The big topic of discussion in baseball this week has been what commissioner Robert Manfred might do to speed up the time of games in Major League Baseball.
Manfred has said he prefers to keep it a collaborative effort though a clause in the Collective Bargaining Agreement gives him the power to unilaterally make chances to the game regardless of how the Players Union feels about it.
Much of the talk has been implementing a pitch clock which is something that hasn’t been met fondly by most pitchers including Mets reliever Jerry Blevins, “That’s the one thing that is different from most games — there is no running clock. It’s the sanctity of the game, (with players serving as) kind of protectors for the realm of baseball for both fans and the game that we love.”
Here is the most recent proposal on pitch clocks by MLB:
The time-of-game goal for 2018 would be to play games in under 2 hours, 55 minutes; if 2:55 or longer — a failure to meet the goal — then an 18-second pitch clock would be put into effect for the 2019 season, with an automatic ball-strike penalty for violations put into effect on May 1, 2019. If the average game time was under 2:55 in 2018, then MLB would play in 2019 without a pitch clock, and the time-of-game goal would be 2 hours, 50 minutes. If that goal wasn’t met, the use of a pitch clock would be triggered for 2020.
That is what everyone has been talking about, but what I want to focus on is a little nugget further down in the ESPN article by Buster Olney that says, “MLB is ready to accept the union’s proposal to study the feasibility of bullpen carts and would introduce the use of carts where feasible in 2018 and 2019.”
Bullpen carts might be making a comeback!
Now I’m not sure that will make a huge difference in the actual time of game though it would surely add an entertainment factor and sounds like something the players are all for.
The last time we were hearing about bullpen carts is when the one from the 1967 Mets team sold in an auction back in 2015 for a whopping $112,500.
