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Pace of game (or time of game? It’s so unclear which problem the various hand-wringers want to solve, and there’s imperfect overlap when it comes to the solutions to each) is in the news again. The average length of an MLB game this season is three hours, some seven minutes longer than at the same point last season. This, everyone seems to agree, is a problem.

On Monday night, before I saw the Rob Manfred quotes that made it clear this would be a major topic of discussion this week, I sat on my couch, sorting socks and watching the Dodgers play the Angels. It was already past 11:30 Central time when I turned on the game, so I was mildly surprised to find that the top of the seventh inning was just beginning. Apparently, though, I had missed the quick part of the game. Pedro Baez was on the mound for the Dodgers, and pretty quickly, he began laboring. That’s not new. Of the 355 pitchers who have thrown at least 10 innings this season, Baez takes longer between pitches (an even 30 seconds) than all but two. The issue was particularly pronounced on Monday, though, because Baez was really up against it.

Due for the Angels in that frame were Yunel Escobar, Kole Calhoun, and Mike Trout. Those are three very good hitters, and it’s easy to get in trouble against them. In particular, with Trout’s power lurking, it’s very dangerous to let the bases fill up. Thus, Baez went straight after Escobar, getting two strikes, then a foul ball. Escobar took two pitches, then, one close to the strike zone, one well outside it. Then he fouled off two more Baez offerings. On the eighth pitch of his plate appearance, Escobar got a pitch he could handle and lined a single to center field.

Calhoun didn’t wait so long. Amid a handful of pickoff throws aimed at holding Escobar close and a few step-offs by Baez or times out called by Yasmani Grandal, Calhoun worked a 2-0 count, then grounded a single into right field. Now runners were on the corners with nobody out, and Trout was coming to the plate, with the Angels already leading by one run. Baez responded really well, though. He got a called first strike on a slider, then doubled up, fooling Trout into swinging through it for strike two. The third pitch was a fastball on the outer edge at 98 miles per hour, and although Trout stayed alive, Baez looked to be in command.

Still, between every pitch, he was shaking out his right arm (don’t worry, he does that a lot, he wasn’t hurt), waiting for the throw back from Grandal at the foot of the mound, then circling to the back, removing his glove, hitching up his pants, rubbing the ball, touching the bill of his cap, sometimes wiping his brow, then heaving a deep breath, climbing the mound, surveying the runners, toeing the rubber, eyeing Grandal carefully, accepting his sign, and coming slowly set, still intent upon disrupting the runners. Vin Scully felt obligated, after that 0-2 foul ball, to note that “Baez has been out there 11 minutes, and he’s thrown just 14 pitches.” Scully would give a similar count later, when the pitch total was into the 20s and the minutes total was getting close.

Baez missed with the next two pitches, a fastball at 99 (but markedly off the outside edge) and a bad slider, up and away. The count even, he went back to the heat, and missed, catching the heart of the zone. Thanks to his sheer velocity, though, Trout merely fouled that one off, too. On the seventh pitch, Baez froze Trout on a low fastball, his fastest yet, a true 99 and (if you believe Brooks Baseball) right at the knees. It was called a ball, though. On 3-2, Baez overthrew his slider again, hitting 91 on the radar gun but missing high. Trout walked, loading the bases for Albert Pujols.

By comparison to the gas he was throwing to Trout, Baez’s first pitch to Pujols was a let-up, a fastball at the knees at 97.7 miles per hour. Pujols grounded cleanly through the middle, singling home Escobar and Calhoun, pushing Trout to third. It was a good pitch; it was a bad result.

As Baez went to work on Shane Robinson (who would try to bunt twice and strike out on the third pitch), Scully offered another comment: “To me, when you see a pitcher take as much time as Baez, it seems to me that it’s a lack of confidence. Taking too long to make up his mind, make a pitch and go get the hitter.” As he said it, Grandal called for time, just as Baez came set to pitch. That’s way off the mark, though. Baez wasn’t lacking confidence. If he lacked anything, it was carelessness, recklessness. He had a very difficult task before him, so he slowed down, weighed his options, kept tabs on the runners he was still hoping to keep from coming around to score. He’s habitually slow, and he only slowed a bit from his usual pace, all in the name of marshaling his mental and physical resources. I find fault with the assignment of value to pace, in this context.

Baez made a mistake to Johnny Giavotella, finding the middle of the zone with a slider. That slider hummed in north of 90 mph, though, so Giavotella only flew lazily to center field. Joc Pederson caught the ball (281 feet away, per Statcast) and tried to fire home to get a tagging Trout. The odds of doing so were slim (Trout is fast, after all), but reduced quickly to none when the throw was high, wild, and up the third-base line. Pujols took second base, as he had tagged up to do in the first place, anticipating a throw through to the plate. The Dodgers appealed, though, and the first-base umpire called Pujols out for leaving too early. Mike Scioscia called for a review. After a short time on the headsets (and an easy review of the case via split screen, for those of us watching at home), the umps reversed their decision. Baez would need to get one more out.

