DCTribefan
Hall-of-Famer
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2019
- Messages
- 11,621
- Reaction score
- 10,405
- Points
- 123
https://www.insidehook.com/article/...sideHook&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nation
The main argument made by proponents of the automatic runner is that it helps speed up games — meaning casual fans don’t get bored and players don’t get overworked. But Fangraphs’ Jay Jaffe crunched the numbers, and the new rule actually hasn’t made games substantially shorter at all. “The average extra-innings game in 2018 clocked in at 239.7 minutes (four hours, basically) and fell to 229.3 minutes in ’19,” Jaffe notes. “With the runner on second rule in place, that shrank all the way to 224.5 minutes last year, a drop of just under five minutes. This year? They’re back up to 226.3 minutes. In other words, we’re talking about a savings of somewhere between five and 10 minutes for a slice of games that’s in the ballpark of 10%, all in exchange for a major disruption of baseball’s rules and accounting that produces far more bunts and intentional walks.”
The main argument made by proponents of the automatic runner is that it helps speed up games — meaning casual fans don’t get bored and players don’t get overworked. But Fangraphs’ Jay Jaffe crunched the numbers, and the new rule actually hasn’t made games substantially shorter at all. “The average extra-innings game in 2018 clocked in at 239.7 minutes (four hours, basically) and fell to 229.3 minutes in ’19,” Jaffe notes. “With the runner on second rule in place, that shrank all the way to 224.5 minutes last year, a drop of just under five minutes. This year? They’re back up to 226.3 minutes. In other words, we’re talking about a savings of somewhere between five and 10 minutes for a slice of games that’s in the ballpark of 10%, all in exchange for a major disruption of baseball’s rules and accounting that produces far more bunts and intentional walks.”