How to Fix Baseball's Pace of Play Issues

Despite the league's revenue sitting at an all-time high, Major League Baseball's Commissioner, Rob Manfred, is concerned about the future of the sport. Ask any football-watching, basketball-loving, or lacrosse-playing teenager why they don't watch or play baseball? You'll get the same answer each time: "It's too slow and too boring."

The average time of a 9 inning game in 2019 was 3 hours and five minutes. Prior to 2014, that number had never reached the 3 hour mark, and only once, 2017, had it hit the 3:05 point. Despite limiting mound visits, eliminating the traditional intentional walk, and shredding the time between innings, the league has flat-out failed to shred any time off the game. If they want to make the game shorter, they're going to need to suck it up and make some changes to America's historic game.

Eliminate Mound Visits

With the direction that things are headed, this seems like the most probable and unavoidable measure the league can take to improve the pace of play. Prior to the 2018 season, MLB announced that each team would receive 6 mound visits per game, with one per extra inning. In 2019, they lowered it to 5. Each mound visit, realistically, takes about a minute, although the official rulebook states that the umpire will break up any meeting 30 seconds after the manager, coach, or catcher leaves their perch. By eliminating mound visits altogether, the league would easily shave 10 minutes off of each game. This would tilt the average down to 2:55, a number unseen since 2012. Preventing mound visits doesn't have a significant effect on the game, either. While pitchers and coaches might be initially perturbed, they will quickly adapt to the use of signals and "cheat-sheets," such as those that have sprung up on the inside of various ball caps around baseball in recent years. A quick and easy change, banning trips to the hill is a surefire way to improve the pace of play.

Require Pitchers to Face 3 Batters

One of the killers of a baseball game's pace of play is the specialist pitcher. This is a player who is only on a roster to get one specific type of hitter out. For example, a team might send in a specialist to face one left-handed power hitter, and then replace him with a new pitcher to face the next batter. For a regular season game, pitchers are given 2 minutes and 5 seconds to warm up. Under this new rule, 9 pitchers would be the maximum for a 9 inning game, but teams would only use 4 or 5 in most situations. According to Baseball Reference, 2 pitchers per team per game face less than 3 batters, so a minimum of 8 minutes would be saved each game with this requirement. Plus, without the threat of the specialist pitcher, managers would be able to structure their lineups however they see best fit, without concern over hitting three lefties in a row, for example. Better built lineups means more offense and more excitement drawn towards the league, making this a move a double-win for Major League Baseball.

Introduce a Pitch Clock

Yes, It's finally time. After flirting with the idea for several years, Major League Baseball is going to need to realize that the pitch clock is going to need to become a reality if they want to significantly speed up the game. in 2018, the average time between pitches was 23.8 seconds. Considering that the average game has 292 pitches, enforcing a pitch clock of 20 seconds would save about 18 minutes and 30 seconds each game. When experimented in the minor leagues, the pitch clock shaved 11-16 minutes off of each game. The proposed clock would require the batter and pitcher to be set at the 15-second mark, with the pitch delivery in process by the 20-second mark. If the batter failed to adhere, a strike would be added, while if the pitcher could not beat the clock, an additional ball would be tallied. Despite it being against a lot of what the game stands for, if the league wants to thrive, they're going to need the pitch clock, which would pay huge dividends for a fairly small price.

Streamline Instant Replay

Over the past few seasons, instant replay has been a fantastic addition to the game of baseball. In fact, its hard to imagine that the game operated for so long without it, even when they had the choice to implement it. The one issue with instant replay is the time it can take. Replays have taken an average of 110 seconds each since they were added, 20 seconds more than the league's original goal of a minute and a half. This proposal would involve a realignment of umpiring crews. Instead of 76 umpires split into 19 4-man crews, 75 umpires would be split into 15 5-man crews. After all, there can only be 15 games going on at once, maximum. The 5th member of each crew would be an on-site replay official, which would prevent the estimated 40-60 seconds it takes for the umpires to get word that there will be a review, make their way to the headsets, connect to New York, and then to return to their spots. He would see the play again on an on-site monitor, similar to the NFL, and would be able to communicate his decision to the on-field umpires directly, sparing the umpires of the need to leave their spots at all. The average MLB game contains a pair of reviews, so this proposal could easily speed up the game by 2-4 minutes more.

Maintain Realistic Expectations

This is most important. No matter what the league chooses to do, the game of baseball is not suddenly going to become a one-hour contest. There are other ways to add more action to the game, but cutting minutes can only do so much. Baseball will still be baseball.