Carlos Perez avoided being that out only by a stroke of luck. He broke his bat on an 0-1 dribbler to Baez’s left, but no one was able to make the play in time to retire him. Jose Alvarez then batted for himself, and managed to make contact, bouncing an 0-2 pitch back to Baez to end the inning. It was past midnight my time.

Here’s my question: What do you, who call yourself a baseball fan, so hate about that sequence that you demand change? What’s wrong with baseball played at exactly that pace? In that inning, there was a pitcher with electrifying stuff trying valiantly to get three or four very good hitters out. There were very poised takes of close two-strike pitches, lightning-quick emergency swings that kept endangered at bats alive, and good execution by the batters on relatively few mistakes. There was aggressive baserunning. There was (almost) a play at the plate. There was a missed call that replay rectified, whatever it might have cost (and it was only a couple minutes, in this case, but if it had been five, what of it? Give me the right call, and I’ll take the extra five minutes to warm up some nachos, or run to the concession stand and buy some). There was even, for those of you who are into that sort of thing, the absurdity of a relief pitcher taking a plate appearance and seeing a 98-mph fastball.

Slow is, in a vacuum, a judgment-free adjective. Slowness is not a sin. Baseball is a slower game than basketball or football. Nearly all of its games will be longer than most basketball games, and a fair number (though a minority) will be longer than an average NFL game. This is not a problem; this is an immutable characteristic. Baseball played faster is not better; it’s barely baseball. Slow things can be fun. Baseball is slow (in this very macro sense; remember that fast humans still sprint all over the field in response to redirected projectiles traveling over 100 miles per hour a solid 35 or 40 times per game) but fun.

Maybe the problem is that too many people expect an immersive experience whenever they watch a sporting event. If that’s you, stop expecting that. Stop wanting that. We have a national addiction to sports that is probably totally unhealthy. There are 162 games in every team’s MLB season, and 82 in each NBA team’s, and at some point, it became acceptable to plan on watching all of them, dissecting all of them, blogging about all of them, reliving all of them. More than that, it became natural to want to watch them with as few interruptions as possible, both inside and outside whatever device we’re watching. People fire off an angry tweet if their MLB.tv feed cuts out, or if it even lags too much and they find out about some play before they see it. People complain about pitching changes and mound visits and pickoff throws and step-offs and step-outs.

None of this is the behavior of a healthy person. If a game is worth sitting down and watching in an obsessed, absorbing way, as Max Scherzer’s showdown with Noah Syndergaard last night was, as playoff games and pennant-race games are, then the few extra minutes afforded by a pitching change ought to be a welcome bathroom break. The 15 extra minutes of total game time ought to be 15 extra minutes spent enraptured by the suspense, the fun. If a game isn’t worth that—if it’s mid-May and you know the outcome of the season could eventually hinge on who wins this game, but recognize that the odds against that are overwhelming—then don’t expect to be hooked in the whole time. Pick up the game late, or turn it off and walk away. Sort socks while you watch. Read; write. Balance your checkbook. Pick the radio over the TV and do the dishes.

Baseball is fun because there’s a game nearly every day for six months. I can’t stress the corollary enough: The fun part about that is that you don’t have to watch all of them, or even the entirety of the games you do watch. Baseball should be pleasant white noise sometimes. When tense moments like the top of the seventh in Los Angeles Monday night happen, it should be a bit more, and then you can choose whether to invest yourself fully into the action (considering the moments just past and the moments to come, glad of the natural stoppage because it presents an opportunity to do so more thoroughly). If you’re irritated by the lapses in action, maybe that game just isn’t worth the level of attention you’re trying to give it. Skipping the rest of that game would be a good choice. Skipping a game or two altogether is always a good choice, really. If you’re determined to make baseball faster, maybe baseball is the wrong game for you. It will always be slow, and when it’s no longer slow, it will no longer be baseball.

Thank you for reading

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bleaklewis
5/18
The play sequence you described was fun and exciting.

The pace problems begin when you combine a slow throwing pitcher or a batter that steps out of the box after every pitch with little to no balls getting put into play.

I can accept the occasional slow AB if the ball is getting put into play and I get to watch the defense play. What starts to wear, on me at least, is watching a slow pitcher and hitter take forever only for the AB to end in a walk or strikeout.

