Speeding up baseball

[Saint Cad]

Commenting on this article

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big...urn=mlb,232956

1) Do umpires even enforce the 12 second rule anymore? If not, get a small box where you press a button when the pitcher gets the ball and vibrates 12 seconds late. Call the "ball"
2) The Rules in section 8 seem to imply that a quick pitch is before the batter is set, but if a batter steps out of the batters box before delivery is it automatically time? If not, allow each batter 1 time during an at-bat then if he steps out again without asking permission, let the pitcher pitch.

[Oakminster]

I don't really care about the length of games. The problem I have with baseball is the season is too damn long, and nothing that happens before the All Star break really matters much. I'd speed up the season rather than the games--maybe let them start around the Fourth of July, with the World Series to end by the first week of October or so.

[DCnDC]

Originally Posted by Oakminster

I don't really care about the length of games. The problem I have with baseball is the season is too damn long, and nothing that happens before the All Star break really matters much. I'd speed up the season rather than the games--maybe let them start around the Fourth of July, with the World Series to end by the first week of October or so.

Totally. Maybe play 2-game series in the regular season instead of 3; that would instantly cut it down to 108 games. Or just dump the unbalanced schedule shit and play 3-game series against every team, and a few extra against your division. 162 games is at least 50 too many. I just stop caring eventually.

[Jas09]

Originally Posted by Oakminster

I don't really care about the length of games. The problem I have with baseball is the season is too damn long, and nothing that happens before the All Star break really matters much. I'd speed up the season rather than the games--maybe let them start around the Fourth of July, with the World Series to end by the first week of October or so.

That's interesting because I'm pretty much exactly the opposite. I love the long season, the "we do this every day" attitude. I'd much prefer two leagues with the best regular season record winning the pennant and then straight to the World Series. It's the short-series, wild-card playoffs that minimizes the regular season, IMO.

As far as the speed of the game I think the best thing would be a combination of not allowing the batter to leave the box without reason (i.e. injury, something in the eye) and enforcing the pitch timer.

[Munch]

Originally Posted by Jas09

That's interesting because I'm pretty much exactly the opposite. I love the long season, the "we do this every day" attitude..

Yup. I just don't understand the "nothing counts before the All Star Game" argument. This isn't an NBA game - every year there's at least one race (usually 2) that comes down to the final week.

Of course, the long season lends itself to having very different phases of the year. Late August until the playoffs is a highly-charged atmosphere - but only for the teams still in it. April-June is much more relaxed, but that certainly doesn't mean they don't count.

[Oakminster]

Originally Posted by Munch

Yup. I just don't understand the "nothing counts before the All Star Game" argument. This isn't an NBA game - every year there's at least one race (usually 2) that comes down to the final week.

Which means I can only watch/check scores that week, and know everything I need to know about the playoff picture. Nobody cares what happened in the 2nd game of that double header back in June.

Maybe it's because I'm a football guy. Every game MATTERS, at least until your team has clinched homefield advantage, can no longer improve its playoff seed, or is eliminated from contention. For college ball, substitute bowl game/BCS status for playoffs, and same/same.

[Carl Corey]

Well, every game matters in baseball too--just ask last year's Tigers.

[Munch]

Originally Posted by Oakminster

Which means I can only watch/check scores that week, and know everything I need to know about the playoff picture. Nobody cares what happened in the 2nd game of that double header back in June.

Except that you don't get to a tight race in September if you crapped the bed in April. Because the games count just as much.

Maybe it's because I'm a football guy. Every game MATTERS, at least until your team has clinched homefield advantage, can no longer improve its playoff seed, or is eliminated from contention. For college ball, substitute bowl game/BCS status for playoffs, and same/same.

True - they're different creatures, which is what I was getting at with the "different phases/seasons of baseball. A Royals game in April doesn't mean much - but neither does a Royals game in September. But it has an entirely different feeling. Hope springs eternal (even for us), and there are extremely important things to be watching all season long.

[Bootis]

Baseball has had over 150 game seasons for 100 years. That's not going to change, and shouldnt, based on the nature of a game: the worst team is much more capable of beating the best team in 1 baseball game, compared to other sports. An accurate determination of a division winner needs more than 100 games to be decided. Many believe the season should go back to 154 games, which I think is a good idea, would keep the world series from going to late october/november. But I'm pretty sure the majority of baseball fans want baseball to be played every day, in all the months warm enough to play it.

