Manfred's Three-Batter Minimum For Pitchers, If In Effect This Year, Would Have Reduced Game Times By A Maximum Of 40 Seconds

Cliff Corcoran, The Athletic:

To get a sense of the impact the three-batter minimum might have [in 2020], I compiled every pitching appearance lasting fewer than three batters this season. Through Tuesday night, there had been 167 games played in the young season. In those games, there were 153 pitching appearances lasting fewer than three batters, an average of just under one per game. ...

Had it been in place this year, the three-batter minimum would have extended just 53 of those 153 appearances. That's roughly one every three games. With pitching changes limited to two minutes (120 seconds) under this spring's rule revisions, the data suggest that the three-batter minimum would result in a maximum reduction of 40 seconds in the average time of game.

I say maximum because ... many of those mid-inning pitching changes wouldn't have been eliminated, but simply delayed. ... Only six of those 53 appearances saw the pitcher in question enter the game with no one on base and retire every man he faced only to be replaced mid-inning.

Only seven others saw the pitcher enter with men on base and retire everyone he faced without one of those baserunners coming around to score. That's 13 total instances of what I would consider extraneous pitching changes in 167 games, or roughly one every 13 games. ...

Think about that for a moment. These are pitching appearances lasting no more than two batters, and in 40 of the 53 either a batter reached base, a run scored, or both. ...

Forcing those pitchers to stay in the game for another batter or two isn't going to result in anything beneficial to the game or its fans. It's certainly not going to make games shorter, and it's not going to improve the quality of the game they're watching, either.

What it is far more likely to do is alter the outcome of the game. ... Of the 53 pitching appearances in our sample ... 41 were high-leverage situations. The average leverage index of the entire sample was 1.92, which ... is roughly equivalent to having the tying run at the plate with one out in the eighth inning.

Ask yourself this: Would you favor baseball instituting a rule that prevented managers from removing a pitcher who had allowed a 1.352 OPS on the season when the tying run strides to the plate with one out in the eighth? ...

[T]he most significant impact of a three-batter minimum ... will be forcing managers to stick with struggling pitchers in high-leverage situations. That will alter game results, and could impact the standings, in turn. That's a much larger effect, and a negative one. Even worse, consider what will happen when a pitcher has a [poor] outing in a crucial postseason or World Series game under a strict three-batter minimum. It could turn an entire series and possibly alter the ultimate outcome of the season. That's far too high a price to pay for a benefit that would be negligible, at best, and very likely non-existent.