Just my two cents.
gtgator
5/18
I would venture that most issues about time of game don't matter much to those watching on TV (which is why time of game is seemingly unimportant in the playoffs).

However, if you want people to commit to coming to a game (especially in the middle of the week on a school night, for example), time of game matters. 10-15 minutes might not matter on a Sunday afternoon - but they can matter if you've got to be up by a set time the next day to get kids to school/get to work, etc.

So if I'm going to a game, and I need to leave by 10 (to get home and in bed by 11, for example), then I want a 2:55 game or less (assuming 7:05 start). If the game will be 3:05 or longer, either I'll get less sleep or have to miss the end. Knowing that upfront, perhaps I decide not to go - and just watch on TV. There goes my ticket, concession and parking dollars.

So while I agree that there's nothing inherently wrong with a 3+ hour game if the strategy dictated it. To those people in the stands, it very well could be an issue and hence why I think MLB is making this an issue.
morro089
5/18
Given the difference between how many people go to the game vs how many people watch a baseball game, I've never bothered to put much emphasis on what people at the stadium thought. Plus I always figured they paid a good amount of money to be there and invested a good amount of time getting there, more baseball is better than less, right?

But your point stands for people watching at home. It would be nice if the kids could watch the conclusion of a game.
gtgator
5/18
If more baseball is better, why do people leave when games go to extras? Having seen the mass exodus many times, the extra baseball doesn't seem like it is an incentive to be there.

And I agree there are more people at home watching than in the stands. But TV rights' fees are already set, especially for clubs with 20+ year TV deals. Those people also aren't spending any additional money by watching 1 game/week vs. 6 games/week. But a single person going to a game can easily drop $50-100/game in tickets, parking and concessions. There is a monetary incentive for wanting people at the game vs. watching on TV.

Now, whether that is a factor with the length of game stuff, I don't know for sure. Just surmising.
morro089
5/18
I agree that from the club's perspective it makes more sense to improve the in-person experience. But I just don't care what the club wants; I care what I, the customer, wants. I want a better paced game so I enjoy watching it on my tv, which is where I watch 98% of my baseball.

I'm curious to know what the people who leave at extra innings think about a few extra minutes at a ballpark for a 9 inning game. Do they leave because they just want the game to end? Do they leave because they don't want to spend an infinitesimal time at the ballpark? Do they leave because they planned on the game lasting 3 hours and they have plans? Do they leave to beat traffic (counter-intuitive for mass exodus)?
morro089
5/18
I agree with bleaklewis, it's truly a pace issue for me. People will say "it's a thinking game!" and that's fine, but I'm not thinking during my "enjoy life" time, I'm waiting.

But baseball seems like a perfect second screen experience. Outside of the occasional home run or pitcher/batter matchup you are aware when a big moment is happening and you should watch. It would be great if MLB put some resources into creating a place for a bunch of people to "experience" the game together (or for me to find one on my own). [Yes, lag between live tv and MLB.tv will be an issue.] Baseball is played at a good pace for a communal discussion while it's ongoing. Or, as the article mentioned, taking it in while doing anything else.
tosaboy
5/18
There's also this assertion: "Baseball is fun because there’s a game nearly every day for six months. I can’t stress the corollary enough: The fun part about that is that you don’t have to watch all of them, or even the entirety of the games you do watch. "

But what of the folks who DO have to watch these games? When you watch baseball for a living (and there are many different jobs that require this) the extra minutes add up to a significantly changed work experience. I'm not saying that a game should be changed because journalists don't like watching it, but at least some of the ink spilled on this topic is due to the personal impact that bad pace of game has on the livelihood of those talking about the game.

Also, well played, snappy baseball is way more fun to watch. Slow due to tension is one thing. But slow pitchers or 32 throws to first in a 7-1 Tuesday night game isn't better baseball, even with the nacho and bathroom break. It's just wasted time.
bigchiefbc
5/18
I wish there was more historical data on how long pitchers take between pitches, because I feel like I started noticing around the early 2000s that pitchers were taking WAY longer between pitches than when I was a kid. And that combined with batters seeing more pitches per at bat around the same time, is probably the genesis of this perceived problem.
bleaklewis
5/18
Watch some of the older games available on YouTube. Watching old World Series games its amazing how snappy the pace of play is.

Part of it is that the game hadnt changed as much for TV viewership until the 1980's or so.
fredlummis
5/18
I love watching baseball, and I don't mind spending an entire afternoon at the ballpark. However, relief pitchers like this destroy the flow of the game and aggravate me greatly at times. Joel Peralta comes to mind, as he recently bogged down two games in during a series I attended in Houston.

