GLENDALE, Arizona – New season. New twists. New rules?
Allow me to nominate the first-ever walkup song for a commissioner. That's right. For new commissioner Rob Manfred, a clip from John Mellencamp's "Minutes to Memories":
"Days turn to minutes
"And minutes to memories
"Life sweeps away the dreams
"That we have planned
"You are young and you are the future
"So suck it up and tough it out
"And be the best you can"
As far as messages Manfred wants to deliver, that about covers it. Let's get moving, man! Sure, Mount Big Papi blew his stack earlier this spring over the new pace-of-play rules, but David Ortiz, unhappy with being chained to the batter's box in 2015, soon will be yesterday's news. The young, multitasking, on-the-move generation doesn't sit around well, so, hey, Mike Trout, Buster Posey, Andrew McCutchen, let's go!
None of the new twists will change the game in anything other than very subtle ways (that's a good thing).
All of the changes will slice only a few seconds here and a few more there, most significantly working to ensure that players are ready to go the second the television cameras are back from the between-innings break (no-brainer—what took so long?).
"I love it," Dodgers manager Don Mattingly says. "I think it's great."
"The thing that's stood out for me is the 2:25 between innings," Padres skipper Bud Black says. "I think if we can nail that down, you'll see multiple minutes shaved off of games."
Because do you know what turns into minutes? Seconds. And they add up.
"Games have been, like, 20 minutes faster this spring," Mattingly says. "Think about it. We were probably 3:30 to 3:45 between every half inning. Now it's 2:25. It's a minute off of every half inning.
"We're cutting 20 minutes off of every game without doing anything different. Standing in the box, there's only one time you have to stand in the box and that's when you take a pitch. It's kind of like, get on the field, get off the field, let's go, let's play...I don't think we're really changing anything other than get on, get off."
With the average time of a regular-season game in 2014 up to three hours and eight minutes—the longest of any year in a Baseball Prospectus data bank that goes back to 1950—baseball absolutely needs to take charge here.
The two most significant changes for 2015:
• Clocks have been installed at each park telling players when to be ready to start the next inning. For most games, the clocks will count down from 2:25 between innings, with pitchers having to be ready at the 30-second mark and hitters having to be in the box from five to 20 seconds before 0:00. For nationally televised games (longer commercial breaks), the clocks will count down from 2:45.
• Hitters must keep one foot in the batter's box between each pitch, except after foul balls. However—and this is why this rule is more sizzle than steak—batters can still ask for time and adjust their batting gloves, belts, pants, helmets and whatever else they do between pitches. They just need to do it in the box.
"The batter's box thing, I don't think will be that big of an issue," Black says. "They'll corral those guys who have a little bit of distance between the box and what they've normally been doing. If you bring those guys a little closer, I think that will shave a few seconds off.
"I think the big thing is to start the inning on time and not let 2:25 turn into 2:50 or three minutes."
A third change is that managers now can ask for an instant-replay review from the dugout without having to do the slow walk out to the umpire. However, this is not being viewed as much of a time-saver, either, because it still will take the same amount of time for a coach in the clubhouse who is watching the game to determine whether the manager should ask for a review.
So other delay tactics will still be employed.
"Way overrated," Rockies closer LaTroy Hawkins, who, at 42, is the game's oldest player, says of the pace-of-play changes. "The first time a National League game averaged three hours was last year. The first time they ever instituted replay was last year.
"So, whose fault is that?"
"I'm not changing the way I do things. I'm sorry. It's my last year anyway. You're not going to rush me. If I'm in the game in the ninth inning, I'm not going to rush things."
April is scheduled as a grace period. Beginning May 1, hitters who do not keep one foot in the batter's box and pitchers who are not ready to throw when the countdown clock hits 0:00 are subject to $500 fines.
During spring training, most everyone tried to cooperate.
But, Hawkins predicts, "It's going to be an issue when they start fining guys."
One notable exception of the cooperative vibe this spring was Ortiz, who, shortly after arriving in Boston's camp, lashed out at the new rules. Once the fines begin, he said, he just may "run out of money," as reported by ESPNBoston.com's Gordon Edes.
"When you come out of the box, they don't understand you're thinking about what the [pitcher] is trying to do," Ortiz said. "This is not like you go to the plate with an empty mind. No, no, no. When you see a guy, after a pitch, coming out of the box, he's not just doing it. Our minds are speeding up."
