I believe baseball overall would benefit from faster games.
Sure 5 minutes shorter wont make a difference, but 30 or 45 minutes could very well.
But I certainly don't want to add clocks or change the historical fundamentals of the rules.
Started to put on my thinking cap and "solve the problem myself", but that seems fruitless, so I googled for proof that games used to be shorter and for other folks ideas
Came up with this article (
https://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/20...isual-analysis) which I only skimmed, but the gist I took away is: the speed of the game is pretty-much fully in the umpires hands. I certainly didn't realize there is actually an MLB rule regarding the time between pitches.
The article is summed up by the last sentences: "Keeping the games moving can get the game down to around two-and-a-half hours without sacrificing one second of ad time, so work to eliminate those extraneous behaviors that add additional time and no value. It can be done if there's a will to do it."
There probably could be some rules added to help the umpires keep the game moving like:
1. limit the number of time outs by batters and baserunners. (I guess this is akin to "staying in the box")
2. pitchers must face minimum of 3 batters or finish an inning, or institute a maximum number of mid-inning pitching changes per game (one per team?). Sure it removes some managerial strategy, but I don't see that as drastically changing the fundamentals of the base-game.
3. reduce (or eliminate) warm up pitches for relief pitchers (that's what bullpens are for)
4. I have a love-hate relationship with instant replay - hate that it stops the flow of the game, of course I do want the plays to be called correctly, except I can live with fringe calls like: the "neighborhood" calls on double plays or those calls where a sliding runner comes 1/2" off the bag for a millisecond and is called out after replay, or if a play at first has to be replayed seven times with ultra high-def to determine if the foot touched the bag before the ball landed in the back of the glove. I imagine that MLB can assign an official to watch replay of every play, establish a list of plays that can be reversed, or forget the list- if it's obvious a call was missed after one viewing of a couple different angles, in about 15 seconds time, then then reverse the play, otherwise keep the game moving.
I've typed a little too much on this already, so.........
everyone enjoy their Saturdays!