[Jas09]

Exactly Bootis. The long season is part of what baseball is.

It's not a slow build-up to one big game, an explosion of sound and fury and excitement. It's a long daily struggle for sustained excellence, battling through the ups and downs inherent in a game where only the very best teams win even 60% of their games. It's constant companionship during the summer months, always knowing that your team will be on the radio or on the TV (or, I guess, on your iPhone these days) and that if you miss today's game, well, there will be one tomorrow.

[KennerTheGreat]

I like two of Bill James' suggestions to speed up the game.

1) The pitcher is only allowed two pickoff throws to the bases per inning. If he makes a third; it's a called ball.
2) Once the hitter steps into the box, the umpire will not call time. (except in extenuating circumstances)

[Oakminster]

Originally Posted by KennerTheGreat

I like two of Bill James' suggestions to speed up the game.

1) The pitcher is only allowed two pickoff throws to the bases per inning. If he makes a third; it's a called ball.

I don't like that one. If he uses up both throws early, it's "Olly Olly Oxen Free" on the bases for the rest of the inning. I don't follow baseball close enough to know who the best base stealers are these days, but if you gave somebody like Ricky Henderson something like that to work with, you may as well just award him an extra base. Not like you're going to stop him from stealing it anyway.

[RickJay]

We've sort of got two different discussions going on here:

1. Whether the games should be sped up, and

2. Whether the season should be shortened.

As to question 1, games are a little bit quicker than they were a few years back. I hate to point this out for about the millionth time, but the average Major League Baseball game is substantially shorter than the average NFL game, and much shorter than the average Division I college football game, despite those sports have pretty much the same amount of actual minutes of play. But I don't hear so much blather about how football games should be shorter. Conversely, an NHL game is shorter than either baseball or football and actually has 60 minutes of play, but the NHL continues to be the weak sister in the major sports lineup.

I see no evidence regular season ball games need to be shorter. I do see the argument that the pace should be kept up, and I like Bill James's suggestions. I would also heatily agree that this bullshit with the World Series never starting until 8:30 EST needs to end, especially on weekends, when the games should be played during the day, but that's a problem of start time, not the length of the game.

As to the argument that the season should be shorter, it's been fine for over a century.

[Thudlow Boink]

Originally Posted by Jas09

in a game where only the very best teams win even 60% of their games

Indeed. I just checked the standings, and I see that almost every team has a mixed record even after only 3 or 4 games played. (Only SF has a 3-0 record, and only Houston has 0-3.)

[DCnDC]

Though I previously stated my distaste for the length of season, I agree that there's nothing wrong with the length of games.

However, I believe the OP is talking about the speed of the actual gameplay-- the pitcher putzing around on the mound, the batters stepping in and out of the box to mess with their gloves, hat, shoes, bat, etc. after every pitch, conferences on the mound, etc. You know, all that built-in down time where there's no real action occurring. To that end, I really don't know what could be done about it. That's just how the game is played.

[Kiros]

Also, to be fair, the average Sox-Yankees game over the past several years has been about 45 minutes longer, on average, than the average game in the rest of MLB. I know I enjoy the (average) 2:55 game a lot more than I enjoy the (Sox-Yanks average) 3:40 game, time-wise.

That said, there's still no justification for an umpire to be making public remarks like that.

[Hawkeyeop]

Originally Posted by Kiros

Also, to be fair, the average Sox-Yankees game over the past several years has been about 45 minutes longer, on average, than the average game in the rest of MLB. I know I enjoy the (average) 2:55 game a lot more than I enjoy the (Sox-Yanks average) 3:40 game, time-wise.

That said, there's still no justification for an umpire to be making public remarks like that.

I have to say I much prefer the average Yankees Red Sox game to the average game of random other teams. I guess I'm just not in a hurry when I watch baseball.

[Oakminster]

Originally Posted by Kiros

That said, there's still no justification for an umpire to be making public remarks like that.

I expect the league will agree, and some form of discipline will be imposed. His comments could be said to reflect at least a potential for bias against particular teams, and that ain't good.

