Ever since Rob Manfred took over as MLB commissioner in early 2015 the number one priority of his has been to shorten the length of a typical game to help bring the sport back to its former glory. Manfred has enacted rules such as shortening commercials between innings, limiting mound visits between managers, coaches, and players, and a pitching clock in which the pitch needs to be thrown before the timer expires.
The latest installment of attempting to shorten the length of a game is the three-batter rule. The three-batter rule has been in talks for a while and as of February 12, 2020 this rule will now be official.
The three-batter rule was not the only rule change that the MLB has brought to light this season, but it is by far the biggest. This rule not only will hopefully shorten the game, but it is the rule that affects game play the most, from strategy from the managers and utilizing pitchers correctly.
The biggest issue with this rule comes with the pitchers who are a “specialty” type. This is particularly focused on left-handed pitchers who are used specifically to get left-handed batters out. Although lefties are usually more of the specialty type there are still right-handed specialists who are used specifically for right-handed batters.
This rule not only means that managers have to choose better when to utilize a certain pitcher, but that there may be pitchers out of a job because their main role is a “specialty” pitcher.
The main reason this rule exists is to shorten the game by allowing fewer pitching changes. During a pitching change there are commercials and the incoming pitcher gets a set number of pitches to warm up with on the game mound. With the three-batter minimum the hope is that there will be fewer pitching changes therefore resulting in a quicker game.
According to baseball-reference the average length of an MLB game in 2019 was 3 hours and 10 minutes, up 6 minuets from last season and up 16 minutes from 2010. Before 2010 the average length of a game lasted anywhere from 2 hours and 50 minutes to 3 hours between 1987 and 2011. So why has there been such a large increase in the length of games over the past eight seasons?
The number of pitchers used per game per team looks to be the biggest culprit. Going back to 1990 there was an average of 3.02 pitchers used per game by each team over the course of the season. That number steadily increased and by 2000 the number reached 3.54.
Although the number of pitchers used per game rose the average length did not at a significant rate, that was the same between 2000 and 2010 where the average number of pitchers per game rose from 3.54 to 3.87. However, from 2010 to 2019 we saw the average length of games eclipse the 3-hour mark and the pitchers per game rise to 4.41 per team.
In a span of 30-years we saw the game go from about 6 total pitchers used per game to about 9 total pitchers used per game which is an increase of 46.03%. This seems to be where Manfred is coming from with this new rule change, statistics help prove that the increase of pitchers used per game correlate with length of MLB games.
I know this is not a rule that baseball purists agree with, but the end goal of this rule change is to shorten the length of each game. If this rule does end up working and even if it does not it will completely change the way relief pitchers are used and teams may start to look at relief pitchers the way they look at starters, pitchers who can go for length and pitch to every batter.
This rule could be a welcomed change to the game which has been losing viewership due to the increased length of the game, but this will not be known until a couple of seasons into this new rule. At the very least this season will be interesting with the new rule change.
Interesting to see what develops.