The Clock, The Pace, and The Game
Today, I wanted to write about the pitch clock. Already through the magic of my imagination I can see you grimacing and hear you groaning. I don’t blame you. I too can hear the universe slowly sucking away my life force every time someone brings up the topic. I thought I would dislike it or that its implementation would lead to some rocky moments but from a fans’ perspective at worst the clock has mostly gone unnoticed and at best it has improved the game somewhat.
There are several angles that can be examined where the clock is concerned. I will focus on two specific things in this piece.
Has the clock improved the game?
Paradoxically, the games the clock has improved the most are the longest ones, the (now) rarities that last more than three hours. There have been 116 nine-inning, three-plus hour games in 2023, which puts us on pace for 208 three-plus hour nine-inning games, which would be the lowest total for this esoteric category since 1984. I don’t care how long the games are (to be fair, I am also a maniac who sometimes spends nine hours watching baseball on a Saturday), but I find myself far more entertained by long games now. A 3:32 game in 2023 (like this June 21 Mets/Astros tilt) that would have been a miserable four-plus hour slog under the old rules is now an exciting game where I don’t notice how long it is taking.
The clock has enhanced my at-home viewing experience. Pace is the term that was frequently bandied about in the pre-clock days but the more apt description for what baseball was having problems with was the flow. A game would be humming crisply along for five or six innings and then suddenly it wasn’t. A parade of relievers for both teams mucked up the flow of the game and even a fanatic like me who watches nine hours of baseball on a Saturday wondered if the game was ever going to end. The flow of games on television is noticeably better.
However, I’ve also noticed that the clock has detracted from my in-person viewing experience. That same game that seems fine when I’m watching it at home suddenly seems extremely slow when I’m there in person. The starting pitcher logs his five or six innings and then the parade of pitching changes occurs. Nothing different is happening, but at home I can flip to another broadcast and flip back once the new pitcher is ready to go. It is reminiscent of the NFL and the difference between the at-home versus the in-person experience. The TV timeouts in the NFL are brutal when you’re at the game, and this is what MLB has inadvertently replicated.
The stated argument for adding the clock wasn’t that the games were too long but that the pace was terrible. If you pointed out that the combination of commercials, pitching changes, and replay reviews were taking up as much or more time than the extra time between pitches, the stock response was “it’s not the time that’s the problem, it’s the PACE, IDIOT!” Now that the pitch clock has been implemented reasonable people can agree that the pace has improved yet whenever there’s a short game, you’ll see a post on social media that reads something like:
“That game took two hours and four minutes. WOW!!!!”
Was it the pace of the game that was the problem or the length? Posts like this contradict what the stated purpose of the change was.
The length of a game is about 27 minutes shorter this year than it was in 2022. Buckle up for what might be a controversial stance but take away the pitch clock and that two hour and four-minute game would have clocked in at a reasonable 2:31. I don’t particularly care how long the games are but if I had to pick the ideal length of a game out of a hat it would be about two and a half hours. This is an arbitrary endpoint, but the more important takeaway is that if you’re sufficiently entertained the length of the game shouldn’t matter. I didn’t notice that The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was a three-and-a-half-hour film and cutting the run time of Battlefield Earth to 80 minutes wouldn’t have enhanced anyone’s viewing experience.
You’ve probably noticed that most of the people who rave about the extremely short games on social media are reporters who cover those games for a living. While the pro-labor part of me is happy for them (their work is as important as anyone else’s and should be valued and honored) as a fan and consumer of the game I couldn’t care less. I love it when a conference call at work ends 15 minutes early, but it would be weird if I kept shouting over and over to my clients about how great that was for me personally.
The problem of the games being too long was partially due to how much time pitchers were taking between pitches but also partially because of how many pitching changes there are in a game. The last season the median length of a game was this short was in 1983. There was a grand total of 6,760 relief appearances compared to 8,699 already in 2023. There was an average of 3.2 relievers used per game (by both teams) in 1983 compared to 6.4 per game this year.
Major League Baseball hasn’t really fixed anything with the clock, but rather they’ve taken the part of the game that still kind of stinks (the endless parade of relievers) and made it go by more quickly. This isn’t true in every game: a contest that features two starting pitchers who go six or seven innings and gives way to each team’s best 1-2 relievers is typically enjoyable. A game where the starter leaves in the fourth or fifth and gives way to a pastiche of pitchers is still a suboptimal fan experience, it just goes by more quickly than it used to.
This isn’t a crusty, get-off-my-lawn endorsement of forcing starting pitchers to throw softly or stop being little babies and pitch eight or nine innings. I understand why starters can’t or won’t pitch more innings and believe teams maximize their bullpens with good reason, but this doesn’t change the reality that the more relievers that pitch in a game the more the flow is impacted. Shaving 27 minutes off the games makes this time go by more quickly but it doesn’t improve the quality of what is happening during this portion of the games or alter the perception that we’re spending a lot of down time waiting for the next reliever.
Has the Clock Increased Fan Interest?
Attendance has been used as a barometer to prove that the clock is working, and that fans are more interested in the game now. And attendance is up 8.8 percent this season compared to where it was at this time in 2022 so obviously the clock is the entire reason that 3.1 million more souls have flocked to games this year. Great job, Mr. Manfred, sir! You did it! Except all that has really happened is that baseball has mostly returned to where it was in 2018-2019 before the pandemic. Attendance is up 0.8 percent from where it was at this time in 2019. Without any sort of rigorous analysis, I’d be far more likely to conclude that fans are returning to seeing games in person for a variety of reasons three years after the COVID-19 pandemic shut the United States down in 2020 than I would be to conclude that it is a product of the clock.
But even if you accept the premise that some of the increase in attendance isn’t related to the pandemic it is also quite possible that the non-clock rule changes instituted this season are driving fan interest more than the clock. Watching a player attempt to steal second instead of milling around at first base or seeing an infielder make a dramatic diving play instead of standing in place and fielding a grounder in the shift are memorable events that can directly be tied to fan excitement. Stolen bases and great defensive plays translate well to Sportscenter; the 3-4 seconds shaved off between pitches does not.
Additionally, over the last few seasons on the field success has had a far stronger corollary to in-person attendance than the pace of the action. I’m not a fan of either of these teams, but I can’t imagine the average Athletics or Royals fan is thinking, “I’m way more excited to buy tickets to a game this year because it’s going to be way shorter!” The desire to see a competitive team plays a role in fan behavior and interest yet it is frequently glossed over in these discussions. Not everyone can win 100 games, but if the worst teams win 65-70 games instead of 55-60 and are earnestly trying it has a positive impact on viewership.
Television ratings haven’t necessarily improved either. Even though I believe that the televised version of the game is better because of the clock, this hasn’t translated to more viewership. It has been a mixed bag so far, with viewership down on ESPN and Fox but up on TBS. These are admittedly wonky samples that come with plenty of outsized caveats, but between the miniscule jump in attendance pre-pandemic and the mixed results on TV ratings the impact of the clock on viewership is inconclusive.