[RickJay]

Originally Posted by DCnDC

However, I believe the OP is talking about the speed of the actual gameplay-- the pitcher putzing around on the mound, the batters stepping in and out of the box to mess with their gloves, hat, shoes, bat, etc. after every pitch, conferences on the mound, etc. You know, all that built-in down time where there's no real action occurring. To that end, I really don't know what could be done about it. That's just how the game is played.

The James suggestion that a batter should not be permitted to step out of the batter's box without a good reason would fix much of that problem. Batters stepping out after every pitch to fiddle with their equipment is a recent thing; that did not happen 25-30 years ago. Pitchers futzing around on the mound is harder to enforce but to my eyes it's much less of a problem than batters dicking around with their gloves. Most pitchers like to get the ball back and pitch it again pretty quickly.

If Derek Jeter's batting gloves have to be adjusted even after he takes a pitch, he needs to get batting gloves that fit properly. There should be a rule prohibiting that nonsense and it should be enforced to the letter.

[KennerTheGreat]

Originally Posted by RickJay

The James suggestion that a batter should not be permitted to step out of the batter's box without a good reason would fix much of that problem. Batters stepping out after every pitch to fiddle with their equipment is a recent thing; that did not happen 25-30 years ago. Pitchers futzing around on the mound is harder to enforce but to my eyes it's much less of a problem than batters dicking around with their gloves. Most pitchers like to get the ball back and pitch it again pretty quickly.

If Derek Jeter's batting gloves have to be adjusted even after he takes a pitch, he needs to get batting gloves that fit properly. There should be a rule prohibiting that nonsense and it should be enforced to the letter.

I think Mike Hargrove was the first guy to really be known for stuff like that; not for nothing he was known as "The Human Rain Delay."

He also drew close to 100 walks a year and looked over a lot of pitches, so a Hargrove plate appearance could go on for a while.

[pseudotriton ruber ruber]

Also Jeter's obnoxious habit of gesturing with his back (left) hand to the umpire, "Wait, I'm not ready yet, hold on, not quite there," etc. MUST be stopped by the umpire telling him "You're in the batter's box, the pitcher may throw anytime" (plus not letting him leave the box without permission).

Piazza also did this. Prima donna assholes.

[DCnDC]

Originally Posted by RickJay

Batters stepping out after every pitch to fiddle with their equipment is a recent thing; that did not happen 25-30 years ago.

I didn't know that. I do hate that shit.

[MOIDALIZE]

Maybe they should have a "pitch clock," visible to everyone, and if a pitch isn't delivered within a certain amount of time it's a ball.

Batters should definitely have to stay in the box. Their behavior borders on ritualistic and bizarre.

The regular season should be 154 games.

Is it just me, or does it seem like relief pitchers take forever to get ready? Pitching changes have become the TV Timeout of baseball.

[DCnDC]

Originally Posted by MOIDALIZE

Is it just me, or does it seem like relief pitchers take forever to get ready? Pitching changes have become the TV Timeout of baseball.

IIRC, they're only allowed up to 8 warm up pitches unless brought in unexpectedly, in which case he's given as many as the umpire allows.

But they do seem to take their sweet time.

[MOIDALIZE]

Also...

Originally Posted by RickJay

As to question 1, games are a little bit quicker than they were a few years back. I hate to point this out for about the millionth time, but the average Major League Baseball game is substantially shorter than the average NFL game, and much shorter than the average Division I college football game, despite those sports have pretty much the same amount of actual minutes of play. But I don't hear so much blather about how football games should be shorter.

Football gets played once a week. Fans don't mind the time commitment because they're generally off from work and every game is important. An individual baseball game is likely not that important, and if it's being played on a weekday, the viewers are probably less willing to commit as much time to watching the game. I don't think MLB games should average more than 2:15-2:25.

[Crawlspace]

Originally Posted by MOIDALIZE

Maybe they should have a "pitch clock," visible to everyone, and if a pitch isn't delivered within a certain amount of time it's a ball.

Batters should definitely have to stay in the box. Their behavior borders on ritualistic and bizarre.

I agree.

1. Upon receiving the ball, pitchers have 12 seconds to deliver a pitch to the batter. Failure to do so is a ball.
2. Upon being called up to bat and stepping into the batter's box, it's the hitters responsibility to be ready to receive a pitch (provided the pitcher comes to a set position, etc.)
3. After a broken bat or foul ball the clock resumes after the batter has retaken his stance in the batter's box.
4. Time will not be granted for pitcher catcher meetings unless it is the one pitcher/catcher/coach conference per inning.

