Major League Baseball announced today that it had approved a ban of home-plate collisions where a runner attempts to knock the ball loose from a catcher. The deal still needs MLBPA approval to be official, and probably won’t be in play until the 2015 season.
As Matt Snyder of Eye on Baseball points out, this could lead to the enforcement of obstruction rules at the plate. Runners will have to slide into home when a catcher has a ball. However, the current rules state that catchers can’t block the base line when they don’t have the ball, even though that is common in baseball right now.
Pirates catcher Tony Sanchez isn’t a fan of the new rule change.
Nothing better than getting run over and showing the umpire the ball. Please don't ban home plate collisions @MLB
— Tony Sanchez (@Tony26Montana) December 11, 2013
It is an exciting play when there’s a collision at the plate, although I feel that MLB is considering the injury risk involved here. The Cardinals will almost certainly benefit from this rule change, since it seems like Yadier Molina gets injured every year in a home plate collision.