Are we in France concerned about the time given to a pitcher during at-bats? The Americans have already adopted rules in colleges and minor leagues, and given the length of MLB games increasing year after year, these rules will surely come to nest quickly in the major league. Indeed, it is noted about 20 minutes less playing time per game.
- The pitcher has 14 seconds to make his pitch, 18 seconds with a runner on base.
- The batter must keep at least one foot in the batter’s box and be ready to hit when there are 9 seconds left on the pitcher’s timer.
- Limit pickoffs to two per at-bat.
- Pitchers are awarded a ball and batters a strike if they do not comply with this rule.
In France, there are no statistics on game duration. We have so much to deal with other regulations that reducing game duration is not often on the agenda. Sometimes, in Division 1, the second match on Sunday doesn’t start until 3 PM due to the first match lasting over 3 hours. Sometimes, we see games going into extra innings that exceed 3 hours and 30 minutes. As of today, the comfort of the spectator or viewer is not a priority for the sports commission or the federation. No stadium charges for entry, and no broadcast channel is pay-per-view. Therefore, there is no obligation for results. The game lasts as long as it needs to, and that’s that. Advertisers have not yet integrated streams in a regulated manner via advertising agencies. So, we don’t worry about it. On the referee side, there is a constant effort to avoid long pauses and to ensure the game flows as smoothly as possible. However, there are no specific rules or penalties for this.
The question arises more for the players who endure the length of the games. It is not uncommon to see a pitcher go beyond 9 innings, and we have also seen pitchers go beyond 9 innings in a day. The attention span and concentration time are therefore important, and the risk of injury is higher.
The question also arises given that our championship is clearly a pitcher-dominated one. American statistics tell us that the number of strikeouts has decreased by one per game. It would, in view of this, surely be a good thing to balance at-bats with regulated pitching time.
We looked at the average duration of matches broadcast on Baseball TV France since 2019; it is 3 hours and 2 minutes (over 60 matches). Compared to MLB, which is 3 hours and 11 minutes. In France, we see that pitchers or batters regularly interrupt the game with unlimited « time out » requests, which is indeed a strategy in itself. Moreover, the mercy rule is practiced, and some matches are cut short in the 7th inning, not exceeding 2 hours and 30 minutes. However, there are numerous matches lasting 3 hours and 20 minutes and even some exceeding 3 hours and 30 minutes. In the France Challenge, matches average around 3 hours, although it is difficult to measure accurately due to streams being cut by Facebook.
Is this a problem?
Today, no one seems to complain about the length of the games. We are not likely to see the sports commission take an interest in pitching time limits, pickoff limits, or regulating « time out » requests. But who knows? The rules of our championships change every year, going back and forth on forgotten rules, changing calendar conventions, the number of foreigners, the number of innings pitched, the number of championship days, the number of teams in Elite, Division 1, or Top 8/10/12… So perhaps in the near future, pitching time or time-out request rules will come to infiltrate our games.