[Peremensoe]

Originally Posted by DCnDC

Or just dump the unbalanced schedule shit and play 3-game series against every team, and a few extra against your division.

That's what "unbalanced schedule" means.

[Incensed]

I just caught George Will weighing in on long games on Baseball Tonight (noon edition) and his solution is...to expand the strike zone.

Just wow. I knew the man was differently abled from his newspaper column, but I can't really fathom that level of idiocy. MLB K's are up 44% from 1979 to 2008, and he wants to expand the strike zone by about 17%. What a maroon.

I think the best idea I've seen (other than having the umps actively move the game along) was Bill James' suggestion to limit mid-inning pitching changes to one per game unless the pitcher has given up a run in the inning. Doesn't have much effect on regular season games, but it would sure trim the fat in playoff games.

[Saint Cad]

Originally Posted by Incensed

I just caught George Will weighing in on long games on Baseball Tonight (noon edition) and his solution is...to expand the strike zone.

Just wow. I knew the man was differently abled from his newspaper column, but I can't really fathom that level of idiocy. MLB K's are up 44% from 1979 to 2008, and he wants to expand the strike zone by about 17%. What a maroon.

Devil's advocate but this may be the same idea as a few years ago about calling the "high strike". Look at the rules on where the strike zone is and look at what umpires call. They ain't the same.

[RickJay]

Originally Posted by DCnDC

IIRC, they're only allowed up to 8 warm up pitches unless brought in unexpectedly, in which case he's given as many as the umpire allows.

But they do seem to take their sweet time.

It's six pitches, except in the case of a pitcher having to be replaced due to injury.

The six pitch thing's been around forever. At least to my honest observation, pitchers are NOT delaying games any more than they used to. Most major league pitchers like to work fast. Games are longer now than they were 30-35 years ago for four reasons:

1. Because teams score more runs. Obviously, there is a direct correlation between run scoring and time of game. The more batters that reach base, the longer the game takes. That's why game length is actually down a bit over 5-7 years ago; because offense is down a little. However, even with the recent slight drop, there are many more baserunners and runs scored than there were in the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s.

2. Because of batters fucking around with their batting gloves and stepping out after every pitch.

3. Because of a vastly increased number of pitching changes. Never before in the history of baseball have teams changed pitchers so often.

4. In the case of playoff games, they take longer commercial breaks.

I think of the four reasons, the one you can most easily change with no negative impact to the game is #2. There's just no reason for batters to spend an interminable time every at bat adjusting their helmets and gloves and what have you. I suspect just changing this would slice five to ten minutes off every game.

If that's not enough, maybe it's time to discuss reducing pitching changes, though I think that will eventually change on its own, because the extent to which teams fart around with pitching changes has gone way, way past any perceptible advantage and is actually becoming counterproductive.

[Incensed]

Originally Posted by Saint Cad

Devil's advocate but this may be the same idea as a few years ago about calling the "high strike". Look at the rules on where the strike zone is and look at what umpires call. They ain't the same.

Oh, I agree that the umps are missing the top coupla three inches of the zone but they've been doing that for 20 years and strike out rates have risen steadily in spite of it.

Think of it another way-if increasing k's would shorten ball games, why are people complaining about long games in the midst of the highest strikeout era of all time?

I'll got out on a limb and say the average fan would prefer to see-
1) More offense versus less.
2) A ground out/fly ball versus a k.

Right now scoring is trending toward average and k's are rising steadily; implementing Will's suggestion would magnify both trends and we'd have an almost exact repeat of 1963-1968 (but with more k's) for exactly the same reason-reactionaries trying to fix things that aren't broken.

Imagine a 4 RPG league where Mark Reynolds and Bronson Arroyo would both have 300 k's. But the games would be short (in theory) and good thing too-who would want to watch them?

[Peremensoe]

Originally Posted by RickJay

It's six pitches, except in the case of a pitcher having to be replaced due to injury.

No, it's eight.

You're right about the rest, though.

