Nick Michalski
Professor Eskot
EC 340
2 October 2020
MLB major rule changes and how it has benefited and challenged teams this past season.
Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic in early March put a halt to everyone’s plans. The cancelling
of all professional sports leagues, schools shutting down, restaurants/stores closing, etc. had
society wondering what was ahead. With Spring Training coming to an end and with the 2020
MLB season slated to start in late March, an announcement was made that the season would be
at least two weeks delayed. This turned out to be much more than that. As weeks and weeks,
then eventually months go by the MLB was soon wondering if they would even return for a
season. This was all due to the uncertainty of the pandemic the world was dealing with at the
time because little information was known about how bad this virus could spread and result in
death in some cases. After a few months went by, the MLB started addressing how they would
return to play and any rules that would be implemented during the planned shortened season. The
talks of returning to play resulted in twenty one players opting not to participate during the 2020
season. However, they were also having issues with how players’ salaries would work, in terms
of how much of their original salary they would be getting paid. After finally reaching an
agreement with the players and everyone else on board, the MLB decided to play a sixty game
regular season (forty division and twenty interleague games) starting July 23rd and ending
during its original end date September 27th. The shortened season and the several other rule
changes in place which I’ll discuss later was going to make for a very intriguing season ahead,
which surely was the case where there were many benefits and challenges that occurred
throughout the entire season. Economically as well the MLB and many teams and players
suffered loss of revenue and pay cuts.
Universal Designated Hitter
Previously in the several years leading up until this year the National League has not used
a designated hitter during it’s games. Instead, the pitcher pitching in the game would bat usually
in the nine spot in the lineup. This is mainly due to that the majority of pitchers throughout the
MLB are not very good hitters, as pitching is their primary strength. For instance, statically in the
1990s players like Babe Ruth and Wes Ferrell to name a few hit above .300 batting average
while also being great pitchers, but in today’s day and age many pitchers specifically in the
