It is easy to pile on Major League Baseball for doing dumb things. Rob Manfred and his buddies have done a lot of stupid stuff to make the sport less enjoyable over the years. But MLB pitch clocks are not one of them. These cannot come to a big league ballpark soon enough.
ESPN’s Jeff Passan recently reported that the introduction of a pitch clock had reduced 20 minutes off game times in the minor leagues. Roughly 85 percent of games finished in under three hours and scoring was unaffected.
But you don’t need a study to explain why MLB pitch clocks are necessary. Just watch a baseball game when a position player pitches. The proof is right there for all to see. A recent blowout between the San Francisco Giants and San Diego Padres really opened my eyes to this.
With the Giants up 11-2, the Padres turned to right fielder Wil Myers in the bottom of the 8th inning to clean up. He gave up two solo home runs and threw 22 pitches in total. Not a great outing, but holy crap, he was not wasting anytime between pitches. There were no aimless strolls around the mound or endless deep breaths. His pace was refreshing to watch.
And then the top of the 9th inning came around and San Francisco handed the ball to Yunior Marte with an 11-run lead. Despite throwing only 13 pitches and facing three batters, he took forever to do it. The dichotomy couldn’t have been greater.
It was like watching Mike D’Antoni’s Phoenix Suns go up against North Carolina running four corners under Dean Smith. Except for the fact those are the two pace of play extremes in basketball. In baseball, Marte’s slow as molasses performance is the average speed pitchers operate at.
Look, I know there are baseball traditionalists out there who perform one of those old lady television fainting spells the second anyone uses the words MLB and pitch clocks in the same sentence. But let’s not pretend this is about the sanctity of the sport.
Pace of play was quicker back in the day because players wanted to get off the field as soon as possible so they could go pop greenies, snort coke, hit the buffet table, run over kids with their car or do any other number of wholesome activities. Apparently, today’s professionals have nothing better to do in life than stand around for a minute between pitches.
MLB pitch clocks cannot come soon enough. It will certainly be an improvement on baseball’s other recent “innovations” like the stupid extra inning runner rule which for some reason still exists despite everyone hating it.
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