Why MLB needs to keep exploring ways to improve pace of play

More than 540,000 pitches have been thrown in Major League Baseball games this year, and after each one comes the delay. In the best scenarios it is barely a hindrance and in the worst an interminable bore, and on average, 22.1 seconds lapse between pitches, which means the 2015 baseball season has featured about 12 million seconds of dead time.

This is notable because in spite of the perpetual wrench heaved into action, the effort to speed up pace of play in baseball has been a rousing success. The average nine-inning game is down to 2 hours, 54 minutes, down eight minutes from last season's foray past the three-hour mark. Now that the threshold has been crossed, MLB needs to figure out whether sub-3:00 is a goal accomplished or a starting point from which to build.

And when MLB looks at what's happening in the upper reaches of the minor leagues this season, it wonders whether satisfaction is selling itself short. In the five Double-A and Triple-A leagues this season, minor league teams are playing with a 20-second pitch clock. Combined with the 2-minute, 25-second between-innings clock also in use at the major leagues this season, plus the rule that forces hitters to stay in the batter's box, the results are impressive.

The average game time in the Texas League is down from 2:51 to 2:46. The Southern League dipped 11 minutes to 2:41. The Eastern League shaved 12 minutes off its games. The biggest differences are at Triple-A, where the Pacific Coast League lost 13 minutes and the International League went from the second-longest games in the minor leagues (2:56) to sixth of 16 domestic leagues (2:41).

In the lower levels of the minor leagues, where only the batter's-box rule is in place, the biggest decline is four minutes. The time of games in five leagues is actually greater than last season.

Figuring out how to parse credit isn't easy – does the pitch clock deserve due or the clock that limits minor league baseball's between-innings novelty acts to a designated amount of time? – but one thing is clear: Baseball has shown that pace-of-play issues aren't some mysterious ailment with no cure.

If MLB pitchers averaged 20 seconds per pitch instead of 22.1, and if those 2.1 seconds per pitch were applied to the average of 288 pitches thrown in each game, it's a savings of more than 10 minutes off game time. And that's just with pitchers abiding by the bare minimum. If more learned to pitch like Mark Buehrle – whose average of 15.8 seconds between pitches this year is the best in the nine years baseball has kept track of the time – the gains could be even greater.

While multiple sources said the subject of pitch clocks hasn't come up between MLB and the MLB Players Association, it at very least will be broached during the offseason. And when it is, at least one side will come in lukewarm on the idea.

"It feels like the games are moving at a better pace this year," Baltimore Orioles closer Zach Britton said. "Major League Baseball is getting what it wants out of the changes. The issues with the pitch clock is you turn your game into staying within a time limit, guys could get out of their element."

Elements are malleable, of course. The results in Double-A and Triple-A show that. And Britton agrees. "You adjust to anything," he said. "But I think the pitch clock would be a lot harder to adjust to than the inning clock. Just based on the fact that you're rushed into what you want to do sometimes, if you're not on the same page as the catcher. And knowing you're going to be penalized, you're talking about hurting guys' performance."

This is the great fear among ballplayers. When asked about pitch clocks throughout the season, they generally started their answers with a scoff and then explained why it wouldn't work. And MLB doesn't exactly sneer at their dubiousness. The league, which can unilaterally implement changes in the minor leagues like the pitch clock, isn't entirely convinced that the potential gain in pace would be worth the issues Britton and others raised.

Still, because settling on 2:54 seems unlikely – only the last three seasons had longer game times – baseball will brainstorm other pace-of-play possibilities … like one posited by Kansas City Royals pitcher Chris Young.

"The biggest thing I'd like to see is the automatic strike zone," Young said. "It's the single most important aspect to the game and the most subjective aspect. Umpires do an amazing job, but they're human beings, and there's a margin of error there. To me, that would speed up the game dramatically.

"Half the time now it's guys stepping out of the box, asking where the call was. It doesn't eliminate the home-plate umpire. You still need him for check swings, plays at the plate. It makes his job easier. And you know what you're going to get. I know when I step off the mound, half the time it's to think, 'OK, don't get wrapped up in the call.' I gather myself, compose myself. But it takes a minute. We're human beings. We get focused on what we consider a missed call."

Baseball loves two-birds-with-one-stone solutions, and its successful implementation of instant replay – it's got hiccups but generally is an excellent system – shows proficiency in the technology space. And considering the pervasiveness of PITCHf/x, the camera-tracking system embedded into MLB's apps and broadcasts, the equipment is there, too.

Robot umpiring made its way into independent baseball last month, and Young's point about the time spent bellyaching over strikes is salient, as is his assessment of the strike zone that varies from umpire to umpire. "The NBA rim isn't 10-6 one night and 9-8 the next," Young said. "It's 10 feet every night. When you step onto the court, you know exactly what you're getting. I think it would speed up the game way more than people expect. Because guys step out. Pitchers want to know where the pitch was. They call the catcher to the mound. All that takes time."

The biggest impediments aren't baseball wedding itself to tradition or umpires who want to be in charge of balls and strikes. Rather, the current incarnation of PITCHf/x is fallible. The margin of error is significant enough to potentially change the course of a game, and the technology relies on cameras mounted inside stadiums that are living, breathing beings, capable of moving the fraction of an inch that could throw off accurate readings.

The best umpires get from 90-92 percent of ball-strike calls correct, and the variance among them is the best it's ever been. And even still, with balls and strikes more consistent than ever, all the time spent thinking about the zone is misplaced. Now that he's pitching in late innings, Britton's time between pitches has soared. In his first major league season, he took 20.8 seconds between. Today, it's 24.5, which looks downright pretty alongside Pedro Baez, the Dodgers pitcher, who spends more than 30 seconds to get ready for his next pitch.

Major League Baseball is a different game than Triple-A and Double-A, something the league recognizes. It's not just the stakes; it's what they wreak. Players rationalize holding the ball for what seems like an hour by pointing to the importance of the game. Managers play matchups with relief pitchers more often in the major leagues. Expecting sub-2:40 games is a bit much, particularly with the most recent games trending down.

After averaging 2:53:37 in April, 2:51:59 in May and 2:52:55 in June, the games in July pushed past 2:56 and through the first half of August clocked in at 2:58:44. Maybe it's a bad trend. Maybe it's an aberration. Not enough data exists to say one way or the other.

It's enough, though, to remind MLB that accepting the current changes as sufficient would be short-sighted. Even with the improvements, baseball's reputation remains every bit the same: the long, boring sport in need of modernization. If ridding that means introducing a clock, tick-tick-tick. And if it means an automated umpiring system, name it Mel Bott.

Those are two potential solutions, and surely there are more. Rob Manfred presents himself as the commissioner to re-engage kids. Eight minutes is a good start. Another 10, and he'll have earned it.