Why the MLB needs to adopt the pitch clock

I love Baseball. I'm an avid Astros fan. I go to high school games, I play pick up softball a lot. I still think that hitting a baseball 350 plus feet within 180 degrees forward off of a 95 plus MPH pitch is probably the greatest feat of athletic co-ordination that we see on a regular basis in the sports world. With all that being said baseball has a problem.

It's not a little problem either. Baseball is slow. Watching it in the stadium with the atmosphere it doesn't feel so bad. Watching games on TV is another story. Theres so much time in a baseball game that is spent not playing baseball. Just think about this the next time you watch a game. You're spending about three hours to watch a game where less than fifteen minutes is live ball situations.

That's not a major ask for people who've given up their afternoon to go to the ball park but it makes a terrible television product. The amount of time that has been pushed for television breaks is huge. The bigger problem, however, is the amount of time between batters and pitches within the same at bat. The great thing is we already have the perfect solution.

I live near Memphis and have gone to several Redbirds games. THE MINOR LEAGUE PITCH CLOCK IS THE BEST RULE CHANGE IN PRO SPORTS IN THE PAST 20 YEARS! It's awesome! It increased the pace of play but had no side effects. A basic overview of the rule is the pitcher has 20 seconds between pitches to begin his throwing motion. It's not too fast that it makes the pitchers feel rushed. It's also not slow enough that a pitcher is going to take a long time between pitches and make the game drag on.

This off season the Players Association was heavily against a pitch clock so it was not implemented in the majors, although many people think that it has more to do with the other rules that were attached to the pace of play improvement such as a limit on catchers mound visits. The MLB can unilaterally make a rule change without Players Association support but that feels unwise. Hopefully the players, owners and commissioner's office all get together on this and figure this out before the bleeding of fans gets bigger due to the amount of downtime in games.

I want to know what you think. Is the pitch clock important? Why shouldn't we have it? What other rule changes would you suggest for baseball as they have a drain of fans? Join into the conversation at ofsportsandmoresports.com and let us know!