Fixing MLB

[zm1283]

Originally Posted by centkyref

Interesting idea. I seem to remember the SEC (and possibly other conferences as well) experimenting with a pitch clock similar to the shot clock in basketball. Never did hear how that worked out. Would be interested to know if anybody here has any insight.

That's all well and good, but (IMO) the biggest problem with the pace of games is the offense/defense imbalance. How do we measure time in baseball? OUTS! With bandbox ballparks, juiced balls, juiced players, a diluted talent pool, etc...outs can be darned hard to come by.

I guess chicks dig the long ball, but for five hours? Until the balance is restored at least somewhat, we are going to get long games. Let's start with slowing down the balls. The steroids issue seems to be heading down the right path finally. The breaks between innings is driven by TV. Never get that time back; no way the owners and players give that money back.

The NCAA is implementing the 20-second clock between pitches (with no runners on) and the 90-second clock between innings (108 seconds for televised games) for 2011. Some conferences are putting actual clocks in the stadiums during the season.

I think you guys are exaggerating this a little. There are rules in place to speed up games, but some umpires don't enforce them. One of the base umpires has a stopwatch and the between-inning breaks aren't what makes games take a long time. Also, aside from extra inning games, I haven't seen many, if any that last five hours.