Last month, I wrote this article about the pitch clock, which has been instituted across the minor leagues this year. In it, I cited some data gathered by J.J. Cooper of Baseball America, who concluded:
Data on MiLB average time of game goes back to 2005. Last night’s average of 2:38 across the full minors is faster than the average nine-inning game time for any level in any year since measurements began. At the major league level, the last time the average nine-inning game was less than 2:38 was 1985.
The way this happened was eliminating dead time between pitches, which is the major culprit for long games and what makes the pace of play so slow in MLB games.