MLB to tighten mound-visit rules, update slide rules

It’s not just players who need spring training to get in shape. Managers and pitching coaches better work on their speed, because they’re about to be timed.

Starting this season, mound visits from managers and pitching coaches will be limited to 30 seconds and tracked on an in-stadium clock from the moment they exit the dugout, sources familiar with the rule change told Yahoo Sports. In addition, Major League Baseball announced an updated and clarified slide rule Thursday afternoon that attempts to cut down on catastrophic injuries at second base when runners try to break up a double play. It also made the so-called neighborhood play — in which a fielder who doesn't touch second base but gets an out because he was near the bag — reviewable by replay.

The mound-visit rule will not apply to teammates and will not come with a penalty but instead a subtle jab from umpires. Its intent is to discourage lollygagging among managers and coaches who often use plodding walks to give relief pitchers extra time to warm up. After the institution of significant pace-of-play rules last season that helped shave the average game time to 2 hours, 56 minutes, the measures MLB will announce Thursday – including cutting the between-innings clock from 2:25 to 2:05, theoretically saving six minutes – are less drastic.

The slide rule operates in a similarly logical fashion, according to sources who briefed Yahoo Sports on it. It starts by describing what a runner can do, outlining four main tenets of a legal slide into second base:

 

• Slide prior to reaching the base.
• Slide so you are able to and attempt to reach or touch the base.
• Slide so you are able to and attempt to stay on the base.
• Do not change your pathway to the base.

 

Runners who follow those four rules are allowed to take out the fielder legally, according to the rule. People at MLB and the MLB Players Association, who together negotiated the changes, expect the rule to encourage fielders to stand on the back of the second-base bag, where he’d likely be safe if the runner abides by the standards. Slides that do not will result in an automatic double play, sources said.

Making the neighborhood play reviewable stirs up a number of questions, not just about how the extra replays could eat away at pace of play but regarding safety. Middle infielders have said they rely on the neighborhood play to keep themselves safe when attempted double plays are broken up. Subjecting the neighborhood play to review is the biggest sign yet that players are willing to adapt to the new slide rules in order to keep one another safe — at least, in theory.

Injuries to Pirates infielder Jung-ho Kang and Mets shortstop Ruben Tejada forced MLB to reconsider its stance on slides into second. To mitigate the risk that it ends up complicated and convoluted like the home-plate-collision rule, MLB, the union and umpires watched videos of about 20 plays at second base with questionable slides and formed a consensus on which were legal and which weren’t. From there, they looked for consistencies among the slides, good and bad, and attempted to find a rule that would require the least amount of interpretation among umpires.

No longer are runners allowed to kick their legs out above a fielder’s knee, start their slide after the bag or roll into a fielder, according to the rules. While umpires were previously advised to call such moves illegal slides, the rules are now official, and the league hopes they will encourage runners to slide into second with greater consideration.