[RTFirefly]

Originally Posted by RickJay

Games are longer now than they were 30-35 years ago for four reasons:

1. Because teams score more runs. Obviously, there is a direct correlation between run scoring and time of game. The more batters that reach base, the longer the game takes. That's why game length is actually down a bit over 5-7 years ago; because offense is down a little. However, even with the recent slight drop, there are many more baserunners and runs scored than there were in the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s.

2. Because of batters fucking around with their batting gloves and stepping out after every pitch.

3. Because of a vastly increased number of pitching changes. Never before in the history of baseball have teams changed pitchers so often.

4. In the case of playoff games, they take longer commercial breaks.

I think of the four reasons, the one you can most easily change with no negative impact to the game is #2. There's just no reason for batters to spend an interminable time every at bat adjusting their helmets and gloves and what have you. I suspect just changing this would slice five to ten minutes off every game.

If that's not enough, maybe it's time to discuss reducing pitching changes, though I think that will eventually change on its own, because the extent to which teams fart around with pitching changes has gone way, way past any perceptible advantage and is actually becoming counterproductive.

The problem is, people (and teams) don't always realize what's in their best interests, let alone act on it. Sometimes a little push helps.

And since each pitching change is generally treated as a commercial break on TV, which dictates the pace of the game on the field, an inning with an initial pitching change, then with a LOOGY (Lefty One-Out GuY) brought in to get his one key out, then back to a RHP, can take forfuckingever without much of anything happening.

There have been various suggestions about penalizing multiple pitching changes in an inning. The ones I've read allow one unpenalized pitching change in an inning, and then gradually step things up, e.g. first batter faced by the third pitcher in the inning starts off with a 1-0 count (unless the pitching change was in the middle of a plate appearance, in which case the batter gets one ball added to his count), the first batter faced by the fourth pitcher starts off with a 2-0 count (middle of a PA: add 2 balls to the count), etc.

I'd be all for such a change, in addition to any rule that penalized batters for multiple delays while the pitcher was on the rubber.

Finally, I don't think there's anything that can be done about #4, because people are shortsighted, especially where immediate profits v. the mere prospect of profits many years down the road are concerned. But I do think they're killing their own fan base by having so many commercials. In a 9-inning game, there are 17 between-half-inning commercial breaks, and going from 1 minute to 2 minutes per break adds 17 minutes to the game, which is a fair amount. (In fairness, I haven't watched baseball in a few years now, so I have no idea how long the commercial breaks are these days, either regular season or postseason. But long, slow games were a big part of the reason I stopped watching postseason games.)

[RTFirefly]

Originally Posted by Incensed

I'll got out on a limb and say the average fan would prefer to see-
1) More offense versus less.
2) A ground out/fly ball versus a k.

When I was a more regular baseball fan, I liked both pitching duels and donnybrooks. But a pitching duel, during my formative years as a baseball fan (late 1970s through early 1980s), was over in a little over 2 hours, while anything that went over 3 hours had a shitload of hitting going on.

Basically, the long games had more than enough activity to be interesting, and the pitching duels moved along quickly enough that they didn't lose you, either. It worked out well either way.

The problem with watching a game of baseball now is that it can take forever without a whole lot of action - the worst of both worlds.

ETA: I know that this sounds like a "everything was better when I was younger" rant, but baseball was definitely better then. As the game's changed, I've voted with my feet, so to speak, and hardly follow the game at all anymore. But I still very deeply miss baseball as it was, which is why I still post to threads like this.

[BobLibDem]

We need to shorten the season and the games. My plan:

1- No getting out of the batter's box.
2- Cut the break time between innings by 30 seconds. One less commercial, big deal. That would just decrease the supply of commercials and increase their price.
3- No more patriotic seventh inning stretch. If you want to play God Bless America, go ahead but don't have it AND commercials in the inning break.

4- Cut the interleague play down to two series: one against your cross league rival (if you have one) and one against one other team that changes each year. This will allow for a more balanced league schedule and more 4 game series which will result in the ability to:

5- Make everyone schedule 7 Sunday doubleheaders like they used to play in the old days. You lose 7 games worth of gate receipts but you get the season over a week earlier and you get better weather for the post season.

6- Cut the travel dates in the post season. This will make teams use their fourth starter and some of their dogs in the bullpen, making for a truer test of the whole roster.

[RickJay]

Originally Posted by RTFirefly

The problem with watching a game of baseball now is that it can take forever without a whole lot of action - the worst of both worlds.

