The Pace Of The Game Thread (This Thread Used To Have A Long soxhop Title)

[charlieoscar]

From ESPN:
Visits to the mound to clean cleats in rainy weather, to check on an injury or potential injury or after the announcement of an offensive substitution are excepted. Also, normal communication between player and pitcher that do not require either to vacate their position on the field do not count as a visit. If a team is out of visits, the umpire will have discretion to grant a visit at the catcher's request if he believes there has been a cross-up between the pitcher and catcher.

Given these terms I suspect that there will be many "potential injury checks" and "cross-ups." And given how "well" umpires enforced the rule agaisnt batters leaving the box last season, I won't be surprised to see the same happen with these new rules.

 

[tims4wins]

 

[cromulence]

Wilson Contreras is saying the same thing. In case there was any doubt, these guys are proving to everyone that the players are the problem - they're the ones who have slowed down the game (it's been gradual, but still), and they don't seem to really give a shit about speeding it back up. How long did they hold up their end of staying in the box when they tried to enforce that more? Two months? Hopefully the umps will really enforce this, whether it's a forced pitching change or something else that has an impact. Players can say whatever they want, but if the consequences are tough enough, they'll follow the rules.

All of this also casts a lot of doubt on the MLBPA's claims that they really do want to speed up the game. Players pay the idea lip service, but when it comes down to it, they mostly seem to be opposed to any meaningful change to speed things up, Personally, I'm thoroughly on MLB's side here (which feels weird to say). You don't need to have a chat about every pitch just because it's crunch time. The game naturally slows down in those moments anyway; we don't need to make it even slower. I want faster games - not because I don't love baseball, but because I'm sick of all the excess dead time that has crept into baseball.

 

[jon abbey]

It's not because it's crunch time, it's because technology has made it easier and easier to steal signs and pitchers get hammered when the batter knows what's coming, as we saw with Darvish in the World Series. Crack down on technology-based sign stealing if you want to speed up the game, then you will have way fewer mound visits.

 

[Jim Ed Rice in HOF]

Today's Sox/Yanks game clocking in at around 3:45. Can't even blame Giardi for changing pitchers every batter.

 

[normstalls]

Officially happening - at least for the Diamondbacks. Bullpen car is back.
(sponsored by OnTrac)

https://www.tsn.ca/diamondbacks-bringing-back-bullpen-cars-1.1019010

 

[Harry Hooper]

Based on Maldonado's comment, Manfred should order a pitching change AND a catching change.

 

[charlieoscar]

Here's something to play with. I'd forgotten about it because I had bookmarked it four years ago but I was looking through my baseball bookmarks folder this evening and stumbled across it. Baseball Prospectus has been tracking Batter Pace by season beginning in 2010. It lists the batter, number of pitches, overall pace and pace for bases empty and with runners on (overall pace is the sum of the two paces times their number of pitches/total number of pitches).

You need to pick each year individually but with a quick glance it looks like pitchers are among those with the quickest paces.

https://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/sortable/index.php?cid=2035719

I should add that there also is a corresponding Pitchers Pace available:
https://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/sortable/index.php?cid=2021778

And also, I didn't have these bookmarked; it was another article that had links to the BP data, which is probably why I didn't recall it.