MLB rumors: “Pace of Play” rule changes are coming due to sabermetrics
By Jared Wolfe
Major League Baseball set a record for the longest time per game in 2017, and this has Commissioner Rob Manfred ready to make changes, according to these MLB rumors.
The MLB and the MLB Player’s Union are meeting this week to discuss the pace of play issues that are causing game times to go to unprecedented levels. A couple of reported changes that may be happening are pitch clocks and mound visits between catchers and pitchers, according to some recent MLB rumors.
Personally, I am biased towards the game not doing anything to change regarding pitch clocks or limitations on catchers, etc. I think the game has a natural beauty that time does not play a factor in the game.
However, I am personally aware of the increase in the time it takes to play a 9-inning game.
The past ten years there has a been a steady increase:
Year Time (Hours)
2008 2:50
2009 2:51
2010 2:50
2011 2:51
2012 2:55
2013 2:58
2014 3:02
2015 2:56
2016 3:00
2017 3:05
To put this in even more compared to earlier days, the pace of play back through the 1960’s-1980’s increased from low 2:30’s to high 2:40’s. Clearly, the issue is there.
Now I did share my bias, but here is my case for why the pitch clock and mound visits will only have a limited effect of time of games.
After going through the data of time of games, I found a startling correlation. First, here is a graph of some pitchers used per game over the years.
If you look closely at the graphs, the dips in time of game come virtually the same years as the dips in the number of pitchers used. An example of this is the years between 1960’s and 1970’s. Also, in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.
The striking correlation is that time a game takes to play correlates by 86.2% to the number of pitchers used in a game.
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So why have pitchers been used more over the years? Well, that is an easy answer. Starting pitchers are not throwing nearly the amount of innings they used to. As we have seen this off-season, the bullpen has been the only part of the market moving because teams realize statistically that pitchers are worse the more times they go through a batting order.
The Sabermetric ideology has caused more pitching changes and bullpens have become more prominent in the game because of it.
Even so, I am aware that this is the issue that really cannot change. What can be changed are additions of pitch clocks and a mound visit limitations.
The minor leagues since 2015 have been using the rules as a test for the MLB. They have had good success. It has been reported that games have been shortened by an average of 12 minutes with the new rules.
Yes, I do think the pitch clock and mound visit limitations will create a quicker pace. I do not like it personally, but I think it is inevitable to happen, with MLB rumors swarming around and fans unhappy,
I wanted to find the root-cause of the issue of pace of play, and maybe players are going slower, but I think there is the reason to blame the sabermetric revolution causing managers and players to slow down the game, use a few more pitchers, and make the right move to gain competitive advantage.
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Should we change this and satisfy these MLB rumors? The opinions vary. I stand by the fact that I love the mind games on the field and I do not care how long the games take. Maybe one day a team will eliminate the coined term “starter” and have a team full of one to two inning pitchers?