SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The clock was ticking on Peter O’Brien when he came to bat in the Arizona Fall League one day last week, and do not think O’Brien did not notice.
As he went through his routine — laying down his bat in the dirt to measure his stance, tapping the plate once, then pointing the bat forward — a clock in left field was flashing bright red numbers, counting the 20 seconds to when the pitch would have to be thrown. And O’Brien kept thinking, “I have to hurry, I have to hurry.”
He was not alone. In Arizona this month, in games involving some of the sport’s top young prospects, baseball is experimenting with new rules aimed at quickening the time that it takes to play nine innings. In addition to the use of the clocks that count down the time between pitches — similar to the shot clock used in basketball — there is a rule stipulating that players keep one foot in the batter’s box during an at-bat, with some exceptions.
There is also a maximum time between innings (2 minutes 5 seconds) and a maximum time for pitching changes (2:30). Conferences on the mound are restricted. Perhaps most radically, an intentional walk will not require the customary lobs to the catcher. Instead, the umpire will simply instruct the batter to go to first.
All of this is taking place as baseball’s marquee event, the World Series, begins Tuesday night in Kansas City, Mo. It is a Series with some fairly intriguing story lines, particularly the Kansas City Royals’ quest to win it all after not even making it to the postseason for three decades.
And yet it remains an uneasy time for the sport’s executives, who are searching for solutions to one of baseball’s most vexing problems, and perhaps the most common complaint from fans — that the games are just too darn long.
Thirty years ago, in 1984, a major league game averaged 2 hours 35 minutes. This season, the average game time crept above three hours for the first time (3:02). In the playoffs, the average length of a nine-inning game has jumped to about 3:26 — including a 2-1, nine-inning contest the Baltimore Orioles and the Detroit Tigers played that somehow lasted 3:40.
It is games like those — a long time to complete a contest in which not all that much happened — that has Major League Baseball worried that the sport is losing its appeal to a younger generation more attuned to the immediacy of the Internet.
Bud Selig, who is retiring as baseball’s longtime commissioner, would never publicly admit to that concern, but in September he did appoint what was formally titled the Pace of Game Committee to find ways to quicken the sport. Then came the decision to use the Arizona Fall League — six teams in all — as a laboratory.
The Fall League games began Oct. 7. A week later, O’Brien and his Salt River Rafters teammates were already grumbling to one another about how the experimental rules were affecting their routines.
It was no wonder that the Rafters were a little out of sorts. Their stadium is the only one of the five in the Fall League that is actually having the time between pitches, and innings, and pitching changes, monitored, with five clocks ticking away for all 17 of their home games. In the four other stadiums, only the nonclock rules are being enforced.
So that made the Rafters the ultimate guinea pigs in baseball’s experiment. Indeed, when the Rafters convened before the Fall League began, their manager, Andy Haines, went over the new rules with them and stressed that everyone should stick to what they normally do. After all, he noted, scouts would be watching.
As it was, the players did not particularly mind the rule about keeping one foot in the batter’s box. The automatic intentional walk? Fine. But all the clock rules created some consternation.
Sensing this, Haines did some drills before the Fall League season, timing the relievers from the bullpen to their first pitch. Some of them did not make it by the mandatory 2 minutes 30 seconds and had to do it again, adjusting by running to the mound or throwing fewer warm-up pitches. Some pitchers joked that they would hit the clocks behind home plate to shut them off.
Then came the Rafters’ first official home game, against the Scottsdale Scorpions. The clocks were running, but the umpires, for just this game, did not enforce the penalties — a called ball if a pitcher violated a rule, a strike if the batter did. The game still lasted nearly three hours, but mostly because it was a sloppy affair.
Brandon Nimmo, a Mets prospect playing for the Scorpions, batted leadoff twice during that game, and both times sprinted in from left field and hurried to the plate without taking practice swings. He said he was very mindful of the 2:05 limit between innings.
L. J. Mazzilli, another Mets prospect with the Scorpions, did not play, but watched with an unusual perspective. Because he has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, he is constantly trying to slow the game as much as possible.
“Sometimes you need to take a step back, regroup and take a breath,” Mazzilli said. “The best part of being a baseball player is having the ability to slow the game down.” But that is not exactly what Major League Baseball has in mind.
Archie Bradley, the Rafters’ starting pitcher in that opening game, could not help but peek at the clock as he came set with runners on base. He did what he usually does when he gets into trouble — walked behind the mound, checked his cleats.
“Then I look at the clock and it’s already at 14 seconds,” Bradley said of the time remaining before the next pitch. “I’m like, oh jeez!”
O’Brien, who was behind the plate for the Rafters that night, noted that when any pitcher is struggling, he, as a catcher, usually likes to slow the tempo, maybe by paying a visit to the mound. But that, too, is not what baseball wants.
“I understand the purpose,” Bradley said of the pace-of-game experiments. “I just feel there has to be a better way of going about it than a pitch clock.”
He added: “We don’t like long games, either. But there are certain points when the game gets long because you have to play certain matchups, think about which pitch to throw.”
For the Rafters’ second home game, on Oct. 14, the new rules were in full effect, and everyone looked startled when Doug Vines, the home-plate umpire, called the first automatic ball.
Mark Appel, the Rafters’ starter, had walked the leadoff batter on five pitches to start the game. Then, on an 0-1 count to the next hitter, Appel noticed the runner on first fake a move toward second. So he stepped off the pitching rubber, thinking it would reset the pitching clock at 20 seconds.
But it did not. When he got back on the rubber, Vines held up his hands. Ball one. Under the rules, the clock would only reset if Appel had thrown a pitch or made a pickoff throw to first base. Since he had done neither, he was being penalized.
“You’ve got to throw it,” Vines explained to him.
“All right,” Appel said, nodding.
Then came the next pitch from Appel. “Ball 1!” Vines shouted.
At that point, of course, it should have been Ball 2. Both the batter and the catcher turned around to inform Vines he was wrong.
“I’m still trying to get used to it,” he told them.
Through the rest of the game, he called two more automatic balls, both because the pitchers did not throw the first pitch in time at the start of the inning. The Rafters won, 1-0. Time of game: 2 hours 14 minutes.
Which is just what baseball wants.