Baseball has long touted that it's a game without a clock. There will always be nine innings played, no matter how long it takes. But is the main differentiating factor of baseball becoming its primary obstacle to attracting fans?
Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci looked at the numbers and found that in recent years, baseball has come to a snail-like pace due to the ever-increasing usage of relief pitchers.
In this year's World Series where the Braves beat the Astros in six games, there were a total of 54 innings with just two lead changes. Game 1 of the series went for four hours without going into extras. A ball was put into play only once every four minutes.
The last five World Series (2017-21) compared to the five previous ones (2012-16) were significantly different regarding pace of play.
Since 2017, World Series games took over 11 minutes longer to play, included 14% more pitchers, 7% fewer balls in play and took 13% longer for a ball to be put in play.
Because relief pitchers throw harder, they take more time on the mound between pitches. It's worth keeping in mind this is just looking at the World Series, where the pressure of the moment exacerbates baseball's qualities, for better or worse. But if the most extreme version of baseball is the one that's presented to the biggest audience, the powers that be should ensure it's the most watchable version of the sport. Right now, that's far from the case.
