BOSTON — Months ago, MLB teams entered spring training knowing they would soon be experiencing a few key changes to the game – most notably, the pitch timer. But in February, players couldn’t have known what to expect.
Now, as the schedule approaches August, it is a fitting time for a check-in of sorts.
How are things going with the pitch clock?
“I think for the most part, it’s gone fairly well,” starting pitcher Michael Soroka said. “We knew there was going to be some hiccups, and I think it could have been addressed a little better initially, in spring training and all that kind of stuff. But for the most part, I think it’s done what it’s been intended to do, (which) is kind of move the game forward.”
Then Soroka went into another point.
“I think most of us – most true fans of this game and true players – would want some sort of leniency in some sort of situations, some big situations, right?” he said. “Especially at the end of the game, when pitch selection matters so much more. Everybody’s invested in those big situations. If they’re watching in the bottom of the ninth, they definitely don’t want to see that come down to a pitch-clock violation, right? They want to see the pitch made. They don’t care if they’re sitting there for five or six more seconds.”
This – the two parts of Soroka’s answer to the same question – is the beauty of the pitch clock. It undeniably has reduced the time of a game and created more offense, but it is still a change for everyone. It has generated ongoing conversation – about the good, bad and everything in between. And because it is still so new, we are seeing unexpected situations pop up every now and then.
MLB may at some point decide to tweak the specifics of the pitch timer.
For now, this is the system.
“I think it’s good, as far as speeding (the game up), just the pace of play,” Austin Riley said. (Remember, this timer can affect hitters as much as pitchers.)
“I’m still against the pitch clock,” said Spencer Strider, who is one of baseball’s top starting pitchers. (We’ll soon get into the issues he finds with it.)
There certainly are oddities.
In the Braves’ hitters meeting before a series at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, they went over the pitch clock at that ballpark, which has received a bit of a reputation.
‘Hey, just warning you, their clock is supposedly quicker, so just be aware of that,” Riley recalled someone saying in the meeting.
Recently, Matt Olson picked up an automatic strike three after getting back in the box quickly. He wasn’t aware to the pitcher by eight seconds, which is the rule. Riley and Olson watched video and couldn’t figure out what Olson did wrong, but it seemed like the pitcher just got the ball back quickly, and that’s when the clock starts.
Before Wednesday’s contest in Boston, the Braves were averaging 2 hours, 39 minutes per game. The Orioles (2 hours, 46 minutes) had the slowest games in the sport, whereas the Royals had the quickest (2 hours, 34 minutes). The timer has sped up games.
As of Wednesday morning, the Braves had 30 pitch-timer violations, according to Baseball Savant – which tied them with others for the seventh-most violations in baseball. Based on where other teams are ranked, the number of pitch-clock violations has not correlated with a team’s success. These are such small parts of a game.
But what if these violations occurred in more important situations?
“I would like to see some of those changes moving forward, if they can, to be able to have some sort of umpire’s discretion at times, just to kind of either wave it off very late in the game because, again, that’s when everybody’s watching, and they don’t care if it takes five more seconds,” Soroka said.
There might be an issue with discretion. How do you implement it?
“It’s a slippery slope,” Strider said. “That’s my issue with inserting time constraints into a game that was built without time constraints. It can’t function. The more detail and deeper into you get, the more problems that it poses than solutions. Does the pace of the game need to be addressed? Potentially. I want people to like baseball, I want them to watch baseball, I want us to be able to play a game and not feel like it’s dragging on. But at what expense? I think people want a good game. They want a quality game. They waited their entire day for bases loaded, 3-2 count, two outs in the bottom of the ninth, and poof, the game’s over, nothing happened.”
Asked if more umpire’s discretion – common-sense feel – would be good, Riley said: “I mean, yeah, but I think there’s a fine line in that because that just brings up more arguments that maybe the umpire gives it to one (guy) then doesn’t give it to another. I don’t know if that’s the answer. It is the first year, so there’s going to be some adjustments. I’m sure things will get more fine-tuned.”
Let’s throw out a funky change just for the sake of conversation.
Could MLB turn off the pitch clock from the ninth inning on during the postseason?
“Playoff baseball is just that much more intense,” Soroka said. “It always has been, always will be. And that’s when people are watching. At that point, does shaving 15, 20 minutes off a game really matter that much? I understand over 162, it does. But I think it could be mutually beneficial also because I’m sure in the playoffs, revenue for ads and all that kind of stuff goes up. You shave an hour off a game, it’s an hour less ads that you can throw out there, too.”
Then again, would it be counterintuitive to play one way for 162 games and change it after that?
And Strider brought up another good point about why it might be difficult for umpires to exercise common sense in the later innings and be less stringent about the timer.
“As a manager or as anybody on a team, I want to win,” Strider said. “Why would there be different standards in the ninth inning than the first inning? That’s something that I think we’ve understood about baseball, with advanced statistics and stuff, is that the biggest moment of the game doesn’t have to come in the bottom of the ninth. It could come in the third inning.”
The pitch clock is doing what MLB hoped it would. One effect: It’s tougher for pitchers to control the running game.
This is where Braves reliever Ben Heller notices the pitch clock.
“When there’s no one on base, I feel like the pitch clock kind of just fades into the background,” he said. “You don’t really notice it at this point. Everyone’s used to working slightly quicker now. But with runners on base, obviously that kind of changes. Overall, I think it’s a net positive for the game as a whole, creating more offense and speeding the game up. From a pitcher’s perspective, I think it definitely forces me to be a little bit more cognizant and intentional about what I’m doing with runners on base. Kind of varying my timing with my delivery and using the disengagements and pick-offs a little more wisely and strategically.”
Asked what change he might like to see, Heller mentioned something you don’t hear much: Once the pitcher comes set, stop the clock. He believes it would keep the game moving but help pitchers have a bit of extra control. And he doesn’t think pitchers would abuse it because “no pitcher is going to come set and just hang out there for, like, 20 seconds.”
“When you come set in those few seconds before you throw the pitch, you have to feel like you’re totally gathered, you’re committed,” Heller said. “It’s just a very specific feeling, mental state that you want to be before you deliver that pitch. When you’re kind of rushing that, it’s a little bit easier to get outside yourself, your delivery, and try to do too much on the pitch, be rushed and just not be able to throw the highest-quality pitch that you can.”
Braves manager Brian Snitker mentioned something in the same ballpark. He thinks pitchers could use one timeout that doesn’t count toward their two allotted disengagements.
On that same note, Riley said an extra timeout for hitters – who have one – might be good. Just in case.
“Especially bigger moments, guys are locked in,” Riley said. “I’m surprised it hasn’t happened to me yet. I can almost forget about it, sometimes.”
But it could be difficult to implement many adjustments to the rules.
“Guys are kind of gonna be ingrained in doing this, even if they change it,” Snitker said. “You get so used to doing it, it becomes kind of the normal pace of play. I don’t think really anybody’s griping about it.”
