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re: SEC expected to adopt pickoff limitations & minimum # of batters a pitcher must face
Posted on 7/16/26 at 10:10 am to twk
Posted on 7/16/26 at 10:10 am to twk
quote:
My personal experience tells me that while the pitch clock worked to bring game times down initially, they have been creeping back up
because reviews have ticked up and they take longer and longer. For every step forward baseball has made to decrease the times of games, they take other steps backwards to cancel that out with other changes they make.
Using chat gpt, here is what I was able to roughly calculate as there aren't any articles on the subject (I only asked it to show me conference game numbers)
2023: 2:55
2024: 2:59
2025: 3:08
2026: 3:06
If you ask chat gpt about the average review times (again no articles that are going to have yearly total), here is what those numbers produced for the averge time of each review:
2023: 1:15
2024: 1:30
2025: 1:35
2026: 1:40
And that's just for the time of the actual review. The added stoppage time was double the time it took to actually review the play. So if you're having 3-4 review per game and adding 3+ minutes, on average for each review, that's an added 12-15 minutes of game time each game. The ABS is quicker, but given the NCAA has approved adding that in 2027, that's also going to add length to games.
Regardless, in totality, games are much shorter in total time and move much quicker than they were years ago. They've effectively shaved 20+ minutes off the average length of a conference game. This notion that games are taking 4 hours just doesn't exist. Yeah, that happens sometimes, but not often
This post was edited on 7/16/26 at 10:13 am
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Posted on 7/16/26 at 10:18 am to Victor R Franko
Lol
You being up a good point. What happens after a 2nd PO attempt? Will the runner go halfway to 2nd? The pitcher can’t throw to first. Then the only thing the runner has to worry about is batter hitting a popup and getting back to tag up.
Whats to stop runner from going to a foot away from 2nd before the pitch?
They will have ti create some form of marking where the runner can only lead out so far from first.
You being up a good point. What happens after a 2nd PO attempt? Will the runner go halfway to 2nd? The pitcher can’t throw to first. Then the only thing the runner has to worry about is batter hitting a popup and getting back to tag up.
Whats to stop runner from going to a foot away from 2nd before the pitch?
They will have ti create some form of marking where the runner can only lead out so far from first.
Posted on 7/16/26 at 10:28 am to Landmass
quote:
Endlessly trying to pick off a guy seems to usually result in a stolen base.
For the most part, I’ve always felt the pickoff try was actually the pitcher buying time or icing batter. A lot goes on in a batters mind before pitch, trying to figure out what he’ll throw. Batters must be focused, only to get frustrated when pitcher throws to first.
My thought is some pitchers want to delay or ice the batter as much as possible and use PO as delay tactic. Or pitcher isn’t fully committed to the next pitch vs a good batter and PO try helps buy time.
I think this change will help batters because they too will know the pitcher can’t waste time throwing to 1st several times. Batter will be more focused knowing pitch is coming
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