Will the average length of a 9-inning Major League Baseball game be less than 2:45 during the 2023 regular season?
19
141
450
resolved Oct 2
Resolved
YES

Major League Baseball has introduced significant rule changes to improve pace of play during the 2023 season. The league has introduced a pitch clock, limited defensive shifting, and made the bases larger.

https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-2023-rule-changes-pitch-timer-larger-bases-shifts

According to Baseball Reference, the average 9-inning game length was 3:03 during the 2022 regular season. An average game length less than 2:45 would be a decrease of over 18 minutes per game.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/misc.shtml

According to ESPN, use of the pitch clock during the 2022 MiLB season reduced the length of an average 9-inning game by 25 minutes, from 3:03 to 2:38. The article claims that MLB would like to replicate this effect in the upcoming season.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/34690249/pitch-clock-cut-minor-league-games-25-minutes-two-hours-38-minutes?platform=amp

This market will resolve at the end of the 2023 MLB regular season based on the Baseball Reference data here:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/misc.shtml

The market will resolve YES if the Time/9I column reads less than 2:45 for the 2023 regular season. If the column reads 2:45 or more, the market will resolve NO.

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bought Ṁ10 of YES

Big chunk of the no to me is the chance that they give up on the rules part way through

bought Ṁ10 of YES

MLB pitch clock is 15 seconds without runners and 20 with, compared to MiLB 14 seconds without runners/19 with. Around 300 pitches per game are thrown on average, so MLB gets about five extra minutes total – if you shave that off the 25-minute improvement, you still get a 20-minute improvement, higher than 18. I would guess even a little better than that since I'd expect major league pitchers to be stalling more as a baseline than minor league pitchers, so they'd have more room to improve.