Saw opening day games yesterday averaged 2 hours and 46 minutes. Opening day games last year averaged 3 hours 8 minutes(which was same as season average). At least for 1 day, those adjustments seemed to work. Liked how they come back from commercial ready to play.
(04-07-2015 09:35 AM)stever20 Wrote: Saw opening day games yesterday averaged 2 hours and 46 minutes. Opening day games last year averaged 3 hours 8 minutes(which was same as season average). At least for 1 day, those adjustments seemed to work. Liked how they come back from commercial ready to play.
it's amazing how everyone in the media makes fun of baseball, while the other sports often get a pass. The Duke game started at 9:18 last night and halftime seemed to last forever. And MLB games aren't the only ones to have gotten interminably long, as NFL and NBA games have both gotten longer
(04-07-2015 09:35 AM)stever20 Wrote: Saw opening day games yesterday averaged 2 hours and 46 minutes. Opening day games last year averaged 3 hours 8 minutes(which was same as season average). At least for 1 day, those adjustments seemed to work. Liked how they come back from commercial ready to play.
it's amazing how everyone in the media makes fun of baseball, while the other sports often get a pass. The Duke game started at 9:18 last night and halftime seemed to last forever. And MLB games aren't the only ones to have gotten interminably long, as NFL and NBA games have both gotten longer
The thing is though- the game was over by 11:30. So that's not too bad at all. How many MLB games were over by that time of night?
(04-07-2015 09:35 AM)stever20 Wrote: Saw opening day games yesterday averaged 2 hours and 46 minutes. Opening day games last year averaged 3 hours 8 minutes(which was same as season average). At least for 1 day, those adjustments seemed to work. Liked how they come back from commercial ready to play.
it's amazing how everyone in the media makes fun of baseball, while the other sports often get a pass. The Duke game started at 9:18 last night and halftime seemed to last forever. And MLB games aren't the only ones to have gotten interminably long, as NFL and NBA games have both gotten longer
The thing is though- the game was over by 11:30. So that's not too bad at all. How many MLB games were over by that time of night?
to be fair that's the shortest of all the major sports and Duke plays a very fast style. Let's compare this to college football which seems to always last close to 4 hours.
To be fair, MLB did make a smart move and move up the start of the games to 8:07 rather than closer to 8:30 a few years ago- and that's helped out a lot.
(04-07-2015 10:44 AM)stever20 Wrote: To be fair, MLB did make a smart move and move up the start of the games to 8:07 rather than closer to 8:30 a few years ago- and that's helped out a lot.
So many people have DVR these days that games like last night's should start around 8:30 so the younger kids can have a chance to see the end. Hell, I know plenty of people my age who go to bed well before 11:30
(04-07-2015 10:44 AM)stever20 Wrote: To be fair, MLB did make a smart move and move up the start of the games to 8:07 rather than closer to 8:30 a few years ago- and that's helped out a lot.
So many people have DVR these days that games like last night's should start around 8:30 so the younger kids can have a chance to see the end. Hell, I know plenty of people my age who go to bed well before 11:30
The one thing I could see them do is starting the game closer to 9pm rather than the 9:18.
Even if the game started at 8:30, the game would be over at 10:45ish. Not many younger kids would be able to stay up that late.
You're still talking 45 minutes. That's a pretty decent difference. And don't forget that 10:45 on the east is 9:45 central. Definitely early enough for most kids
Some other small rule changes could also help pace of play. In this night's Yankee game Mark Teixeira was intentionally walked. MLB could shave a minute off easy by just allowing the batter to take first base, or even changing it to one pitch instead of four for an intentional walk. Obviously, it's nothing major, but numerous small tweaks like this can add up.
(04-08-2015 10:07 PM)OrangeCrush22 Wrote: Some other small rule changes could also help pace of play. In this night's Yankee game Mark Teixeira was intentionally walked. MLB could shave a minute off easy by just allowing the batter to take first base, or even changing it to one pitch instead of four for an intentional walk. Obviously, it's nothing major, but numerous small tweaks like this can add up.
