Major League Baseball announced a series of rule changes, today, that attempt to address the league’s growing concern with the pace of play in baseball.
You may recall a piece I wrote that stated my assertion that the pace of play in baseball isn’t as dramatically different as it appears on the surface if you negate the very dramatic increase in commercials but Commissioner Manfred won’t return my calls so here we are, taking to Twitter to argue about the new rules.
As they stand now, I’m fairly indifferent. The league offices and the Players Association have come up with a compromise that takes steps to increase the pace of play but won’t have any real bearing on the game. All on-field penalties for the “delay of game” were removed and exchanged for a minor fine system, with larger fines going to repeat offenders.
With many of the pace of play rules saving minimal time from the game it may appear to be lip service to critics of the length of the game but picking up a second or two here or there is going to give the MLB some big numbers to report at the end of the year. For example, they are implementing new standards for on-field play to begin after a commercial break with a countdown timer and strict points of play. Ken Rosenthal tweeted out the MLB press release earlier today.
MLB & MLBPA announce additions to the pace of game program, effective this season. Details: pic.twitter.com/qr0KBcPLA9
— MLB Communications (@MLB_PR) February 20, 2015
This may seem like a totally inconsequential amount of time but there are 18 commercial breaks just at inning breaks and another handful for mid-inning pitching changes. For the sake of keeping the numbers realistic, let’s say the average game has 21 commercial breaks. If this new rule can shave 7 seconds off of the game after each break, we’re looking at nearly 2.5 minutes per game. Of course, cutting one commercial from each of those breaks would shave 10 minutes off the game but now I’m just being silly.
Then there is the rule about keeping one foot in the batters box at all times unless one of the 15 scenarios they list as excusable occurs. For the sake of argument, let’s say this shaves 2 seconds off of the average pitch, which is an admittedly inflated number but not out of the realm of possibility. If the average game has about 140 pitches per side, that’s 9:20. That’s as astronomical as it is unlikely so let’s say it only takes 1 second off of each pitch, we’re still at over 4.5 minutes per game.
Last year, the average time of the final 11 regulation A’s games (9 innings) was 3:03. With these new rules in place, the average game could have been down to 2:55 (ish). Doesn’t seem like much but it gets the games under three hours, on average, which seems to be the magic number MLB is looking at, and it allows the powers that be to say that they shaved 283 hours off the 2015 season. That’s 94 games and that’s exactly what baseball is looking for. They’re looking for a way to brag to the young fans about how much more action is in their sport and how they’re so much shorter than football with much less downtime while still keeping us old fuddy-duddy fans pacified with our leisurely games.
Furthermore, the pace of play adjustments can’t be too drastic because ball clubs are not going to be eager to shave ten minutes off of beer sales in the stadium during a game or be forced to lower the price because nobody can justify spending $45 for a 2.5 hour experience so taking 5-7 minutes off of each game may be the perfect sweet spot they’re looking for to be able to boast and pacify simultaneously.
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