Pitch clock shaving 20 minutes off minor league games while scoring nearly same; stage set for MLB introduction in 2023

The implementation of a strict pitch clock across Minor League Baseball has shaved 20 minutes off game times, dramatically speeding up the pace while not having a demonstrable effect on scoring and setting the stage for the Major League Baseball to implement a clock in the 2023 season.

Over the first 132 minor league games that included a 14-second clock with the bases empty, 18-second clock with runners on and penalties for pitchers and hitters that run afoul of it, the average game time was 2 hours, 39 minutes. In a control set of 335 games run without the clock to begin the season, games lasted an average of 2 hours, 59 minutes — around the same 3-hour, 3-minute average in 5,000-plus non-clock games during the 2021 season.

More than one-third of minor league games over the three-day sample with the clock ended in less than 2 hours, 30 minutes, including one game that finished in 1 hour, 59 minutes and another in 2 hours. Twenty-seven percent of games fell within the 2:30 to 2:40 range — nearly three times the percentage in 2021. Only 15% of games exceeded three hours, compared to 52% of games last season with no timer in place.

Scoring was essentially flat, with the non-clock test set yielding 5.13 runs and 16.1 hits per game while the clock games featured 5.11 runs and 15.9 hits.

«It seemed like it accomplished exactly what MLB wants the game to look like in a few years,» said Henry Davis, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 draft and a catcher with the Pittsburgh Pirates' High-A affiliate. "(Outside of) playing in the College World Series or unique games, it has been the most fun I've ever had playing."

For nearly a decade, MLB has tinkered with pitch clocks in an effort to find the secret sauce to speed up games,