I’m trying to think of any sport that makes changes to help the defense. It’s because to casual mouth breathing fans scoring/points/runs = excitement. I don’t get it either, but that’s the way it seems to go. Everything they do seems to hurt pitching in MLB, I hate this crap.
But the nature of baseball is different, because helping the offense by raising the bottom strike zone or whatever is going to just make games longer. But I doubt the umps that have a lot of time in are even going to pay attention to this, so it might not be a big deal besides lip flapping anyhow.
Freegards
I remember the old days. If someone hit a home run off of Bob Gibson, the next batter knew, on the first pitch, his face better hit dirt, cause the ball was coming at him.
Offensive pass interference was put in to make Michael Irving stop pushing off. And really getting rid of the pitches in an intentional walk helps the defense, it means they won’t face a wild pitch once every 4 years.