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Friday, March 03, 2023

DHL Dan CLXI - Ramming Speed!

Shank's pretty happy about the recent modifications in Major League Baseball:
Getting baseball up to speed again is reason to rejoice, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while brushing my teeth in less than 20 seconds …

▪ We love baseball. But baseball has not loved us back in recent decades.

The game we grew up with became unrecognizable as MLB asked fans to endure interminable stretches of non-action and abject indifference. We had pitchers who would not throw the ball and hitters who would not step into the batter’s box. None of the players seemed aware that they’d brought a once-great game to a standstill.

Now everything has changed. We have a pitch clock, mandating action. To avoid being assessed an automatic ball, pitchers have 20 seconds to throw a pitch (15 if the bases are empty). To avoid an automatic strike, batters need to be in the box, ready to swing, with eight seconds left on the clock. Spring games are being played an average of 26 minutes faster. With more action.

Hallelujah.
Gotta say I agree with him 100%. Regular season games are tough to watch when they take three hours to play and we're well aware of how long typical Red Sox / Yankees games (and most playoff games as well) can take. These moves will save baseball's ass in the long run.

1 comment:

FenFan said...

I have no issue with implementing the pitch clock, but I have two other suggestions that would speed up the game without question:

(1) shorten the commercial breaks between half-innings from two-plus minutes to a minute, which would shave more than 15 minutes off an average nine-inning game; and
(2) use StatCast to call balls and strikes, which demonstrated a marked decrease in game time when tested in the minors and independent leagues.