Minor-league pitch clock cut game times by 21 minutes in 2021

The Low-A West League is speeding up time, in baseball games, since it began experimenting with a 15-second pitch clock in June. As a result, the league has cut game times by 21 minutes.

That’s the direct opposite of MLB, where the average time of a nine-inning game is up by nearly 20 minutes, just over the last 10 years — and by more than a half-hour since the ‘80s. With major-league games filled with plenty of dead time, the MLB commissioner’s office is taking notice of the pitch clock’s impact on the Low-A West League (formerly the California League).

“It really is an incredible experience,” says former big-leaguer Raul Ibañez, who is one of the people overseeing this experiment in his role as a senior vice president of on-field operations for MLB. “It feels like the baseball games that I grew up watching in the ‘80s.”

The length of games isn’t the only thing affected by the newly implemented pitch clocks. The Low-A West League has also seen more runs and home runs, as well as fewer walks and strikeouts.