If you've ever went to a local amatuer baseball game, you know those games rarely last as long as big league games. And it's not just because they are only seven innings long. No, the real reason is that the players get off the field and switch offensive and defensive roles relatively quickly.
With a new baseball commissioner coming to town this week, baseball is considering following that policy. The average commercial breaks between innings is 2 minutes and 5 seconds, but the average break between innings is closer to 3 minutes because pitchers take their time getting to the mound during those break and often warmup more than 30 seconds. The same thing goes for the first batter of the inning. They take their time going to the box and often take more warm up swings outside of the box than subsequent hitters, often just waiting for pitchers to get ready.
Baseball is considering a rule to get the pitcher and batter ready to start playing in 2 minutes and 5 seconds. Still slower than local amatuer games, but in a way that helps the game flow faster.
This step alone would take around 15 minutes off each game.
WOW!
Doing something that was always done in the past, and getting a game done faster. I like it. When Phil Hughes is on, a full Twins game could conceivably get done in under two hours. Don't force change within the inning. Force change between the innings.
Makes sense to me. I can't believe it took baseball so long to come up with the idea.
There is no down side.
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