Post by incandenza on Mar 17, 2021 17:23:53 GMT -5
Some grist for the pitch clock mill, among other things:
Just since 2011, players take 2.6 seconds more between pitches, which has added 13 minutes, 17 seconds of pure dead time to a game. When they do commence with actually playing the game, players put the ball in play on only 15.8% of the pitches, down from 18.3% only 10 years ago. And because the goal of pitching has become avoidance of contact, not just getting outs–a passive-aggressive game with more breaking pitches–there are 14 more pitches in a nine-inning game than there were a decade ago...
You don’t need to go back to the 1980s to see a different version of baseball. Just since 2015, a nine-inning game takes 11 more minutes with two more seconds between every pitch. The rate of at-bats that end without the ball in play–home runs, strikeouts and walks (the so-called Three True Outcomes) and hit by pitches–increased 16%, to 28 such events per game...
In 2009, only 4% of qualified pitchers took 25 seconds or more between pitches (3 of 77). Ten years later, it was 43% (26 of 61).
I've come around on the pitch clock. They've figured out that pitchers can throw harder if they take longer between pitches, and it's obvious where we're headed if they don't introduce a time limit: 30 seconds or more between every pitch.
Beyond that, it still seems obvious to me that the solution is changing the physical properties of the ball so that it misses fewer bats and gets hit into play more often. I don't know why that isn't part of what's under discussion.
