Yeah, if the pitch/batter’s box time limit was actually enforced as it is in the book it would go a long way. I still maintain most of the problems come from the way the strike zone is called. But they want action, and to most modern casual sports fans ‘action’ simply means scoring. But in baseball the tension of pitching is also ‘action.’ To casual fans pitching is jsut boring stuff that happens between their action.
If you increase scoring by having a tiny strike zone or limiting relief pitching, the game is inherently going to be longer. One dimensional left handed power hitters will become more effective again for sure. I guess we will have to see if scoring goes up dramatically, modern players are already strike out machines so maybe it won’t. I guess they aren’t limiting the radical shifts this year, so that’s another factor.
My first reaction to this is don’t limit strategy, I want teams to have a variety of strategies. We’ll see if this 3 batter/inning ending things lasts.
Freegards
Yes, calling the rulebook strike zone would help a lot.
The average time between pitches is 23 seconds. If they enforced a 20-second rule, that’s three seconds a pitch, and since the average nine-inning game contains about 300 pitches (give or take a few), that saves 900 seconds, which is 15 minutes, and does it in a way that’s barely noticeable.