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Major Field Delay In Major League Baseball

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These new rules eliminate some of the major field delays, or at least they shorten them. The no-pitch intentional walks eliminate some of the hectic wild pitches or a batter swinging at a low ball. Instead, team managers will just notify the umpires when a walk is the desired outcome, thus bypassing all the in between. This is something that will overall save a lot of time, but it will also face the loss of some excitement (Shaheen). Challenges on calls is one of the things that causes a lot of delays when it comes to the Major Leagues. This season starts a time limit for managers to call replays and challenges to a call. They now only have 30 seconds to decide to challenge and replay after a call is made, and there is now a two-minute time …show more content…

One of the biggest being starting in extra innings a runner will be placed on second base, increasing the possibility for the batting team to score in the given inning. This rule was thought up after countless games going into extra innings. Most notably the game between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, in 2015, where this game went into 19 innings, lasting well over six hours. There are still so many games per season that go into extra innings, most of which stay between 10 and 13, there are still the freak games that happen that get its way up to 19 innings. With each extra inning adding an average of twenty minutes onto the game time, it becomes an extremely drawn out game (Kopf). Dan Kopf discusses in his article “Major League Baseball Is Testing a Rule to Start Extra Innings with a Runner on Second”, that the chances with a player added on second base in ending the given innings a tie decrease by about 10 percent, which when it comes down to it, is a pretty big percentage, and really anything helps when it is already a 10 or 11 inning game. With this addition, though, the average game time will not be affected, the average extra innings game time will, and will definitely speed up the time with a player already in scoring position (Kopf). Not only will it affect the game time but it will also be better for the teams and the players. If a game goes into extra innings there is the probability of running out of able pitchers, so a manager would either have to use pitchers that are tired, and have the possibility of them hurting themselves or pull utility players to pitch, which really is not ideal either (SI

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