I'd love to see them do this. There's no reason for the pitchers to have to throw 4 pitches.
saw this for games thru Sunday:
Through the first Sunday of this season, there were 79 nine-inning games, compared with 85 at the same stage last year. The average length of those games this year has been 2 hours, 54 minutes, 39 seconds. A year ago, the average was 3 hours, 2 minutes and 25 seconds.
(04-14-2015 09:46 AM)stever20 Wrote: saw this for games thru Sunday:
Through the first Sunday of this season, there were 79 nine-inning games, compared with 85 at the same stage last year. The average length of those games this year has been 2 hours, 54 minutes, 39 seconds. A year ago, the average was 3 hours, 2 minutes and 25 seconds.
So about 8 minutes faster.
Funny I just finished reading this on Deadspin. People constantly make fun of baseball, but they slowly added an instant replay system that works, they've sped up the games, they cracked down on PED's, etc. Now if Manfred could just fix the HR derby.
(04-14-2015 09:46 AM)stever20 Wrote: saw this for games thru Sunday:
Through the first Sunday of this season, there were 79 nine-inning games, compared with 85 at the same stage last year. The average length of those games this year has been 2 hours, 54 minutes, 39 seconds. A year ago, the average was 3 hours, 2 minutes and 25 seconds.
So about 8 minutes faster.
Funny I just finished reading this on Deadspin. People constantly make fun of baseball, but they slowly added an instant replay system that works, they've sped up the games, they cracked down on PED's, etc. Now if Manfred could just fix the HR derby.
the thing that is interesting as well is scoring is up to 4.20 runs per team per game, which is up from 4.07 for whole season last year. So more scoring, yet quicker. win/win for fans.
(04-14-2015 09:46 AM)stever20 Wrote: saw this for games thru Sunday:
Through the first Sunday of this season, there were 79 nine-inning games, compared with 85 at the same stage last year. The average length of those games this year has been 2 hours, 54 minutes, 39 seconds. A year ago, the average was 3 hours, 2 minutes and 25 seconds.
So about 8 minutes faster.
Funny I just finished reading this on Deadspin. People constantly make fun of baseball, but they slowly added an instant replay system that works, they've sped up the games, they cracked down on PED's, etc. Now if Manfred could just fix the HR derby.
There's no fixing that.
There is in fact a very easy fix: do what the NBA does with the dunk and 3 pt contests and allow non-all stars to compete. It's ridiculous to me that MLB hasn't fixed this very simple problem. Nobody wants to watch Garrett Anderson or David Wright in the derby. I want to see Wily Mo Pena, Adam Dunn, etc. And then they need to either cut out one round or cut the rounds down from 10 outs to 7. The derby is way too long and repetitive. It's my favorite event and I haven't missed one since the all star game was in Coors Field, but it'd be nice to watch one that could keep me engaged the entire time
so baseball-reference has put on the main page league stats.....
2015 vs 2014-
scoring- 4.18 this year 4.08 last year
K%- 20.3% this year, 20.4% last year
BB%- 8.11% this year, 7.62% last year
OBP- .312 this year, .314 last year
SLG- .385 this year, .386 last year
time- 2:58 this year, 3:07 last year
so the changes have worked this year, even with scoring being up by what would be .2 runs per game(when you figure there's 2 teams). Scoring may wind up going way up when we get into the summer games.
while 2:58 is 9 minutes better than last year, it's still the 5th longest all time.
I think the speed of the game itself is fine. It's the extended commercial breaks that last 4 minutes in-between innings and pitcher changes that's really the problem. This problem holds true for all sports.
(04-25-2015 03:34 PM)ClairtonPanther Wrote: I think the speed of the game itself is fine. It's the extended commercial breaks that last 4 minutes in-between innings and pitcher changes that's really the problem. This problem holds true for all sports.
The thing is, I think a lot of the rules that they did really have touched on that. I think that's where the improvement has been made.
