Baseball’s New Pitching Rule for the 2020 Season

Spring training is underway for Major League Baseball and the new 2020 rules have debuted, too.

Rule changes happen in most sports year to year. Often to protect the players of that sport or to right a perceived wrong from the previous season. But one of the newest baseball rules doesn't seem to do either and it makes me wonder, why the change?

Officials for Major League Baseball passed a rule in the off-season that all pitchers must face at least three batters while on the mound.

Starters, relievers, closers – every pitcher, three batters minimum.

That means the days of putting in a relief pitcher to face a single batter they may be more likely to strike out are over. And I kind of wondered why?

It seems the reason is to make the games shorter.

In fact, there are several new rules for the 2020 season all designed to shorten the length of games.

I guess there have been complaints from fans about game duration? Or just a drop in viewership for baseball forcing the league's hand in these changes.

But is this really a necessary rule change? Is it actually for the greater good of the sport?

The average length for a game last year was just over three hours. That doesn't seem so bad, right?

Football games are just as long, if not longer, and they aren't trying to change that.

Is game length really MLB's viewership problem? Or does this new rules likely change nothing?