Baseball fans react to MLB’s breakdown of the new pitch timer guidelines and penalties: "Very excited for this change" "This will move the game along"

MLB is instituting four rule changes for the 2023 season. Among the tweaks being instituted to speed up the game is the pitch timer. To prepare fans with Opening Day just seven weeks away, MLB has been attempting to educate them on the new guidelines, as well as the penalties for infractions.

The pitch clock allows for 15 seconds between pitches when the bases are empty and 20 seconds when there are runners on base. It also allows for 30 seconds between hitters.

If the batter is in the box and the pitch is not thrown in the window, the pitcher is charged with an automatic ball. If the pitcher has toed the rubber and is ready to throw, but the batter is not ready to receive, then a strike call will be applied to the count.

As with any rule change to a longstanding sport, there is going to be controversy. Fans are adamantly coming down on one side or the other as to whether the pitch timer is a good thing or a bad thing.

Many fans, bemoaning the creaking pace of games in recent years, approve of the attempt to get the game moving along.

Other fans come down on the opposite side of the equation. Baseball is one of the few major spectator sports created without any factor of time. There are no clocks, nothing to run down or run out. The game ends when one team wins the game by beating the other team down to the very last out.

While attendance at ballgames remains strong, MLB is facing a dilemma as baseball's pace runs counter to the "instant" age we now live in. The game runs too slow for the attention span of many. But for many others, that's the charm of the game itself.

MLB experimented with the pitch timer in the minor leagues last season before introducing it in the majors for 2023. According to the Washington Post, the timer helped reduce average game time from 3 hours, 4 minutes in 2021 to 2:36 in 2022.

MLB seeking to get games back under three hours on average

Bob Melvin of the San Diego Padres argues with umpire Jerry Layne.

Fans could expect to spend two-and-a-half hours at a full baseball game in the 1980s, but the length of games has bloated since then.

In 2022, the average MLB game was played in 3:03:44. That was already down six minutes from 2021. However, only once since 2014 has the average length of a major league game been under three hours – 2:56 in 2015.