The average major league baseball game in 2016 played for 3 hours, 2 minutes with only two teams averaging a game time of less than two hours -- the Atlanta Braves were not one of them.
In 2015, baseball cut game times by six minutes after it adopted speed-up rules that required hitters to keep at least one foot in the batter’s box and a 2:30 stadium clock used in-between innings and during pitching changes.
Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred is intent on getting that games under two hours. The league is pushing a series of changes it hopes will be approved unilaterally by teams.
While Manfred wouldn’t discuss proposed changes specifically, here are some of what has been publicly voiced as potential changes.
The strike zone
Credit: SCOTT ROVAK
Credit: SCOTT ROVAK
• The league has considered restoring the lower edge of the strike zone from just beneath the kneecap to its pre-1996 level — at the top of the kneecap.
Pitch clock
Credit: Bill Wippert
Credit: Bill Wippert
• The league wants to install a 20-second pitch clock. Violators of the clock are penalized with balls and strikes. The pitch clock has been used at Triple-A and Double-A games for the past two seasons. According to MILB.com, the clocks helped shave nine to 15 minutes off the average game time.
The no-pitch intentional walk
• The signal from the dugout to the umpire would allow a team to call for an intentional walk without the pitcher having to throw pitches. The downside is moments like this are less likely to happen:
Limiting mound visits
• Another reported proposal calls for a limit to the amount of mound visits coaches and catchers are allowed to make. The number pitched is three per game.
Extra-base runner to start extra innings
Credit: Rob Foldy
Credit: Rob Foldy
• Starting runners on second base in extra innings will be experimented with during the World Baseball Classic and perhaps at some short-season Class A leagues, though Manfred concedes the special-purpose rule would likely not be used in the major leagues.
