How the MLB is trying to solve slow, boring baseball games

It’s (probably) the reason you can’t convince your friend to go to a baseball game: America’s favorite pastime is just too slow for some people.

Now, Major League Baseball is taking that complaint to heart. New rules for the new season are designed to help speed up the game, among a slew of changes that even casual fans can expect to notice on the field. Jen McCaffrey, who covers the Red Sox for The Athletic, joined GBH's Morning Edition co-host Jeremy Siegel to discuss what's already been different as spring training gets underway. This transcript has been lightly edited.

Jeremy Siegel: So before we get into these new rules, can we talk a bit about how baseball has gotten slow and why it's so slow? They actually have gotten slower compared to, say, the '80s?

Jen McCaffrey: Oh, absolutely. Back even in the early '90s, games were at a more decent pace. Two and a half hours was kind of what you expected when you were watching a game. And within the past 15 to 20 years, maybe since 2000 or so, the game has slowed to it to a halt where three, three and a half hours is not out of the norm for a game at Fenway. And it's just not acceptable for fans who want to get in and out. You can also compare them to other sports that are much faster-paced.

So I think baseball finally realized, and it took a while. These rules have been implemented this spring and are going to be implemented throughout this season. And so far in these spring training games, it's really quickened up the pace. The games are closer to about two and a half hours. So I think we'll see a big change throughout the season here.

Siegel: One of the biggest changes is introducing the pitch clock. It sets several limitations on both the pitcher and the batter in an effort to speed up each player's at bat. What can people exactly expect to see from that?

McCaffrey: It's not going to sound like much, but pitchers have 15 seconds with no runners on base, and 20 seconds when runners are on base. And that time frame doesn't sound like a lot. But you know, everybody's looking for a competitive advantage in this game. So pitchers sometimes will stand on the mound, step off. The batter will take a time out, the pitcher will take a time out. There's been restrictions put in place where the pitcher basically has to get the ball and throw it. One of the pitchers the Red Sox signed this winter, Kenley Jansen, was the slowest pitcher in the league last year in terms of throwing the ball. So he really worked this winter to quicken up his pace, and it's very noticeable.

The pitch clock is going to make a huge difference. The casual fan who maybe tunes in to a handful of games a year is actually going to really notice a quickened pace and not as much lag time and not as much of the boringness that the game has gotten of late. And that's what baseball is looking to implement.

Siegel: So on top of what happens on the field and what happens in-person at games, you know, obviously baseball games are broadcast on TV. Does the broadcast of commercial breaks specifically influence the timing at all? Is that at all to blame for how slow things have gotten?

McCaffrey: You know, a little bit. But one of the bigger changes this year is what a lot of teams are going to be wearing. You've seen in soccer, some people might be familiar with advertisements on the actual jerseys. The Red Sox actually have MassMutual, a huge sponsor this year, to have a patch on their jersey for the first time. So you'd see advertisements blowing up. Obviously, it's a billion-dollar league so that's a very influential part of the game.

Not as much in baseball — you have the commercial breaks in between innings — but it'll still factor in. And I'm sure people that pay a little bit closer attention might notice that patch on the sleeve of the jersey. It's not too distracting. But obviously, money talks. And so any of these teams are going to try to get money any way they can. And obviously they took the opportunity here.

Siegel: So another change coming to baseball is the size of the bases. They've gotten bigger. There have been some altered images, showing an exaggerated size difference, shared making it seem like nearly double the size. How much bigger are they really, and what's the point of this?

McCaffrey: They're about four inches bigger, which does sound like a lot. And Alex Cora, the Red Sox manager, joked in spring training they look like pizza boxes. They're not quite that big.

In addition to speeding up the game, the game just got, again, boring because teams are looking for competitive advantages. So there was a lot of shifting of players around the infield, to take away from base hits and reduce offense, and offense is what people like to see. I mean, sometimes it's exciting to watch pitchers dueling it out and it being a 0-0 game, and there's kind of high drama in that. But I think for the most part, especially a casual fan, wants to see the home runs and wants to see the stolen bases.

So by making the bases bigger, it makes it obviously easier for a faster player to reach the base because it's a little bit bigger. And again, when you're thinking about it, you're not thinking a couple of inches is going to matter, but it really does when you come down to these high-level athletes that have been training with the same-size bases for a number of years — or their whole life, really. And having that kind of small advantage, they think, is really going to add a little bit more offense, a little bit more speed to the game, and a little bit more excitement, too.

Siegel: Another rule change coming is the ban on teams using a defensive shift. I am not a huge baseball person. My knowledge ended at the end of my sentence there. Can you explain this to me, and what's changing?

McCaffrey: Sure. So basically the simplest way to put it is, again: teams are looking for those competitive advantages. So they'll shift players. There's four players on the infield. Normally, those guys are at their set positions, but teams will shift those players so they have, maybe, three players on the right side. If the batter typically hits the ball to that side, they'll kind of shift the players over to that side of the field to try to have more defenders to get to the ball quicker.

That was always legal up until this year, and it was sort of something that teams realized they could do maybe around the mid-2000s. It was something the Tampa Bay Rays actually started doing and then other teams picked up on it. It became pretty prevalent throughout the league, but it took away from a lot of base hits.

You know, David Ortiz was shifted on a lot. When he would hit a single that was headed towards right field, it would get picked up by the second baseman because there'd be three guys on that side of the field. Teams can't do that anymore on the infield because, again, the league wants to try to promote some more base hits here. So they're trying to make it a little bit more offensive-friendly, a little quicker, and try to just liven up the game a little bit. And it's something you might notice throughout the season, that teams aren't doing anymore — because they can't.