SEATTLE — The next collective bargaining agreement is a few years away. Attendance across Major League Baseball is up. The pitch clock and other new rules have been largely well-received by those attending and watching games. In other words, at this fragile, halcyon baseball moment, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred and Tony Clark, head of the players union, would seemingly have little about which to argue.
But they seem to have found one thing, at least for the next few months: Clark indicated the players are concerned about the pitch clock impacting meaningful games in October and said they are in touch with MLB about those concerns.
“The players that have been on the on-field committee and that are newly on the on-field committee have been consistent in that regard,” said Clark, who added that he is “hopeful” that MLB can “make adjustments” to the pitch clock, implying that a few extra seconds — rather than doing away with the clock entirely in October — would feel like a palatable solution. He said the union has “represented” its suggestions to MLB and that it is glad to find the “lines of communication are open.”
“The adjustments I think the players are looking toward is simply one that affords them and those watching a chance to take a few extra seconds, a deep breath,” Clark said.
Manfred, speaking an hour later, said MLB would, “in general,” prefer to play the postseason by the same rules that apply during the regular season. He did admit there have been exceptions to that policy already, namely that extra innings in the playoffs do not begin with a runner on second base.
“I have thought about this a lot. I’m not sure that I would like to see the extra-inning rule that we use during the regular season move to the postseason. I just think the difference between the pitch clock and the extra-inning rule is the extra-inning rule is kind of, by definition, outcome-determining,” Manfred said. “Whereas, not so much with the other rules.”
According to data accumulated by FanGraphs, the average time of postseason games in 2022 (3 hours 29 minutes) was about a half-hour longer than that of regular season games (3:03). Some of those games start later on the East Coast than regular season games, and they tend to slow to a snail’s pace in the later innings, when pitchers deliberate over every pitch. Players, Clark said, worry about rushing through the most important pitches of their year. And he argued Wednesday that a few extra seconds here and there would not set the sport back to its pre-pitch clock slog entirely.
“[Postseason games] tend to be a little bit longer anyway,” Clark said. “However, considering we just played a 162-game season, considering there are only a handful of teams, despite the expanded playoffs, that actually make it to the postseason, nobody is looking to play three-and-a-half, four-hour games. I don’t think that an extra few seconds here and there is going to create a three-and-a-half, four-hour game.”
But to MLB, “an extra few seconds here and there” could represent a concession, a backsliding on a transformative rule that has been almost universally embraced as an improvement, opening the door for players to argue for the same adjustments in future regular seasons.
Clark said he could not rule out a scenario in which a few extra seconds in the postseason leads the union to argue for more in the future. Ultimately, those decisions are made by an on-field committee that was collectively bargained by both sides but that gives MLB a distinct majority in representation. In theory, MLB should be able to fend off any major rule changes simply by having more voters on that committee than the union. But both sides suggested they are open to negotiating on the playoff question, at least for now.
“Giving back the progress we’ve made is something we have to really pay attention to, whether it’s in the postseason or otherwise,” Manfred said. “That’s all I can say.”