MLB rule changes work. More than half of ABS challenges this year are getting overturned, which means umpires were wrong more than half the time somebody pushed back on a call. The pitch clock cut 25 minutes off the average game. ABS is working on day one of its first real season. There are four more the league needs to make, and I’m done pretending there are serious arguments against any of them.
Full ABS Is the Only Honest Next Step
Umpires get about 94% of ball-strike calls right. People throw that number around like it ends the argument. It doesn’t. In the 2025 NLDS, a clear strike got called a ball on a full count, the batter eventually scored, and his team knocked the other team out of the playoffs on a call that should have never happened. Among the MLB rule changes the league needs to stop being cute about, full ABS is the most obvious one. The challenge system only corrects about 20% of missed calls because players can’t flag every bad pitch without burning challenges at the wrong time. Full ABS kills the whole problem. The umpires’ union will fight it, fine, but the people screaming about “human element” are usually the same ones losing their minds when a bad call costs their team a game. You don’t actually want the human element. You want it until it hurts you.
The Check Swing Has Never Had an Official Definition
There is no rulebook definition of a check swing. Not a vague one. Not a bad one. None. A swing is officially “an attempt to strike a ball” and the rulebook stops there. Umpires have been guessing on check swings for 150 years, and the guess changes based on who’s calling it and who’s batting. Of all the MLB rule changes being tested in the minors right now, the check swing challenge is the most overdue. The Pacific Coast League is running it starting in May 2026, using a 45-degree bat angle tracked by Hawk-Eye technology that already lives in every major league ballpark. When the Florida State League tested it, strikeout rates dropped by more than 3% and more balls went in play. I don’t know what we’re waiting for at this point.
Give Pitchers One Disengagement and Make It Count
MLB already limits pitchers to two disengagements per batter, which is better than the old way. Two is still enough rope for a patient pitcher to neutralize a baserunning threat without paying a real price for it. This isn’t one of those MLB rule changes that needs years of study. Cut it to one disengagement per plate appearance and now a pitcher has to actually make a decision. Do you throw over the second the runner gets a lead, or do you hold it and deal with him taking a bigger step all at-bat? Baserunners get a real edge. Stolen bases become a weapon instead of something a smart pitcher steps off and defuses for free. The framework is already there. One is just the more honest version of two.
Moving Second Base Is the Best of These MLB Rule Changes
The International League is testing a repositioned second base in the second half of 2026, moving the bag nine inches closer to the pitcher’s mound. Nine inches off the run from first to second and from second to third. That sounds like nothing until you put it in context. More stolen base attempts because the margin shrinks. Slower runners scoring from first on a double. A leadoff single becoming an actual scoring threat instead of something you hold while you wait for the cleanup hitter. Baseball spent twenty years leaning into the home run and the strikeout and somewhere in that stretch the fans who loved watching someone take third on a ball hit the other way just stopped showing up. MLB rule changes like this one are how you get them back. You don’t take one thing away from power hitters. You give something back to everyone else. I want this one more than anything on this list and it isn’t particularly close.
The case for all four of these MLB rule changes is airtight. The pitch clock worked. ABS is working. The check swing data from the minors is good. Moving second base is in testing right now. Every argument against these ideas gets weaker every year the results come back the same way. Stop stalling.
