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MLB may relax fines for players who violate new pace-of-play rules

Mike Oz
(AP)
(AP)

Starting Friday, MLB was supposed to begin issuing fines to players who violate its new pace-of-play rules. But now that may not happen, according to ESPN's Jayson Stark.

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Under the plan adopted this past offseason, players had all of April to get used to the new rules, then fines (between $100 and $500) would be handed down starting May 1. But MLB is so happy with the results of the pace-of-play changes thus far that it might scale back the penalty system so that only "flagrant violations" get fines.

The MLB Players' Association, of course, is urging the league to do this. Per Stark's report:

The two sides are having "dialogue" about relaxing or eliminating most of those fines, said Tony Clark, executive director of the Players Association, because the results so far have been so good without them.

Through Wednesday, the average time of a nine-inning game was down to 2 hours, 53 minutes and 40 seconds, according to MLB. It's a drop of more than 8½ minutes from the 3:02:21 average for the full 2014 season, and by more than seven minutes compared to the average of 3:01 at the same point last season.

If this decrease holds, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, it would be the largest drop in average game time, from one year to the next, since 1963, when game times were cut from 2:34 to 2:25.

The first takeaway here is a positive one: Games are shorter and quicker. The new rules — which require hitters to keep a foot in the box between most pitches, and ask that pitchers start each inning promptly — aren't drastic changes that alter the fabric of the game, so it's nice to know that they were effective. At least in one month's sample.

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The second takeaway: Geez, MLB, you think you could have stuck it out longer? Maybe the entire season? At least until the All-Star break? We understand not wanting to beef with the players' union (especially when players have done right in this situation), but it's only been a month. We don't hand out MVPs after a month. The league wouldn't enact new drug-testing then scale that back after a month because no players got popped for steroids.

Nonetheless, the players' union did its job on this one, as Clark tells ESPN:

"The idea here," Clark said, "was to effect some positive changes in habits, and to see if, by doing so, we could also shorten the length of games and perhaps improve the pace. And the result is that a lot of [players] have done exactly that. ... So to penalize guys just to penalize them doesn't make a lot of sense."

Regardless of the fine structure, MLB will continue to monitor players and their adherence to the pace-of-play rules. The difference will be whether violators get more warning letters or bills for a few hundred bucks.

We know which one David Ortiz would prefer. And that goes for his peers too.

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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!