A new season typically means a handful of changes for the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), which, for the 2016 season, has instituted a new rule to reduce injuries on scoring plays and altered scheduling for its championship series.
The KBO has adopted a new rule on home-plate collisions to increase player safety. It’s intended to eliminate egregious collisions at home, and the rule was put into effect in the preseason.
Under the rule, a base runner may not run out of a direct line to the plate for the purpose of initiating contact with the catcher or any player covering the plate. If he does, the home plate umpire can call him out even if the player receiving the throw loses the ball on contact. In that case, other runners must return to their previous base.
According to the KBO, the umpire will make judgment calls.
“Whether the runner made an effort to touch the plate, or whether he lowered his shoulder or used his hands, elbows or arms to make contact with the catcher, will be considered,” the league added.
A head-first slide will be considered legal if the runner’s body hits the ground before he makes contact with the catcher. When a player slides feet first, his legs must touch the ground first before coming in contact with the catcher.
If the catcher doesn’t have the ball, he may not block the pathway of a runner trying to score. If the catcher blocks the runner without possession of the ball, the runner may be called safe.
The catcher also must make an effort to avoid unnecessary contact with the sliding runner.
In another rule change, teams will have an extra opportunity to demand a video review.
Until last year, teams could only challenge a call once and received an extra chance to appeal if the original ruling was overturned. However, if the call stood, teams weren’t allowed to challenge any more in the same game.
This season, they will have two opportunities to call for reviews, regardless of whether the original call is overturned.
Also, the replay will expand to cover fair and foul calls, check swings and home-plate collisions.
In other changes, the KBO will use one official ball, as opposed to four different balls put in play last season.
In the Korean Series, there will no longer be “neutral” games played at Seoul’s Jamsil Stadium. Until now, if the final contestants were based at stadiums with fewer than 20,000 seats, Games 5, 6 and 7, if necessary, have been played at Jamsil, the league’s largest ballpark with 25,500 seats. Starting this year, all Korean Series games will be contested at stadiums of the two clubs in the final regardless of their capacities.
The KBO will welcome two new stadiums this season. The Seoul-based Nexen Heroes have left Mokdong Stadium, a 10,600-seat venue with no outfield seats, and moved into Gocheok Sky Dome, the nation’s first fully domed stadium with 18,000 seats. The Samsung Lions had been playing at the dilapidated, 10,000-seat Daegu Citizen Baseball Stadium since the inaugural KBO season in 1982, and will open their first season at Daegu Samsung Lions Park with 24,000 seats. (Yonhap)
