Major League Fixing: How Much Time Would a Pitch Clock Save?
Major League baseball games are longer than ever. In 2019, 9-inning games averaged a record 3 hours, 5 minutes, and 35 seconds. In 2005, they averaged 2 hours and 46 minutes. And all the way back in 1946, the average was just 1 hour and 56 minutes, the last time it’d stay below 2 hours.
Finding a solution — if you view it as an issue — is tricky, however. MLB has made attempts to speed up the game by introducing the automatic intentional walk and three-batter minimum in recent years, but none of them have made a dramatic impact. In fact, the average length of a 9-inning game increased to 3:07 in 2020, up two minutes from 2019.
On the flip side, proposals from fans and analysts are often too dramatic. Banning the infield shift or lowering the height of the pitching mound would certainly alter the game, but to what extent? Do we know if we’re going too far? Kyle Boddy, the founder of Driveline Baseball, pointed out that moving the mound back — an alternative to lowering it — could end up benefiting the pitcher. There is no easy answer, and unintended consequences are lurking.
This article is about what I consider a midpoint: the pitch clock. Without being too disruptive, it saves a significant amount of time. It addresses the pace-of-play issue without fundamentally changing the game.
How is that so? Most articles that discuss the pitch clock are merely speculative about its effectiveness. Maybe it’ll save a lot of time, or maybe it won’t. We can do better. To find out, I constructed a fictional pitch clock. MLB implemented a 20-second one during Spring Training in 2019, so to be realistic, I also stuck with 20 seconds.
Next, I tested it out on an actual game. I settled on a June 8th, 2019 game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Boston Red Sox. This isn’t a game I drew out of a hat, however; it was selected because it features David Price, who’s notorious for his snail-like pace. According to FanGraphs, Price on average spent 29.6 seconds between pitches. Even better, he pitched 6 strong innings during that game, striking out 10. He’s an outlier, yes, but outliers are fun. (And don’t worry, this isn’t the entire analysis).
Lastly, I made one alteration: Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) pointed out that one should control for the final pitch of a PA — the transition from a retired/reached batter to a new one does necessitate time, and therefore, a clock should not run.
After accounting for everything mentioned, I was able to calculate how much time a pitch clock would have saved in 6 innings of David Price. The average time saved for each pitch is 29.6 minus 20, or 9.6 seconds. That doesn’t seem like much, but Price threw dozens of pitches, and well, the whole thing started to snowball:
13 minutes is… a lot. It’s not even any meaningful time we’re erasing here, but rather minutes that are irrelevant to a game’s outcome. You could say extra time is required for strategic communication between a pitcher and his catcher — it can be called for, perhaps — but the relationship between a pitcher’s pace and his performance (K, BB, runs) is nonexistent. Besides, a large chunk of time is spent adjusting caps, shuffling feet, staring, all of which make for riveting entertainment.
Instead of stopping here, though, I went back and applied the process to every pitcher who appeared in that game. How much more time could we save?
The numbers here are rounded up, granted, but that’s nearly 30 minutes of time erased. While the length of the actual game was 3:21, per Baseball-Reference, a 20-second pitch clock would have brought it down to a far-more digestible 2:52. That’s comparable to the average length of a 9-inning game in 2007 (2:51). It might not be jaw-dropping dramatic, but for what amounts to a simple clock, it sure is effective.
Admittedly, I’m a bit out of line. A stupid baseball writer like me, whose career ended at the ripe age of 10, couldn’t possibly know how it’s like to pitch in a real game. That’s why I reached out to Josh Hejka (@JoshHejka), a pitcher in the New York Mets organization.
“I’m a fast worker in general,” Josh began, mentioning that a pitch clock wouldn’t give himself trouble. Still, he added that with nobody on base, there’s “[no] reason why a pitcher couldn’t deliver a pitch in 20 seconds or less.”
With runners on base, however, the situation changes. “Mixing up timing and looks is a crucial part of controlling the run game,” Josh said, “and that leads to larger gaps of time between pitches.” This is a fair point. In addition to a deluge of new information — like multiple signs in the case of a runner on second — there’s more pressure in the form of crowd noise and simply knowing that you’re in danger of giving up a run.
So I went back, once again, and changed the clock to 25 seconds when pitches were thrown with runner(s) on base:
An extra 5 seconds with runner(s) on base reduces the amount of time saved to around 20 minutes. It’s still significant, but we’re further from the sacred sub-3 hour mark. We should note, though, that both tables assume that a pitcher will use up all 20 or 25 seconds allocated to him, when in real life pitchers may not want to pitch buzzer-beater after buzzer-beater. Realistically, we could tack on a few minutes saved to each table.
There would also be instances where less time is saved, such as when the pitch clock is violated, necessitating some kind of penalty — an added ball to the count, having the runners advance by one base each, and so on. Deciding on one is beyond the scope of this article. But what matters is that, despite the numerous fluctuations and happenings within each game, it’s reasonable to assume a pitch clock would save between 15 to 20 minutes of time. Not just any time, but dead time.
What I will add, however, is that it’s unreasonable for the burden to rest solely on the shoulders (backs, arms) of pitchers. Certain batters are infamous for dragging out at-bats. How much time do you think we could save if we limited Juan Soto’s junk-grabbing to once, maybe twice per plate appearance?
In our conversation, Josh said he would “also like to see similar time constraints for batters,” adding that “[p]itchers tend to get a majority of the blame for slowing the game down.” Maybe the pitch clock begins once the batter is firmly standing, ready to hit. To avoid confusion, the batter himself can indicate when he’s ready to begin. If we’re worried about batters stalling before giving the O.K. sign, however, adding a separate batting clock could solve that issue.
Unfortunately, the pitch clock won’t escape the headaches that come with a push for change; in general, people favor the status quo. But amongst other solutions for MLB’s pace-of-play issues, it stands out as a relatively simple, less complicated system to implement. It’s been used in the Minor Leagues for quite a while now, and, as far as I can tell, has not produced any major issues. There is some backlash, of course — Price himself is opposed to the idea. After forming an official relationship with MLB, Ken Griffey Jr. waxed poetic about how baseball has no time limit.
It’s an aspect of baseball I appreciate, too. But I highly doubt a pitch clock will lessen the emotion of a high-stakes situation in the bottom of the 9th, the stare-down between the pitcher and batter, the buzz of the crowd, the thrill of it all. We’ll play on — only with less time wasted. How great is that?
All data courtesy of Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs.
