Sixty feet, six inches. It may well be the most iconic distance in sports. For more than a century, that has been the distance between home plate and the pitcher’s rubber on every baseball field in the world. But that could soon be changing, sources tell The Athletic.



Among the proposals being discussed by Major League Baseball and the players’ union this winter is the formation of a joint committee to study whether to move back the mound to help hitters, at a time when pitchers’ velocity has reached levels never before seen in history.



The committee, if agreed to by both sides, would also look at the potential impact of lowering the mound by as many as six inches. In addition, it would examine the possibility of changing the size of the strike zone, two years after MLB proposed raising the bottom of the zone to the top of the knees. That proposal was never enacted.



The committee would issue a report by the end of 2019, sources said. MLB and...