Dead grass era? MLB aids offense by testing restricted OF shifts

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- The Arizona Fall League has long been a testing ground for the next generation of MLB players, and lately, it's also been a venue for testing potential rules changes.

This year, Major League Baseball's newest experiment is to restrict the positioning of outfielders on every at-bat.

The goal is to boost the game's sluggish offense by making outfielders play straight up -- instead of adjusting for individual hitters' tendencies -- which will in theory lead to more doubles and triples.

The outfield positioning experiment is limited to just games that are played at Salt River Fields, since it has similar technology to MLB parks.

How it works is outfielders will look up at a small video board that can tell a player where they are in the field and will either generate an "X," if he's incorrectly positioned or an "O" if he is in a defensively acceptable spot.

Minnesota Twins prospect Kyle DeBarge is getting experience with the experimental system.

"The hardest part is cutting off doubles in the gap and they're even turning into triples," DeBarge said. "That's what they told us they wanted in the beginning. So it works."

The experimental rules force outfielders at Salt River Fields to play much more shallow than they would in most situations, which means they are forced to go back on fly balls much more often than normal. The flip side is that there are almost no bloop singles.

A recent game saw Scottsdale beat Salt River 15-8 in a tilt that featured five triples -- which was an AFL record.

"We talked to our guys about embracing it, it only happens in our ballpark, so embrace it and move on," Salt River manager Ted Tom said. "There's going to be some things that we've never seen before. That's OK, just keep playing."

The league has spent years attempting to increase both the speed of games and offense, with mixed results.

The pitch clock was the biggest change -- and drastically reduced game times -- but there were also tweaks that included rules on infield shifts, bigger bases and a limit on how many times a pitcher could disengage from the rubber.

Game times are about 25 minutes shorter and stolen bases are up, but batting average (.243 in 2022 and .244 in 2026), runs per game (4.28 in 2022, 4.48 in 2026) and hits per game (8.16 in 2022, 8.20 in 2026) haven't changed much.

MLB feels that the AFL is a good opportunity to test rules in a relatively low-stakes environment. The league declined official comment on the most recent experiment, and any change to big-league rules would still be years away.

"The pros are that you're never out of the game, it's very exciting for the fans and there's lots of action, which is part of the intention," Tom said.

But when asked if he thought these new outfield defensive positioning rules were straying a bit too far, Tom gave a little grin before mimicking a zipper across his lips.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.