These guys take forever to get the sign and throw, even with the bases empty. I'd be cool with a pitch clock with bases empty. Josh Fields on the Astros is also super slow for no apparent reason. It sucks the energy out of the ballpark, and I don't like that.
ggdowd
5/18
While a lot of moments seem unimportant to us (low leverage spots in blowouts), there are fringe relievers whose entire livelihood is being determined in those spots. I'm not surprised some of them want to take their time.
Machaut
5/18
Good to see Louis CK writing for Prospectus now.

In all seriousness, I was at the game described in thr article, and while I'm not normally a time critic, I think a lot of the issue was that Baez came in to work on the heels of Maeda and Hatcher, who both work relatively fast. Having the paces juxtaposed really highlighted just how slow he was going.

Another thing: because we weren't yet done with the seventh inning, beer was being served for a full three hours that night. There were several fights breaking out between hammered Dodgers and Angels fans in my section alone. When I got up for a bathroom break (between two Baez pitches, naturally) I saw security guards and cops escorting several people out. I'm a tourist, so maybe this is normal for the Freeway Series, but there's at least one hidden consequence of lengthened games. Not that I mind. In fact, it was great!
352361957
5/19
I was watching that same game(it was around midnight where I live in NW Indiana) and I could actually feel myself aging gracefully.....well, maybe not gracefully, but I was aging. I shut it down after that half inning ended.
jnossal
5/19
Baseball is not slower the football, not even close.

Average NFL game was 3 hr 11 min. Longer than a baseball game. It has 11 minutes of action. Baseball has 18 minutes in about 3 hours, but even that is misleading, it includes only time the ball is in play and does not include time when the ball is live, but no "action" is occurring, for example when the pitcher is preparing to deliver a pitch.

Try this experiment come September. Toggle between a televised MLB game and an NFL contest when both are airing simultaneously. See which one more frequently has something "happening" and which one is a break between plays or running a TV ad.

NBA games are considered high action content with 48 min of live play in a 2 hr 15 min average run time. But basketball, like football, has breaks, timeouts, and play stoppages at rapid intervals. I can't find any data, but I'll bet the average time between whistles in the NBA is about 10 seconds.

km9000
5/19
As was pointed out, it hasn't always been played at this pace, so it's not an inherent, necessary aspect of the sport. A late night RSN replay of a game from even the mid-'90s can have a glaringly different feel, with players moving at a brisk, purposeful pace (granted, it probably felt slow then by '80s standards, etc). Pitching changes and commercial breaks are a common complaint, but at least you're not mentally locked in baseball mode. It's different when you're in the middle of an at-bat, see a pitcher shake off twice, stall, then the hitter calls time. Nothing changes strategically during that sequence. It'd be like seeing someone about to shoot a free throw and deciding he needs to pace around a bit more.
elljay
5/19
I DVR every game and FF between innings, changes, challenges, and pitches.

Football is FF between plays, ads, challenges, and halftime.

Basketball too.

Can't imagine watching sports any other way,
stephenwalters
5/19
While endless shuffling around between pitches or stepping out repeatedly to tighten batting gloves might not be a turn-off for the hard core patrons of sites like this, it is repulsive to lots of folks, so World Series ratings are plunging...
http://eres.lndproxy.org/edoc/FacPubs/loy/BurgerJD/IsAmericasNationalPastime-12.pdf
...and the average age of fans is going up because many young people hate the leaden pace.
Even if you love the game so much you're indifferent to the time cost of watching it, imagine how much MORE exciting and dramatic its crucial moments will be without all the wasted time.
jimoneill
5/19
When I was a young boy in the 1950's, the standard starting time for a night game was 8:00 P.M. More than likely this was based on the notion that the work culture of America was 9 to 5 for the most part and particularly in the East. As the culture changed, so did MLB and the 8 o'clock starting time is an artifact. So is the rapidly played baseball game.

Many things have contributed to this. The increased usage of multiple relief pitchers, increased emphasis on stopping the running game, more willingness to work deep counts, the single event of an at-bat becoming a more time-consuming act due to the idiosyncratic behavior of both hitters and pitchers, along with numerous other factors have made the game longer,and worse, seem longer to the Slot Machine and Video Game generation which thrives on constant immersive action.

But 6:00 games are not likely to become common because of TV and shortening the commercial breaks will happen when pigs fly.

Baseball is a constantly evolving spectacle that can be enjoyed in a myriad of ways and trying to force it into a tighter time frame will have only marginal benefit.

Find a way to enjoy it and embrace the fact that its not a constant assault on the senses. If that's what you need, we can play Tetris until the cows come home.

Thanks for a very insightful piece, Matt
tatrubld
5/19
Hear! Hear!