MLB implements three-batter minimum, roster changes and two-way player regulations
Major League Baseball officially announced a group of rules changes for the 2020 season that have been widely expected for months, including some aimed at speeding up the pace of games.
The new rules cover four basic areas: minimum batters for relief pitchers, active roster limits, injured list reinstatement and manager challenges.
Minimum batters
The new rules require a starting pitcher or any reliever to pitch to a minimum of three batters unless the pitcher sustains an injury the umpiring crew chief determines prevents him from continuing to pitch. That rule goes into effect on Thursday, March 12.
Left-handed specialists that had become so prevalent will no longer be allowed to simply pitch to a single batter and then exit the game.
Rosters
MLB regular-season rosters from the start of the season through the end of August will expand from 25 to 26 players, including a maximum of 13 pitchers. The same regulations will apply to postseason rosters.
Starting Sept. 1, all clubs must expand their rosters to 28 active players. They’ll have a maximum of 14 pitchers.
MLB has also created specific guidelines on what constitutes a “two-way player” to govern the usage of players who serve as both position players and pitchers.
Los Angeles Angels star Shohei Ohtani has been both a starting pitcher and a designated hitter for the club since arriving from his native Japan in 2018, the season he won the AL Rookie of the Year award.
In order to qualify as a two-way player and thus appear as a pitcher during a game without counting toward a club’s pitching roster limit, that player must total at least 20 innings pitched in the majors and at least 20 games started as a position player or designated hitter, with at least three plate appearances in each of those games in either the current season or the previous season.
Team will have to designate these two-way players, and those players will maintain that status for the remainder of the season and postseason.
As part of the new rules, any position player may pitch following the ninth inning of an extra-inning game with or in a game with a margin of more than six runs.
With regular-season rosters expanding to 26 players, the “26th player rule” will become the “27th player rule,” which means a team can temporarily add a 27th player to its roster the day of a doubleheader.
Injured list
In order to address the use of two-way players, MLB also instituted a rule stipulating that two-way players cannot return from the injured list until 15 days after they initially went on the list, as opposed to the previous 10 days.
Pitchers optioned to the minors will also have a 15-day period before they can be recalled instead of the previous 15 days.
Challenges
Managers will only have 20 seconds to decide if they want to challenge an umpire’s ruling instead of the previous 30 seconds.
This story was originally published February 12, 2020 at 4:52 PM.
