, the issue isn’t so much that he would feel rushed but that the rule might have a tangible effect on the outcome of a game that is in the late stages and close.

“To speed up the game, I think that’s reasonable,” Barlow said. “But for the penalty to be a ball or a strike… I’m imagining, like, winning a World Series on a ball four because the pitcher took too long. I think if they really wanted to do it, I think you (should) probably go with fines. Fine guys. I just don’t think you can make a rule up that genuinely affects the outcome of the game.”

“You gotta have a good catcher. That’s really what it’s gonna come back to,” said Josh Sborz, who played with the pitch clock in Triple A this year but clocks in at 22.7 seconds between pitches in the big leagues. “I didn’t have a problem with the clock once I got used to it, but it’s because I trusted the catchers. It’s gonna be more shocking for hitters because now they only get five seconds to get in that box.”

“I don’t think it’s going to affect me because you just have to prepare mentally for it,” Jonathan Hernández added. “Sometimes you take your time because you know you have it. … I think it’s gonna be better on the timing — pitching timing, mechanics — so I think that’s gonna be good.”

One thing that should help is another year of working with the PitchCom system, which allows catchers to relay signals to pitchers immediately, without having to worry about an elaborate system of hand signals, especially with a runner on second, where sign-stealing suspicion once ran rampant in the league.

Of course, there will be more questions — one answer just about everyone had in common was “I don’t really know.” It’s hard to definitively say much about how the rules will change the game until the players get a chance to practice under the new guidelines. But on their surface, the rules seem to at least address the concerns of some fans who have bemoaned the extremes to which teams have implemented shifts and slowed down the game, returning it to a more recognizable aesthetic.

“It does look more historically how you would see it,” Seager said. “I guess it happened because there weren’t rules to it. So you could literally play anywhere you want; that was just how everybody’s done it in the past. I think there’s gonna be some learning curve to it. And I think you’re gonna have to be more precise analytically now on where guys actually hit balls on that side of the field to try and cover as much as you can. It’ll be interesting.”

(Photo of Corey Seager: Bob DeChiara / USA Today)

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