The first weekend of spring training saw games played 23 minutes faster than the previous year. I was speaking with my daughter this evening, and she said a number of people at work were talking about the clock today, and all the comments were positive. I’m positive as well. The game just moves, and after a while you’re not even thinking about the clock.
I know I’m in the minority, but I hate the pitch clock. Yesterday, I watched a game with four infractions. And then there was the game that ended in the “clock-off.”
I’ve been watching the pitch clock for years because I attend minor leagues. One sits in the stands watching the clock, not the action. The tension should be the situation, not a mechanical device. At least the MLB coverage doesn’t show the clock. Instead, a mystery strike or ball suddenly appears.
Using a pitch clock is antithetical to the game’s ethos – timelessness. But of course, it is all about “moving the game forward.” I find it amusing that the NBA is working on reducing the impact of the clock—Elam ending.
And that is the baseball musing from a many-decade fan who embraced analytics in the 1970s. (Or was it the 1870s?)
P.S. Thanks for all the calculations for fun points. They brought back some wonderful memories of some great seasons by players who have been forgotten.
I once suggested MLB pay players to work quickly. Since we can now measure the time between pitches accurately, MLB could have set aside a bonus pool to distribute among the players who managed to be under a certain average time, say 20 seconds. Let’s say the bonus would be $500,000. Players with little service time would see this as a way to make extra money. They’d stay in the box or work quickly on the mound. More veteran players who already signed big contracts might not care as much. In moments when they thought slowing down the game was appropriate, they could take their time.
Note that MLB did something similar to encourage teams to bring up young talent quicker. It might have worked well in speeding the game along.