ETA: I know that this sounds like a "everything was better when I was younger" rant, but baseball was definitely better then. As the game's changed, I've voted with my feet, so to speak, and hardly follow the game at all anymore. But I still very deeply miss baseball as it was, which is why I still post to threads like this.

I don't know when you were young, but in the mid-1970s the average game was about twelve minutes shorter than it is now, and that's with fewer runs being scored than there are today. So in fact, the difference in game length is very, very small.

Of course, if you don't enjoy it the way you used to, you don't. It's your call.

[obfusciatrist]

My only complaint about the length of baseball games is the 7:05pm start time. I love going to moderately attended games with a bit of a lazy feel but I'm not going to go to a worknight game when there's a fair chance that I'll not be home until after 11.

Returning to an era where I could be pretty confident the game would be over by 9:30 would be a great boon in that regard.

==

In poking around I see that the average Japanese professional baseball game is about 20 minutes longer than a US game. I don't know anything about them to know why that might be.

==

Just to set an ideal bar for game length without changing the way the game is actually played, last year the Yankees saw an average of 155 pitches/game. The Red Sox saw 154 for a total of 309 pitches per game.

So just in 12 seconds/pitch that is a minimum of 61 minutes, 48 seconds of time.

To the 61:48 we add:

42:30 for the 17 side changes taking 2:30 each.

Lets say that every time the ball is hit or someone goes from home to first (or farther) it takes and average of 15 seconds to get the ball back to the pitcher (made up number that strikes me as maybe a bit low). The Yankees and Red Sox averaged a combined 92 hits, walks, hit by pitcher, sacrifices, ground balls, and fly falls per game. So that's another 23 minutes.

Now up to 127 minutes, 18 seconds.

Maybe a 15 second gap between the end of one plate appearance and the start of the next. The Yankees/Red Sox combined to average 79 plate appearances per game. Subtract the 18 that ended a side leaving 61 and another 15:15.

142:18 now.

And now the pitching changes. In 2009 the Yankees has 623 games played by pitchers, the Red Sox 625. Remove the 162 starting pitchers from both and that works out to 5.6 pitching changes per game. If we're stingy and say a pitching change should take no more than 3 minutes (dammit, they should sprint from the bullpen) then that is another 16:48 per game.

So 159:06 or 2 hours, 39 minutes, 6 seconds (assuming my math is wrong as it likely isn't when doing this during a conference call) is about the shortest we can expect a Yankees/Red Sox game to be (pick off attempts, foul balls, stolen bases, and legitimate timeouts aren't included in here) without putting some kind of restriction on strategy used by the coaches.

Kind of surprised that maybe only 30 minutes or so of excisable fluff in a game.

ETA: I know there's an error in there somewhere since I have more plate appearance outcomes (92) listed than plate appearances (79) but I'm not going to be bothered enough to find it and fix it.

[Troy McClure SF]

Originally Posted by obfusciatrist

My only complaint about the length of baseball games is the 7:05pm start time. I love going to moderately attended games with a bit of a lazy feel but I'm not going to go to a worknight game when there's a fair chance that I'll not be home until after 11.

That can be pretty annoying. there was another thread a week ago where we were discussing start times- some teams are experimenting with 6pm starts- AZ in one, and Houston's opener vs SF was 6pm local (annoying, since it was 4pm here). the Giants do (some) 6pm Saturday games, but I agree it'd be nice to see more.

[Peremensoe]

Originally Posted by RickJay

So in fact, the difference in game length is very, very small.

Most people talk about game length, but that's not really the problem. Well, combined with late starts it could be a problem. But I think what people really mean, usually, is that it feels like there's wasted time inside the game. A few moments of action pump up the excitement, which then diffuses as pitcher and batter dick around instead of getting down to business.

I'm with those who suggest new instructions to the umpires: do not grant time to batters after the PA has begun (barring exceptional circumstances). If the batter steps out at any time after the first pitch, let the pitcher go ahead and deliver a strike while the batter is away. They'll catch on real quick.

That's the easiest first step. After a year or two with that, we can look again and see if more needs to be done.

