MLB games are seeing yet another time increase, and Commissioner Rob Manfred is not happy about it.
MLB games are once again averaging over three hours and concern Commissioner Rob Manfred. In an interview Tuesday with ESPN, Manfred said:
"“We think the single biggest thing we had going for us early in the year [last season] was player focus on the topic. And we feel like we’ve lost a little focus. So we’re doing a variety of things to try to get that focus back.”"
With games taking nearly seven minutes longer at this point of the season compared to last, the MLB front office again hopes to work with the MLB Players Association to get game times down. With replay usage up 35 percent and pitches-per-game at a seven-year-high of 289.25 per nine-innings, according to ESPN, you can see why game times are going in the wrong direction.
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As fans we can argue about added replay or excessive pitching changes and endless commercials why games drag out without the usual flow and cadence of our national pastime. Lengthy television breaks and expanding what can and cannot be reviewed are on MLB and their partners. Matching pitchers to face batters is a part of a manager’s strategy now. Although we grumble with the bullpen battles late in games, talk radio and countless Internet columns will take skippers to task for being too cautious in making moves.
Will Manfred push through deeper changes such as further limiting mound visits and instituting a hard pitch clock as other leagues have tried?
Hopefully not, but he needs to discuss how games flow. A good game is timeless. A pitcher’s duel, however, should not take over three hours to play.
The answer may come from a look at general statistics.
We can all be nostalgic for complete games and afternoon starts that ended in the prompt 2:30-2:40 range but, as with everything else, the game has evolved and changed.
Instead of looking at the 1970s and 80s for a reference, we should look to 2005.
Why?
In the middle of the modern era of bullpen games and ads for everything, the average length of a nine-inning game that season was 2:46. Fourteen minutes shorter than today’s three-hour marathons. With offenses more productive, on-base percentage at .330 compared to 2016’s .321, the game length was in line with the 1980s.
The big difference between 2005 and 2016? Strikeouts.
Hitters averaged 6.3 strikeouts-per-nine eleven years ago. This year, they are averaging 8.0. In case you wondered, that would set the all-time record by .29 established last year at 7.71. Hard to blame fans for not wanting to watch hitters make mid-rotation starters look like Dwight Gooden for three hours a night.
The good news for Manfred is with arm-twisting, cutting a commercial break here and there can make a difference in improving baseball’s flow. The bad news, however, is it might take a few years and a new generation of players to actually play the game faster. Pitchers need to be taught to pitch in rhythm like a dancer. Throw the ball, get the sign and do it again. Batters need to be reminded good things happen when you put the ball in play. A ground out to second can move a runner along.
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With all the hand wringing to move baseball into the modern world who would have thought the best remedy is increasing the action.