![]() ![]() ![]() Baseball rule changes are “reflexively conservative,” writes Richard Hershberger in Strike Four: The Evolution of Baseball, adding, “What matters is that the game has changed, and the rule makers want to return it to its former state.” MLB isn’t trying to break new ground in game time by imposing a pitch clock. But if all goes well, it will look like its even older self. Second: I said baseball in 2023 won’t look like its old self, and that’s true if we’re comparing it to baseball in 2022. (Albeit somewhat constrained by the game-shortening zombie runner.) Roger Angell observed that “baseball time is measured only in outs.” Now we might amend that to, “baseball time is measured mostly in outs.” The pitch clock limits the time between pitches, but not how many pitches there are, which depends on the number of innings, the number of plate appearances, and the number of pitches per plate appearance-all unknowable, and theoretically infinite. In practice, though, the pitch clock is less radical than it seems, for four reasons.įirst: MLB still won’t use a clock in the way most sports leagues do-the kind of clock that dictates exactly how long play lasts. In principle, a pitch clock would appear to tamper with one of baseball’s bedrock traits: It’s the sport without a clock, befitting its status as a pastime that preceded standardized time. “Frankly, it’s probably the biggest change that’s been made to baseball in most of our lifetimes.” “The pitch timer is-by far-the biggest change that’s coming this season,” MLB executive vice president Morgan Sword said last month. If it does the same during the regular season, the decrease would almost triple MLB’s largest recorded year-to-year reduction in average game duration, essentially turning back (game) time to what it was four decades ago. The pitch clock trimmed about 25 minutes per game, on average, in the minor leagues last season, and repeated the trick in spring training this year. That last change may be the most immediately noticeable, and the one with the most predictable (and desirable) result. If you’ve watched spring training or seen the league’s rule-centric marketing campaign, you know what’s in store: restrictions on defensive positioning restrictions on pitcher step-offs and pickoff attempts slightly bigger bases and a pitch clock that counts down from 15 seconds with the bases empty and 20 seconds with runners on. When the MLB regular season starts on Thursday, baseball won’t look like its old self. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |