Rules for faster games looming
how can we just be more efficient with our time?”
MLB and the union agreed to updated rules before the 2015 season that mandated batters keep a foot in the box, with some exceptions, and that batters and pitchers be ready within a certain time after inning breaks. That worked when umpires and MLB enforced them with warnings and fines, but not once enforcement decreased.
MLB’s proposal in January included a 20-second pitch clock with nobody on base and a limit on the number of mound visits in a game. A pitch clock has been used in the Arizona Fall League since 2014, and in Class AA and AAA since 2015. Veteran Pirates differed on the portion of the proposal they disliked, butt hey disliked them.
George Kontos did not like the idea of a pitch clock, but said he could see a reduction in mound visits.
“It’s just an extra little tidbit that I don’t think is necessary when you’re on the mound trying to execute the pitch, because the difference of an inch could be a double or a ground ball to second base,” hesaid of a pitch clock.
Mound visits serve many purposes: To change the signs so a runner on second can’t steal them and alert the batter, to give the pitcher a breather or to let a reliever get loose in the bullpen. Limiting them will force teams to rethink those strategies.
“If you see Yadier Molina catching, it’s why, for me, he’s been the best in the history of baseball behind the plate,” Francisco Cervelli said. “He’s able to change the tempo of the game. He can slow the game down, he can go fast in the game. It depends. The game is going to tell you what to do. If you eliminate those kind of things, it’s different. It’s a Play Station game.
“I remember Mariano [Rivera] used to tell me when he was struggling on the mound, if I didn’t go there, and I knew he was doing something wrong, he’d always get mad. And he told me, ‘Every time you see something, even if I throw one pitch and even if I am Mariano Rivera, you see something, you come here andyou let me know.’”
Manfred mentioned not only MLB’s own research but that of one of the league’s broadcast partners that revealed fans’ displeasure with length and pace of games. Last spring, former Pirate Gerrit Cole, then the team’s union rep, said the league had data showing that people turned off gamesin the middle.
“We’ve shared the results of that research with the MLBPA and with players directly,” Manfred said.
They will act on that research within the week. Players will need to adjust. Cervelli likened baseball to chess, and Hudson invoked a quote from Tampa Bay Rays starter Chris Archer: “If you want checkers, go play checkers. But it’s a chessmatch out there.”
Thing about chess is, it takes time. But even tournament chess has a clock.