It won't come as a surprise that I would take a numbers/data based approach to answer the question of why have game times increased and why has the pace of play seemingly ground to a halt ?
It is my opinion that the primary reason is due to factors revolving around relief pitchers, and their usage. The increased percentage of innings going to relief pitchers has had several effects.
One of the most obvious is there are more pitching changes, and that takes extra time. But it's not the biggest factor, by far
The biggest factor by far is the number of pitches per plate appearance, with secondary factor being additional time to deliver the pitch. As you will see below there has been a large increase in pitches per PA, and this translates almost exactly into the increase in time of game.
So lets get to the numbers and you can follow along with how I got there. Important to note I started out from 1988. The reason for that is simple: Baseball-Reference has data for Pitches per Plate Appearance going back to 1988
Here are the original tables for both NL and AL
HOW MUCH HAS THE TOG INCREASED SINCE 1988
NL | 1988 | 2016 | % Change | AL | 1988 | 2016 | % Change | |
Minutes | 166 | 187 | 12.7% | Minutes | 173 | 182 | 5.2% | |
Minutes/9I | 162 | 182 | 12.3% | Minutes/9I | 169 | 179 | 5.9% |
Above you can see the time in minutes for total game time, and also for the avg 9 inning game has increased roughly 20-21 minutes in the NL and 10 minutes in the AL.. Remember those numbers.
Also Interesting to note that going back to the late 1980's the AL game times were already getting longish, and in recent years the NL has caught up to and in some years passed the AL in avg TOG. (Refer to full table in the links to see the year by year flow)
PITCHES PER PA & PITCHES PER GAME
NL | 1988 | 2016 | % Change | AL | 1988 | 2016 | % Change | |
Pit/PA | 3.44 | 3.88 | 12.8% | Pit/PA | 3.59 | 3.88 | 8.1% | |
Pitchers/G | 2.85 | 4.29 | 50.5% | Pitchers/G | 2.65 | 4.01 | 51.3% | |
IP by Reliever | 29.2% | 37.3% | 27.7% | IP by Reliever | 28.9% | 36.1% | 24.9% | |
PA/G | 75.6 | 76.3 | 0.9% | PA/G | 76.1 | 75.7 | -0.5% | |
Pitches/G | 260 | 296 | 13.8% | Pitches/G | 273 | 294 | 7.5% |
- Very clear increase of pitches per plate appearance, which may or may not coincidentally mirror the increase in game time
- Pitchers used per game (per team) has gone up 50%. Another way to look at that is pitching changes have gone from 1.85 per game to 3.29 per team per game. So roughly 2.5-3 more pitching changes per game. If you figure from the time the coach leaves the dugout to the time the pitcher throws his first pitch is at least 3 minutes, that runs about 7-8 minutes longer per game than it did in 1988. So the number of pitching changes is a contributing factor for sure, but not the biggest issue
- Note the percentage of innings pitched by relievers has risen of course.
- Plate Appearances have remained stable, provided the run scoring environment is the same. If you refer to the table in the links you will see some ebb and flow as run scoring goes up and down, but mostly, Plate Appearances per game remain about the same, 76
- HOWEVER !! With same number of PA , but more pitches per PA, you arrive at a 13.8% increase in pitches thrown in NL. You will also note that the % increase in the AL is less, because the AL was already starting from a higher number in 1988. I haven't analyzed why exactly the NL numbers accelerated so much faster than the AL over the last 5 seasons.
NL | 2007 | 2016 | % Change | AL | 2007 | 2016 | % Change | |
SP Seconds/P | 20.5 | 22 | 7.3% | SP Seconds/P | 21.4 | 22 | 2.8% | |
TTl SP minutes | 62.9 | 68.1 | 8.2% | TTl SP minutes | 69.3 | 68.8 | -0.7% | |
RP Seconds/p | 22.4 | 23.9 | 6.7% | RP Seconds/p | 22.9 | 23.6 | 3.1% | |
Ttl RP minutes | 28 | 44 | 55.2% | Ttl minutes | 30 | 42 | 38.4% | |
Total Minutes | 91.3 | 112.0 | 22.8% | Total Minutes | 99.4 | 110.5 | 11.2% |
- Relievers take more time to deliver the ball than starters
- Since higher percentage of innings going to relievers than before, combined with the longer time to deliver, there is a multiplier effect on the increase in actual minutes
- The actual increase in minutes when you calculate the added pitches thrown and the added time to throw comes out to 21 minutes in the NL and 11 minutes in the AL
NL | 2002 | 2016 | % Change | AL | 2002 | 2016 | % Change | |
K% | 15.1% | 21.3% | 41.1% | K% | 14.3% | 20.9% | 46.2% | |
SP FB Velo | 87 | 92 | 5.7% | SP FB Velo | 86.2 | 91.8 | 6.5% | |
RP FB Velo | 88.2 | 93.1 | 5.6% | RP FB Velo | 87.7 | 92.9 | 5.9% |
- Velocity for Sliders, Curveballs, and Changeups have also increase approx 3-4 MPH across the board