MLB's Extra-Inning Baserunner Gimmick Saved About 75 Seconds Per Game In 2020

Here's a hot take: It was a horrible decision for Major League Baseball to trash 150 years of how baseball games are played to shorten the average game by merely 75 seconds.

2019 to 2020: The average time of an extra-inning game shrunk from an all-time high of 3:10 to 3:06, but the average time of a nine-inning game increased from 3:05 to 3:07 (the highest in the sport's history).

Society For American Baseball Research

Baseball Records Committee, Spring 2021

Trent McCotter, Editor

In the Summer* and Fall** 2020 newsletters, with the help of Pete Palmer and Al Yellon, we predicted the effects of MLB's supposedly temporary rule of starting extra-inning games with a runner on second base, for the…