Ortiz added: "It seems like every rule goes in the pitcher's favor. After a pitch, you got to stay in the box? One foot? I call that bulls---."
Much as he is against these changes, Hawkins, Ortiz's old teammate in Minnesota, laughs at his good friend.
"He's an idiot," Hawkins says, chuckling, with unmistakable affection toward Ortiz. "That's so funny. They always change the game for pitchers. I'm reading that and I'm like, c'mon David."
Baseball experimented with a 20-second clock counting down between each pitch during the recent Arizona Fall League season and will take a look at something similar in the minor leagues this year. So far, nothing that drastic has been incorporated at the MLB level, though pitchers are wary.
Veteran reliever Joaquin Benoit, now with the Padres, sides with Hawkins in pointing out that nearly every change makes things more difficult for pitchers, and not hitters.
"The only thing that changes for hitters is that they don't want hitters to step out of the box," says Benoit, who, according to FanGraphs, was tied for the third-slowest relief pitcher in 2014, taking an average of 30.3 seconds between each pitch (minimum 50 innings pitched). "Otherwise, they haven't changed anything.
"They were talking about calling strikes from the knees to the elbows, but they don't call the high strike. Stadiums, they've shortened the fences. Look at San Diego, they shortened the left-field fence (for 2015). Pitchers can't use anything to get a better grip. Hitters can use pine tar.
"There are a lot of things you can say, but the facts are right there. If you think about it, the game is about the home run. Nobody cares about the pitchers. One-nothing isn't a good game anymore."
Unlike Ortiz, another notorious hitter who steps out to go through his own very unique and quirky routine between each pitch says the change will not trip him up.
"It's a thinking man's game," Colorado shortstop Troy Tulowitzki says. "You try to think along with the pitcher.
During the spring training test phase, hitters mostly received gentle reminders if they stepped out of the batter's box.
"I've had it happen a couple of times," Indians center fielder Michael Bourn says. "It's been more just a reminder. We'll see how it works. The game's changing every day. We just have to see how it plays out. There are going to be some complaints, you know that. Some people get in the box slow, some people get in the box fast."
Says Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis: "Umpires have been consistent across the board in getting hitters back into the batter's box, but not in a demeaning way. And it's sort of funny, because hitters are apologizing for getting out, saying they forgot.
"There's always an apologetic tone from hitters when they forget. The give and take is like, 'My bad, I'm just trying to get used to it.' And the umpires say, 'We are, too.'"
Mattingly's point that games have been significantly faster is absolutely accurate: Through this week, according to numbers obtained from MLB, Dodgers spring games are averaging 2:48. In 2014, Dodgers spring games averaged 3:03. That's a difference of 15 minutes. And every single one of those games was on television, too.
"You're definitely seeing guys getting out of the dugout quicker," Ellis says. "Something about human nature, when there's a clock involved, it makes you want to move.
"I always felt like, as a player, we worked off of the clock as if they didn't want us to be ready until the TV timeout was done. Now, we're supposed to be ready immediately and it makes sense.
"We were always working off of the second base umpire, who has the clock. A lot of times, we were waiting for him to signal that TV's back, and then we start the process of getting ready. Now, at least hitters and pitchers know."
The trick is speeding up the dead minutes between action while leaving the beauty of a clock-less game untouched. Or, in the words of legendary college basketball coach John Wooden, be quick but don't hurry.
And while it is unsettling even to see a digital clock running between innings at a baseball game, if it re-conditions players and umpires to recalibrate the between-innings breaks, that cannot be a bad thing.
"As a catcher, when you're on the bases and the inning ends, you run in quickly. When that clock hits 0:00, I don't want to know what happens. Is it like a SWAT team is going to move in and take me out?" Ellis quips.
"I think it's slowly gotten away," Mattingly says. "More and more time. Players are not quite ready, they're not quite on deck, and nobody says anything about it and it's gotten away.
"Now it's gotten to be more of an emphasis. I'm hoping that we don't ever get to a shot-clock type thing. We shouldn't have to get there if we do this. They're still going to time the pitchers in-between pitches. Nothing's going to happen, but I guess if it would get really bad there as far as guys taking too much time in-between pitches [something might eventually happen].
"I think it's going to be good. It's easy, it's good. The game is crisper, the game is better. And if you're at the ballpark, I can't believe you want to wait. Before, you'd get three quick outs, and next thing you know three-and-a-half or four minutes have gone by and in 10 minutes you've seen nine pitches."
Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
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