Major League Baseball is making progress on a new rule that would be aimed at making slide plays into second base safer for fielders.
During his press conference to wrap up the quarterly owners’ meetings on Thursday, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred confirmed speculation that the league is looking into a so-called “Chase Utley Rule.” According to Kevin Davidoff of The New York Post, Manfred said the Competition Committee “made a recommendation that we move ahead with our discussions with the [Players Association] with a view towards altering the rules that [govern] that type of play.”
While there are already rules in place that are supposed to prevent players from blatantly trying to take out a fielder while breaking up a double play, Utley’s leg-breaking slide into Ruben Tejada during the playoffs (video here) has called more attention to that type of play.
As we know, home-plate collisions have ultimately been removed from the game after San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey suffered a brutal injury in 2011. Sliding into second can’t be eliminated altogether, so it’s more likely that any “Chase Utley Rule” would simply place more emphasis on umpires using their judgment about a baserunner’s intentions.
