Tick-tock

With the average length of a major-league baseball game closing in on the three-hour mark, Commissioner Selig says he’s not worried.  Why?  Because attendance remains strong.  God, how I hate the man.

Ex-White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle is known as the fastest worker in baseball today.  According to a 5-2-14 Yahoo Sports story, Buehrle takes just under 16 seconds to throw a pitch.  To give you an idea of just how rare that is, consider that of the 291 pitchers with ten or more innings pitched so far this season, only 20 have thrown a pitch in under 20 seconds. With Buehrle on the mound, the two-hour game is always a possibility.

And watching just about everyone else is torture, he says.  “I don’t like sitting on the bench for a four-hour game when I’m not pitching, I’ll tell you that much.  When you’re sitting there between your starts, looking at the scoreboard, looking at the clock, saying, ‘Holy [expletive], this is ridiculous.’  I know how fans feel.”  But, apparently, the commissioner doesn’t.  

Here’s an idea for the sabermetric crowd—figure out ideal game times.  What’s the shortest length that allows MLB to turn a reasonable profit on commercials?  What’s the maximum length before fans at home will watch something else?  If there’s such a thing as “wins above replacement,” what about “ideal game length,” IGL?  Now, that would definitely be a stat worth having.