The Absurdly Slow Pace of the MLB Postseason
If you feel like the games this postseason have dragged a bit, congratulations, you’re not just turning into an old grump who wants to get to bed earlier. You could be, I guess, but that wouldn’t be the sole factor in why you’re annoyed at the length of these playoff games, even the exciting ones. Because in October, the game really has slowed down to a crawl.
On our leaderboards, we feature a stat called pace, which measures the time between pitches as recorded by PITCHF/x. During the regular season, the average length of time between pitches was 23.0 seconds; in the postseason, that has ballooned to 25.4 seconds.
2.4 extra seconds between pitches might not sound like a lot, but in the 30 postseason games that have been played so far, there have been 8,802 pitches thrown, or an average of 293 pitches per game. At 2.4 extra seconds between pitches, this has added an extra 11 minutes and 43 seconds to the length of the average game. In just these 30 postseason games, we’re closing in on almost six hours being added to the total time of games through the lengthening of the least interesting part of the sport.
So, who are the primary culprits in slowing the 2014 postseason down? To find out, I looked at the difference in regular season and postseason pace for every pitcher who has appeared in a game in the playoffs, and then multiplied that per-pitch difference by the number of pitches thrown. Here are the top 10 pitchers who most slowed the game down on a total time basis:
| Name | pitches | PostPace | RegPace | Difference | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bud Norris | 190 | 30.8 | 24.0 | 6.8 | 1285 |
| Chris Tillman | 189 | 27.2 | 22.6 | 4.6 | 877 |
| Adam Wainwright | 297 | 25.9 | 23.2 | 2.7 | 804 |
| Madison Bumgarner | 517 | 25.1 | 23.6 | 1.5 | 769 |
| Ryan Vogelsong | 203 | 28.2 | 24.7 | 3.5 | 714 |
| Jake Peavy | 246 | 26.3 | 23.4 | 2.9 | 704 |
| Kevin Gausman | 110 | 29.8 | 23.4 | 6.4 | 699 |
| Yordano Ventura | 287 | 22.2 | 20.1 | 2.1 | 602 |
| Lance Lynn | 212 | 25.2 | 22.7 | 2.5 | 536 |
Despite only making two starts apiece, Bud Norris and Chris Tillman did more to drag out the postseason than any other pitchers in the playoffs, though lumping them together does a bit of a disservice to Tillman, who couldn’t hold a candle to Bud Norris’ impersonation of a rain delay. In fact, you’ll note that among the ten listed above, Tillman actually ranks third in largest increase in pace per-pitch, behind Kevin Gausman. Who also pitches for the Orioles.
In fact, if you set a minimum of 100 pitches thrown, the four pitchers who slowed down the most between the regular season and the postseason all pitched for the Baltimore Orioles.
| Name | pitches | PostPace | RegPace | Difference | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bud Norris | 190 | 30.8 | 24.0 | 6.8 | 1285 |
| Kevin Gausman | 110 | 29.8 | 23.4 | 6.4 | 699 |
| Chris Tillman | 189 | 27.2 | 22.6 | 4.6 | 877 |
| Andrew Miller | 108 | 25.8 | 21.9 | 3.9 | 416 |
It seems likely that, in addition to using unusual placement of the first baseman on pickoff plays, the Orioles also decided to try and thwart Kansas City’s base stealing abilities by just holding the ball longer than usual. Perhaps this is an unintended consequence of the decline in run scoring; as the value of a stolen base goes up and the cost of making an out on the bases goes down, the incentives shift towards more stolen bases than there were back in the days of plentiful offense. If teams decide that a primary way to combat base stealing attempts is to hold the ball longer between pitches, the increasing time between pitches could end up offsetting the reduction in the length of games that comes from fewer runs being scored to begin with.
Of course, that’s all pretty speculative, and we can’t make wide generalizations about pitcher pace based on four Orioles pitchers slowing things down in one series against one team. And we can’t blame the Orioles for the entirety of the sluggish postseason pace; 74 of the 98 pitchers to appear in a postseason game this year took more time between pitches than they did during the regular season. 56 of those 74 added at least one second between pitches, and 39 of them added at least two seconds. The Orioles slowed down the most, but almost everyone slowed down by a significant margin.
