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Major League Baseball introduced two rule changes for the 2025 season regarding infield shifts and replay reviews, per The Athletic’s Evan Drellich.
According to Drellich, both rules were put in place to avoid rare occurrences in which previous rules could have “incentivized teams to try to game the system.”
The league’s new shift rule will grant a batter first base while advancing any other runners one base if a fielder breaks the current shift rule and is the first to touch the ball. For example, if a shortstop crosses over second base onto the right side of the field and is the first to touch the ball, the rule would come into play. The runner would also be granted first base if a second baseman got too close to the left side of the field and touched the ball first.
Furthermore, the fielder would be charged with an error and the batter would not register an at-bat. The offense could also choose to decline the penalty if it is happy with the result of the play.
The new rules apply more costly penalties than those of the previous rules. With the former rules, teams could either accept the result of the play or an automatic ball would be given to the batter. That meant fielding teams didn’t risk as much by placing a fielder in a position that violated the shift rule.
The new replay rule allows officials to review whether a runner overran second or third base, whereas previous rules meant officials had to ignore an overrun.
“If a runner runs second base or third base on a potential force play and does not attempt to hold the base or advance to the next base, the runner will be called out for abandonment,” a presentation from MLB to the competition committee read, per Drellich. “If a runner scores from third during the play, Replay will judge whether he touched the plate prior to the time when the abandoning runner passed the base (i.e., when his second foot touches the ground on the other side of the bag).”
According to Drellich, the shift violation that led to the new rule happened just twice last season, meaning it likely won’t be an extremely noticeable change this year.
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