New MLB rules reduce games by almost half an hour
Beginning this season, pitchers have 15 seconds to make a pitch with the bases empty and 20 seconds with runners on base, while batters must be in the batter’s box with eight seconds remaining on the pitch clock.
After Sunday’s day, which closed with the night game between the Philadelphia Phillies and Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park, Major League Baseball’s nine-inning games have an average length of two hours and 36 minutes, a significant reduction from the 2022 average (3:03).
Including games that extended beyond the regulation nine innings, 2023 games average 2:38, which is 28 minutes below the length they were last season (3:06).
In addition to the clock for pitchers, the MLB competition committee voted to control defensive formations, increase the size of pads on the bases, limit the number of times a pitcher can go off the pitching board and regulate the use of position players as pitchers in official games.
Larger bases and swerve control incentivized base stealing, a once endangered weapon in baseball. After a full calendar month, there have been 759 attempted steals, the most before May since there were 869 in 1998. This year’s 602 thefts also represent the highest total since 1998.
Since the number of theft attempts caught became official in 1951, the 79.3% effectiveness of 2023 theft attempts is the highest of the majors.
With limited defensive formations (two infielders must be on either side of the second base pad until the pitcher releases the ball), the batting average rose from .231 in the first month of 2022 to .247 before May 1, 2023.
Last year’s .231 was the lowest percentage since .230 in 1968, when pitcher dominance forced the commissioner’s office to lower the pitcher’s mound.
The average balls put in play this year is .298, the highest since 2009 (.300) and a marked increase from .282 in the first month of last season.
Entering May, the majors have connected on 960 homers, the second most in history for that span, behind only 2019’s 1,144. The home run per game average (1.13) exceeds the 1.07 for all of last season and 27 of those homers were with the bases loaded, the third-best figure all-time.
Surprisingly, only four players (Max Muncy, Rafael Devers, Patrick Wisdom and Pete Alonso) have hit more than 10 home runs, which is the fourth most before May 1. In 2006, there were eight players with double figures in home runs at this point, while in 2017, there were seven.
The New York Mets (17), Miami Marlins (15) and San Francisco Giants (15) have been the clubs with the most violations, while the Los Angeles Dodgers and Detroit Tigers (4) have had the fewest.
Amazingly, in the first 450 games of the year only one violation of the new special defensive formations rule was verified and it was committed by the Chicago White Sox.
IMPACT OF NEW 2023 RULES
Duration of 9-inning games: 2:36
Duration of all games: 2:38
Clock violations: 305
Shift violations: 1
Runs per game: 4.59
Home runs connected: 960
Steals per game: 602
