Steven Goldleaf suggests a way to speed up the game at Bill James Online (subscription required). His suggestion is to force the batter to fully stay in the batter’s box during a plate appearance. A batter may ask for a time out once during the game. He feels that with the batter in the box, the pitcher will work quicker.
Steve is blaming the batter. Others in the comments note that sometimes pitchers take a very long time to deliver the ball, so that pitchers are to blame. Both sides agree that there are rules to deal with this that don’t get enforced.
Over the last many years of reading blogs on the internet, I keep coming across the Coase theorem. Instead of blaming sides, figure out why they are in conflict, who has the property rights, and let them figure out the best economic way to resolve the dispute.
The real dispute here is between the players and MLB. Players, both batters and pitchers, want to maximize their WAR (for lack of a better term), and they believe they can do that by minimizing mistakes due to playing too quickly. MLB sees fans getting bored with the game, and want to keep the fan base engaged by keeping the pace brisk. Note that MLB tends to blame the players, and has a rule that can fine batters if they step out of the batter’s box too much, or call a ball if a pitcher doesn’t deliver the ball in 20 seconds with the bases empty.
Maybe MLB should negotiate an incentive.
- Take every batter pitcher pair for the season.
- Record the time it takes from when the pitcher receives the ball to when he throws. For the first pitch, the time would be recorded from when the batter steps in the box. Runners on base or the bases empty doesn’t matter. If the pitcher throws over to first base five times, that all counts.
- Take the average time of all those pitches.
- For every second the average is under 20 seconds, the batter and pitcher each get a $1000 bonus per pitch.
For example, Noah Syndergaard throws 40 pitches to Daniel Murphy during the season. If the pitches average 19 seconds, each collects an $40,000 bonus. If they average 18 second, each would collect an $80,000 bonus. There would be no penalty for going over 20 seconds, just no bonus.
I like this as it gives the batter an incentive to stay in the box, and the pitcher the incentive to deliver the ball quickly. The money would be a few hundred thousand a year for full time players, not enough to swamp their salaries, but enough to be meaningful. It’s low enough that if they decide it is better in a particular situation to take your time, they can take their time of their own volition. Back of the bullpen pitchers, who tend to be the slowest since they are also the weakest pitchers, would probably see the biggest speed up. They tend to be low salary, and throw few pitches, so this would be a monetary boon for them.
MLB can then adjust the time of the game by adjusting the size of the bonus, or how many seconds serve as the cutoff.
The main downside I can see is players who can foul off lots of pitches (Wade Boggs comes to mind) might make a lot of money without speeding up the game. Then again, the pitcher tends to take more time after a foul ball, so someone who does that might not earn any money.
Everybody wins. Any WAR a batter or pitcher might lose from their performance degrading due to quick work would be made up by the speed bonus. MLB pays a bit more in salary to players, but they get to keep the fan base and keep growing the game. I would love to see a discussion of this idea.
Interesting idea. Cash as a carrot.
At 1 k a pitch that could be a pretty hefty increase in payroll. As i like to say the pie is only so big and players will be wary that owners will cut the next slice smaller (basic salary, etc)
At lower payouts Some fringe players of which there are many likely opt for performance as the difference between AAA pay and MLB pay is 18 k per week or 2-3 k per game. Guys making 15-20 million a year might not care as much either. Everyone else though.
One could expand this idea to the team level and use average time of game as a way to reward teams with more of a share of the revenue or lower revenue sharing payments. Perhaps also as a tie breaker for the WC and division races. That gets managers and coaches involved in putting pressure on players who may listen because they determine playing time
I still think a time clock with an automatic ball called for exceeding the time, restriction or eliminating mound visits, eliminate warmups for RPers brought in during an inning (30 sec to start the clock) and maybe even calling 2 strike fouls strike 3 after the 6th pitch would be needed to shorten games.
Alternatively, just make games 7 innings