Major League Baseball reportedly has a proposal that could please the players association and baseball purists alike.
The league has proposed a way to shorten the breaks between innings and half-innings in order to shave some time off games, sources told ESPN’s Jayson Stark on Tuesday. Under the proposal, pitchers would be required to finish their warmups and be ready for their first pitch 30 seconds before the end of between-innings commercial breaks. Hitters would have to be in the batter’s box 20 seconds before the break’s end.
Per ESPN, these breaks last over three minutes on average, even though they’re supposed to last two minutes and five seconds for non-nationally televised games. In theory, this proposal could make games 10 to 15 minutes shorter, bringing the average game time below three hours.
The proposal isn’t without its problems. ESPN says team officials are worried about “having enough time to stage popular between-innings entertainment such as Kiss Cam” and that players believe that the producers’ desires to show replays before and after commercials is what slows them down.
However, both sides see the commercial breaks as an area to work on, and the fact that it wouldn’t affect actual gameplay should be appealing.
Thumbnail photo via Joy R. Absalon/USA TODAY Sports Images
