Doubling Your Misery: The Ghost Runner and the Pitch Clock

There are two rules that have likely had the greatest impact on shortening the game.  The first is the ghost runner and the other is the pitch clock.  From a purely anecdotal scanning of opinion pieces and fan reactions throughout the internet, it appears that most fans would scrap the ghost runner, but most favor (to our dismay) maintaining the pitch clock.  The goal of both rules is clearly the same and that is to shorten the game.

MLB implemented the ghost runner in 2020 and this year (2023) was the first year of the pitch clock. Combined together for the first time these new rules shaved 24 minutes off both a nine inning and extra-inning games as noted in the table below.

Depending upon your position you will likely either celebrate or denigrate that faster pace of 24 minutes in 2023.  On the pro side, you will hail the faster pace and the shaving of almost 13% off the game time as the best elixir for the sport.  On the con side (also known as the BP side), we bemoan the trashing of the sacred rules of the sport to save a measly 24 minutes.  Was it worth it?  You know our answer to that question, but in our next post, we will break down this argument a bit further between the two rules.