[Troy McClure SF]

Originally Posted by spark240

I'm with those who suggest new instructions to the umpires: do not grant time to batters after the PA has begun (barring exceptional circumstances). If the batter steps out at any time after the first pitch, let the pitcher go ahead and deliver a strike while the batter is away. They'll catch on real quick.

That's the easiest first step. After a year or two with that, we can look again and see if more needs to be done.

The only thing I'd say is that barring a time-out when the pitcher has started his motion would be the easiest first step, practically. Ideally followed soon thereafter by your proposition as a second step. Once in a while, that actually happens, and it's AWESOME.

[DKW]

I've said these before quite a few times, and I stand by them:
1. Pitcher allowed one unsuccessful pickoff attempt per at-bat. The second time, all runners advance. (Not counted if a runner steals successfully on the throw, but that's the only exemption.) If you're going to do the most pointless, soul-crushing, enjoyable-as-drying-paint black hole of time in baseball, you'd damn well better make it WORK.

2. Some consequence for fouling with two strikes. Name another sport where you can spray balls all over the place with no harm done*. Disallowing swinging is my preference. Gotta either bunt or let it go, and if the bunt goes foul, that's an out, same as for any other bunt (as with #1, settle the issue already). Other possibilities include standing on one foot, having one foot on the back of the batter's box, swinging one-handed, using a different bat, etc., but bunt-or-pass seems to me the most practical and effective.

I'm all for penalties for needlessly exiting the batter's box; in fact, I'd go further. Out the first time, ejected the second; mercy granted only if he has a really good reason. Same deal with pitch timers (and why aren't they enforced?). After a certain number of violations, say, three, the penalty goes up to an automatic walk (not one base for all runners; that's a little excessive).

A problem with foul balls is that it's too easy to get them in some stadiums. Expanding foul areas would help alleviate that. And while I'm add it, put a little space between the front row of fans and the field. I really don't like it that some slob can stick a glove right into foul territory and snag the ball from the fielder.

There. But mostly the first two. Seriously, failed pickoff wars and foul-a-thons are why I find the sport completely unwatchable. Mike Hargrove is just one man.

* No, not cricket. You don't have unlimited time in that game. You have to put points on the board at some point.

[Wheelz]

I don't believe there's any need for rule changes.
Limiting pickoff throws would amount to giving away free stolen bases. Limiting pitching changes unnecessarily ties managers' hands strategically. And what if your second pitcher of the inning is getting shelled? You're stuck with him?

Current rules are sufficient, but it's up to the umpires to take back control of the game. The 12-second rule is almost never enforced. An ump can deny a batter's request for time, but they almost never do. If those two things started happening regularly, you can bet the average pace of a game would pick up.

[RTFirefly]

Originally Posted by RickJay

I don't know when you were young, but in the mid-1970s the average game was about twelve minutes shorter than it is now, and that's with fewer runs being scored than there are today. So in fact, the difference in game length is very, very small.

Huh. Coulda sworn that I'd read, a few years ago, that the average length of a game was up around 3 hours. It was about 2:30 ca. 1980.

[RTFirefly]

Originally Posted by obfusciatrist

42:30 for the 17 side changes taking 2:30 each.

My suspicion is that this is a nontrivial part of the problem. I don't know if there are any records about what the typical length of the commercial breaks between half-innings used to be 30 years ago, but my recollection is that it used to be more like a minute. If it's gone to two and a half minutes, that's an added 17 x 1.5 = 25.5 minutes per game, if I'm right.

There's obviously nothing that can be done about that, because the owners won't give up the extra revenue until their cold, dead fingers are pried from around it. But I don't have to like it.

[RickJay]

Originally Posted by RTFirefly

Huh. Coulda sworn that I'd read, a few years ago, that the average length of a game was up around 3 hours. It was about 2:30 ca. 1980.

It's never reached 3 hours. It's around 2:46-2:47 now.

In the mid 70's it was about 2:35 or so.

[obfusciatrist]

Originally Posted by DKW

2. Some consequence for fouling with two strikes. Name another sport where you can spray balls all over the place with no harm done*.

Is there any evidence at all that an excess of foul balls is a significant contributing factor? In 2009 the highest pitches per plate appearance for any staff was the Dodgers at 3.93 p/pa. The best was the Cardinals at 3.67.

Sure, 12 pitch at bats happen but I don't think they're part of the problem (and have always been part of the game).