MLB Implementing Experimental Pace of Play Rule Changes for Fall League

With Major League Baseball's games constantly increasing in length, the league took a big step toward quickening play Wednesday.

Via Craig Calcaterra of Hardball Talk, MLB will experiment with a number of rules in this year's Arizona Fall League in the interest of speeding up games in the future.

Barry Svrluga of The Washington Post revealed a few of the most significant regulations that Arizona Fall League batters and pitchers will be asked to adhere to:

The timing rules are worth monitoring in particular. Per Calcaterra, pitchers will have just 12 seconds in between pitches with nobody on base. There will be a strict two minutes and five seconds between innings. Also, teams will have only two minutes and 30 seconds to complete pitching changes.

Jesse Spector of Sporting News points out that many of the Arizona Fall League rules are essentially already in place in MLB, but they simply aren't enforced with consistency:

That figures to change now that the league has placed an emphasis on speeding up the game. MLB recently formed a Pace of Game Committee, and commissioner Bud Selig is hopeful that the Arizona Fall League experiment will translate to the big leagues, according to MLB Public Relations on Twitter:

As seen in this graphic courtesy of BeyondTheBoxscore.com sabermetrician Scott Lindholm, the length of games has unquestionably gone up in a major way over the past 60-plus years:

MLB is finally starting to realize the potential problem, and it is refreshing to see the league taking steps to alleviate those concerns.

Baseball is seemingly more reluctant than other sports to make rule changes due to traditionalism. Now that instant replay has been expanded, though, this is the time to pick up the pace as well.

If these rule changes test well, it would move the league closer towards full implementation at the highest level, a move that would be welcomed by a large majority of fans.

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