Baseball Clock

[cyowan]

With the election of a new commish of baseball I've been hearing more and more about the need to speed up the game and to put a clock (or rather, enforce the current clock) on pitchers and batters. I've had many discussions with friends and all have a differing opinion. Best I can tell, those who love baseball and are die hard fans hate the idea, while those who are casual fans or don't like baseball think it should have a clock. I personally don't like the idea. Baseball is great because there is no clock. It's part of the appeal to me. Just wondering what other people think.

 

[cyowan]

Apologies on the grammatical error in the poll. Hit post too quickly.

 

[CycloneErik]

I know that speeding up the game has been a cause celebre for a long time, but I don't see the point. Baseball works differently than other sports, and there's nothing wrong with that.

 

[ruxCYtable]

I'm not a baseball purist or even really that big of a fan, as will be evidenced by my admittedly idiotic comment below.

I have a friend who umpires a ton of baseball and the subject of speeding up the game came up. He asked me, as an outsider, what I would do.

I said,"Easy. Make the games six innings."

Stupid, I know. Or is it?

 

[cmjh10]

I dont think it needs a clock, but there are some pitchers who are terribly slow. It seems like most are picking up the pace somewhat.

 

[Gunnerclone]

Think they should adopt playing 90 minutes with continuous clock, 3 subs per team, and yellow cards for time wasting.

 

[SoapyCy]

I said,"Easy. Make the games six innings."

Stupid, I know. Or is it?

I went to an iCubs double header a few weekends back and the games were each 7 innings. That is the perfect length to a game. It's not feasible in the MLB because of the history and stats books so there has to be another way to speed it up.

I'm certainly a baseball fan but the routine between every pitch needs to speed up. Step out of the box, re-velcro batting gloves, step back into box, tap toes, tap home plate, adjust helmet, on and on...

That could be sped up.

 

[3TrueFans]

I went to an iCubs double header a few weekends back and the games were each 7 innings. That is the perfect length to a game. It's not feasible in the MLB because of the history and stats books so there has to be another way to speed it up.

I'm certainly a baseball fan but the routine between every pitch needs to speed up. Step out of the box, re-velcro batting gloves, step back into box, tap toes, tap home plate, adjust helmet, on and on...

That could be sped up.

Obviously what's needed is batting gloves without velcro.

 

[Gunnerclone]

I went to an iCubs double header a few weekends back and the games were each 7 innings. That is the perfect length to a game. It's not feasible in the MLB because of the history and stats books so there has to be another way to speed it up.

I'm certainly a baseball fan but the routine between every pitch needs to speed up. Step out of the box, re-velcro batting gloves, step back into box, tap toes, tap home plate, adjust helmet, on and on...

That could be sped up.

Really? If that's their argument then baseball fans are total mugs...oh wait.

 

[tm3308]

I would be somewhat okay with forcing batters/pitchers to operate within a certain amount of time between pitches, but that's not the same as saying a game can't take more than X-hour:minute.

 

[ISUCubswin]

1. Just make in between innings no more than 1 minute long.

2. You can't make a game 6 or 7 innings. It would completely change the complexion of the game. You would only need a 4 man pitching rotation, meaning less pitchers. The closer role would become much less significant, you would just need 2 or 3 good relievers. And complete game shutouts would be too common.

There's no need to speed up the game. It's supposed to be relaxing.

 

[Bu4ISU]

honestly just make shorter seasons, baseball should end when preseason football starts

 

[ISU42]

By the 7th inning I'm ready to head home from MLB games. Ryen Russillo made a joke the other day about how a batter will come up to bat, adjust his batting gloves, get in the box, and not swing. Gets out of the box and proceeds to adjust everything again. There are ways to cut time so I say make the players adjust.

 

[ISUCubswin]

Now if there were only 20 games a season, each game would be much more important than what we see in a 162 game season, meaning a greater audience and more attention throughout the game instead of the first 3 innings.

But I still wouldn't like that.

 

[CarolinaCy]

Why does baseball need to be faster?

 

[Gunnerclone]

By the 7th inning I'm ready to head home from MLB games. Ryen Russillo made a joke the other day about how a batter will come up to bat, adjust his batting gloves, get in the box, and not swing. Gets out of the box and proceeds to adjust everything again. There are ways to cut time so I say make the players adjust.

Worse than my wife doing her makeup and far worse than soccer players diving or faking injury.

I know no one cares about cricket, but in much the same way as baseball the game is slow and doting. From the original multi-day test series they've spawned one day cricket as well as T20 cricket, which are much faster paced variations of the more classic multiday test cricket. Baseball is going to have to go down this route.

My other greatest baseball idea:

NO EXTRA INNINGS: 3 MAN (3 from each team) 5 BALL HOME RUN DERBY TO DECIDE GAMES

 

[cyowan]

By the 7th inning I'm ready to head home from MLB games. Ryen Russillo made a joke the other day about how a batter will come up to bat, adjust his batting gloves, get in the box, and not swing. Gets out of the box and proceeds to adjust everything again. There are ways to cut time so I say make the players adjust.

I compared this to a basketball player having a routine before he shoots a free throw. Except there's so many other variables in baseball. My guess is while they are adjusting all of those things, they are taking those variables into account. Not just fidgeting for fidgeting's sake.

 

[ISUCubswin]

There's a Minor league division that splits the season into halves. Winner of the first half automatically makes the post-season playoffs. That would be interesting because it would force coaches to decide whether they should start resting their players or not.

 

[WooBadger18]

I don't like the idea of a clock, but some pitchers are really slow. For me the bigger annoyance is the batters continuously stepping out of the batters box, and the relievers needing x many pitches before they can pitch to a batter. They just warmed up in the bull pen

 

[CarolinaCy]

I compared this to a basketball player having a routine before he shoots a free throw. Except there's so many other variables in baseball. My guess is while they are adjusting all of those things, they are taking those variables into account. Not just fidgeting for fidgeting's sake.

Except Nomar Garciaparra. Man I hated watching him at the plate.