Automatic Designated Hitters and Ghost Runners are Coming in 2022

After a lengthy lockout that featured back and forth negotiations between team owners and the players union, MLB Spring Training is wrapping up and the season officially opens a week from today. Everyone with the Nashville Stars is excited to watch some baseball.

As part of the new labor agreement, a few rule changes are going into effect with the start of the 2022 campaign. Rule changes in baseball are nothing new, but they almost always yield polarizing debates among baseball fans. While MLB is concerned with making sure the game adapts with the times, many fans feel as though the game's beauty lies in its tradition.?

When we take a deeper dive, however, we find that baseball's rulebook has been fluid for as long as the game's been played.?

The biggest change in 2022 is the adoption of the universal designated hitter in the National League, meaning that, unless by choice, pitchers will no longer bat. The American League adopted a DH in 1973, when it became obvious that most modern-day pitchers were not developing or focusing on hitting mechanics.

While this change will bring an end to unlikely, albeit glorious, home runs, like Bartolo Colon's unlikely moonshot in 2016, the move is an undeniable boon to the offensive production of NL Teams.?

It should be noted that with this rule, MLB specified that a pitcher who starts the game as the DH can remain in the batting lineup even after he is pulled from the mound. (We're looking at you, Shohei Ohtani.)

Doubleheaders will now be nine innings (as opposed to the seven they were last year), and in extra innings, teams will start with a baserunner on second base.

It's evident that MLB has a keen interest in making sure the game doesn't become a stagnant form of entertainment.?

At baseball's beginning, tinkering with the rules meant tinkering with TWO sets of rules; one for the Massachusetts Game (played on a square) and the New York Game (played on a diamond). Imagine the confusion!?

When you read through baseball history books, you'll find quite a few unusual rules from baseball's past. For example, spitballs were outlawed in 1920, yet pitchers who had been throwing them previously were allowed to continue. For sanitary purposes, MLB was likely glad this pitch got banned prior to the pandemic.?

Up until 1864, fly balls could be caught off a bounce. The parks were certainly bigger back then, but we think that speedy and athletic outfielders like Mike Trout and Ronald Acu?a, Jr. would be walking to the balls if given that luxury.?

Perhaps the weirdest rule from baseball's ancient rulebook, however, is that from 1867 to 1887, batters could request a high or a low pitch. Imagine a slugger like Aaron Judge or Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. stepping up to the plate and getting to pick his spot? Can you say Home Run Derby...

Throughout baseball's illustrious history, the rulebook has been, and continues to be, tweaked to perfect a game that's beauty lies in its inevitable imperfection. Though new rules always bring cries of blasphemy from baseball traditionalists, much like a new operating system on an iPhone, the change only feels foreign at first.

Baseball imitates life; or rather, life imitates baseball. In time, a new normal emerges, and comfort and familiarity return...until the next amendment, that is. Until then, let's play ball!