Through the 2023 season, Major League Baseball worked with an official pitch timer (the official name of what most call the “pitch clock”) for the first time.
It worked spectacularly well, reducing the average game time by 24 minutes and making games feel faster-paced and more action-packed.
The timer was set to 15 seconds with no one on base and 20 seconds with runners on.
ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports Wednesday that MLB’s Competition Committee is considering one tweak to the pitch timer:
Major League Baseball’s competition committee is weighing a proposal that would reduce the pitch clock with runners on base from 20 seconds to 18 next season, aiming to reverse a late-season trend that saw the average time of game increase by seven minutes, sources told ESPN.