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Major League Baseball has seen numerous changes in recent years that lots of fans, and even players, have had to get used to.
From pitch timers to larger bases, from limiting mound visits to PitchCom and potentially automated balls and strikes, the game is a different product than it was even in pre-pandemic days.
Perhaps the biggest change, though, is that the average length of a game has been shortened by more than a half-hour.
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St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Adam Wainwright (50) delivers a pitch during a game against the Milwaukee Brewers on Sept. 14, 2022, at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. (Rick Ulreich/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
That stat reached its peak when the average nine-inning game lasted three hours, 10 minutes. MLB implemented a pitch timer in 2023, and that number was shortened to 2:39. The year after, another three minutes were saved, but two of those have been given back this year.
Former St. Louis Cardinals’ Adam Wainwright pitched in the mid-2000s and retired after the first year of the pitch clock implementation, and as his career reached its back nine, he began to notice just how long games were taking.
“It became a little bit too much, probably,” Wainwright admitted in a recent interview with Fox News Digital.
Wainwright does not miss the long games, stating, “The length of the game now is perfect.” But there is one thing he misses about the old days.
“I miss the days where it’s the bottom of the ninth, it’s the playoffs, there’s so much drama, a pitcher can step off and be able to think about what he’s going to throw next and build the drama even more. And then you’re kind of sitting there watching and you’re like, ‘What’s going to happen?’ I miss that,” Wainwright said.
St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Adam Wainwright reacts after Los Angeles Dodgers’ Trea Turner grounds into a double play during the third inning of a National League wild-card playoff game Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2021, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
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“From another standpoint, I miss the fact that a pitcher third time through the order, has time to go, ‘You know what? All right, the first time, I got him out with fastballs in, the next time I got him out with changeups down and in, now away should be wide open. But I see him stepping towards the plate. Maybe he’s expecting something. Maybe I’ll jam him.’ I miss that ability, because when you’re on the mound, and you get the ball back, and you look at the catcher, you got eight seconds by that time. So it’s like, ‘no, no, no, oh I gotta go.’ I’m a thinking man’s pitcher, I love the thinking side of it. I miss that part of it.”
Wainwright also saw the total overhaul of analytics being implemented into the game, yet even a savvy veteran like himself took in plenty of the information.
“And in a lot of ways, that was good. There is so much information out there that a pitcher needs. There’s a happy medium there where analytics and old-school meet that’s probably the perfect sweet spot. I have appreciated the slow-mo camera that shows you exactly why the spin was better on this certain pitch. I appreciate that and the ability to go back and say ‘OK, I’ve got to make sure my hand is at this angle through the throwing motion.’ Or he doesn’t hit it, why doesn’t he hit it? The numbers say this is why he doesn’t hit it. OK, maybe I should do more of that. So those things are really cool.”
But, like everyone else, there are some times when analytics is too much, including a time when Wainwright said he lucked out after getting Freddie Freeman out.
“I got him out on a terrible backup cutter that I was trying to jam up under his hands. I threw it up and away, and he popped it up to second base. And so, analytics came back and said, ‘Look, if you back that cutter up and away again, analytical side is saying that’s a pretty good pitch for you.’ And that’s just not something that a pitcher is going to try to replicate. If I threw it to him again, he’d hit it 450 feet,” Wainwright said.
St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright works against the Atlanta Braves during the first inning of the opening game of a doubleheader Saturday, June 19, 2021, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
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“There’s things that informationally, you take it all in, and then you’ve got to say, ‘OK, I understand you, but that is a computer, it doesn’t understand the human side of things. I don’t want to try to throw that pitch ever again. That was totally luck, and if I throw it again, it would be a disaster.’ So you filter all these things, and then you put it through the filter, and then you go, ‘OK, I really like that, I really like that. I don’t want that, that doesn’t matter to me. I’m not trying to do that.’ And so you make your decision based on that.”
As for the rule changes, they seem to have brought in fans, as average attendance is slated to top 29,000 per game for the third straight year, the first such stretch since before 2017. It also should be noted that two teams, the Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays, are playing in minor league ballparks this year, limiting attendance for 162 games.
Each of the last two seasons was the first time since 2011 and 2012 that attendance increased in back-to-back seasons.
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