HALL of Famer Yogi Berra quipped “It ain’t over til it’s over”, but with the introduction of a pitch clock Major League Baseball games will be over sooner this season as time ticks on for some big spenders to get back to the World Series.
The New York Mets and crosstown rivals the Yankees, who have the two highest payrolls in the Major Leagues, according Spotrac, along with deep pocketed West coast outfits the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres are among the hot favorites to lift the Commissioner’s Trophy when a new season gets underway on Thursday (Friday in Manil).
But time will tell if money can indeed buy a championship.
Time, once an abstract concept for baseball, is now the sport’s newest buzz word.
“It’s the mathematical potential for a single game to last forever, in a suspended world where no clock rules the day, that aligns baseball as much with the dead as the living,” wrote Bill Vaughn, an American author and columnist.
Part of baseball’s intrinsic charm was that it was played without a clock, a calendar setting the pace for a 162-game schedule as teams worked their way through Spring openers, the Dog Days of Summer to the Fall Classic.
Not any longer.
The tick-tock of the pitch clock is now the metronome that will dictate the speed at which the U.S. national pastime will march to as part MLB’s efforts to speed up games, addressing the supposed shorter attention spans of younger fans.
Starting this season MLB games will finish faster, by an average of 25 minutes if the pace matches the minor leagues where the pitch clock was tested.
Other tweaks will see marginally bigger bases in the hopes of enticing more stealing and a ban on infield defensive shifts with the idea of bringing more balls into play.
The rules overhaul has fired up baseball traditionalists, but the changes are not likely to impact the standings with the contenders largely the same as last season.
The Houston Astros, who have appeared in four of the last six World Series, winning twice including last season, lost ace Justin Verlander to the Mets but added another big bat in Jose Abreu and are once again rated contenders for the American League pennant.
The Yankees have not won the World Series since 2009 but led by slugger Aaron Judge, who hammered an AL record 62 homers last season, look the class of a very competitive AL East, that includes the young and exciting Toronto Blue Jays.
After being swept by the Astros in the AL Championship Series last season, Judge said the focus this season is taking care of some unfinished business and winning a World Series.