And while I’m speculating again, I think this might just be a part of the game that is going to be difficult to legislate away, because it appears that Major League pitchers instinctively slow things down when the stakes get a bit higher. Here are the starter/reliever pace breakdowns for both the regular season and the postseason.
| Pitcher | PostPace | RegPace |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | 24.7 | 22.3 |
| Reliever | 26.5 | 24.7 |
Postseason starters take about as long between pitches as regular season relievers, which might be what we’d expect to find if time between pitches thrown was driven by the leverage of a particular situation. After all, there’s no such thing as a low leverage postseason inning, so it would make sense that starting pitchers would find a rhythm not that dissimilar to that of a regular season reliever. If higher leverage situations drive pitchers to take longer between pitches, then the postseason is always going to be slower than the regular season, since the results of every play have greatly increased significance.
Of course, I’m still speculating, and perhaps MLB can put new rules in place that will teach the next generation of pitchers to simply work faster. I’m not one to spend a lot of time complaining about the length of games, as excitement is excitement and extra-inning contests are often some of the most memorable and enjoyable games of the playoffs, but even I’m a bit tired of having nine inning contests take four hours to complete, as Saturday night’s Game Four did.
I’m not sure I’m sold on the idea of a strict pitch clock running during games — it feels like that would probably really lead us into the land of unintended consequences — but 25.4 seconds between pitches in the postseason seems like a legitimate problem that MLB has to try to solve in some way. I don’t think I have the answer, but it shouldn’t take a full minute to throw two pitches in a big league game. And even slicing off a second or two per pitch here and there can make a significant difference, as we’ve seen in reverse this year.
For now, though, I guess we should just be satisfied that the Oakland A’s got knocked out in the Wild Card game. Perhaps Luke Gregerson (39.8 seconds between pitches, +14.9 over regular season pace) and Sean Doolittle (30.6 seconds between pitches, +7.6 over regular season pace) wouldn’t have continued their hideous increase in time between pitches when inserted into lower leverage situations, but anyone who takes 40 seconds between pitches probably deserves to be eliminated.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Set up a 30-second clock and make it visible to the pitcher. If he doesn’t throw the pitch within 30 seconds, give the batter first base and advance each runner one base.
That should stop the nonsense
(And make the batter use a time out if he steps out of the box, with just 3 time outs per team per game. I guess the NFL has something really good to offer MLB here.)
This is a thing, only it’s 12 seconds with no runners on base, and the penalty is a ball. Has anybody ever seen this called?
I think BP looked at the rule and found that very rarely is the 12 second rule actually violated because the rule doesn’t begin until the batter is in the box and ready to receive a pitch.
It takes a while, ya know? (Steps out, adjusts left batting glove, adjusts self “down there”, adjusts right batting glove, thinks about what to have for dinner, re-adjusts left batting glove, scratches chin, re-adjusts right batting glove, waves to Papi, re-re-adjusts left batting glove, wonders if that new “Lost” program is any good and what are they doing on that island anyway?, re-re-adjusts right batting glove…)
Twelve seconds from when the Pitcher receives the ball and the batter is in the box IIRC. That number is quite different from the pace number which is simply time between pitches. Pace seems to also include runners on base situations, which as you point out are completely excluded from the 12 second rule.
I blame most of the current (regular season) delay on batters all stepping out after every pitch. The extra postseason delay is presumably from higher leverage and people trying to keep KC batters from stealing.
That said, I’ve never seen a ball called for either delay or for the pitcher’s hand going to his mouth. I think the umpires should make these calls if they’re in the rulebook.
You’d probably want more than 3 time outs: Don’t forget that NFL teams have halftime where they get their timeouts back. You’d probably want more timeouts.
I also would probably not straight up give the batter first or, at the least, I wouldn’t advance runners on 2nd/3rd if they wouldn’t advance naturally, it might be too big of a penalty.
Dave Cameron laments that the games in the postseason are too slow because the average length of time between pitches is 25.4 seconds. And your solution is a 30-second pitch clock.
That would be like a director of a state’s department of transportation informing the governor that crashes on a particular highway regularly occur at speeds in excess of 70 mph. And the Governor’s response is to institute a speed limit of 80 mph on that highway.
Average doesnt mean time between every pitch is 25.4 seconds. This might include a pitcher that likes to do a little walk around the mound on some pitches.
A 30 second limit will prevent tail risk of guys wasting 30-40 seconds stalling for a pitching change or resting or just taking his sweet time.
This should be accompanied with step-out rules for batters.