Last year, Aaron Boone's opening spring training talk with his players in the New York Yankees' camp was built around Major League Baseball's implementation of the pitch clock. "It was everything," Boone said recently. His theme was about adaptation, about preparing for the change, about embracing the challenge rather than complaining about it.
In Boone's inaugural address this year, he said, the subject of the pitch clock never came up. Not once. Because the players seem to have quickly evolved, adjusted old habits and moved on.
The pitch clock still generates its fair share of headlines. Tony Clark, the union chief, complained last week about the reduction of time from 20 seconds to 18 seconds when there are runners on base, suggesting that there should have been more conversation and more consideration. In the first exhibition of this spring, San Diego Padres superstar prospect Ethan Salas was called out on a pitch clock violation.
But in a sport that has been long resistant to change, and despite the monumental shift the pitch clock required -- akin to the advent of the shot clock and the 3-point shot in the NBA, and the change in forward pass rules in the NFL -- the incorporation has been mostly seamless.
"I think there was kind of a sticker shock to it, and there's a lot of chatter and frustration," said Caleb Cotham, the pitching coach for the Philadelphia Phillies. "But I think once spring training game started and guys got to feel what it what it actually was, there was a whole lot of, 'Oh, that's not too bad.' I think the guys who had more [established] routines and had pitched for a really long time, it was a little more of an adjustment."
A year in, the loudest concerns over the clock have largely dissipated, a de facto acknowledgment among the players that timed baseball is here to stay after the average game was reduced by almost half an hour in 2023. This was the primary goal of the game's overlords; the objective was accomplished.
"Things moved in the right direction," said Rich Hill, baseball's oldest pitcher at 43. "The games were quicker. I think fans wanted a faster pace, and ultimately, we ended up achieving that."
Hill still has concerns about those instances when pitch clock violations resolve game situations, rather than actions by the players -- and he feels the game loses something when dollops of player individuality are legislated out of the sport. "But as far as the pace of play," he acknowledged, "it was a huge benefit."
Cotham remembered a game May 10 when Zack Wheeler and Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Kevin Gausman traded zeroes, the pace rapid, accelerated by the clock. "You looked up and we were in the fifth inning and we'd been playing like 12 minutes," Cotham said.
Early in the 2023 season, it wasn't entirely clear to players or staffers this would be the case. A longtime manager recalled following a veteran pitcher through the dugout after the pitcher came off the field, laboring to breathe. Once they were out of range of any TV camera, the veteran bent over at the waist, exhausted, sweat swimming down the sides of his face. "He was totally gassed," the manager recalled the next day.
Though the number of injured list assignments declined slightly in 2023 -- 405 instances for pitchers, compared with 417 in 2022 -- some pitchers, Hill and Zach Eflin among them, believe that the pitch clock contributed to the injuries last year, because of the diminished recovery time between deliveries. As pitching injuries have climbed over the last decade, some of the industry's doctors, like Glenn Fleisig, have come to believe that injury trend is tied directly to the general effort by pitchers to increase velocity.
"At the end of the day, you know [the pitch clock] is going to spike your heart rate," Eflin said. "You're going to be throwing more pitches in a shorter amount of time. And that's going to cause more stress to the body -- regardless of where you stand with it. Personally, it hasn't affected me because I've always been a quick worker. But I do believe that it has led to some more arm injuries."
Said Hill: "A pitcher might feel something, get a little bit tight during a pitch, and then might need a few seconds to walk around and kind of let that tightness dissipate. Now you can't do that. It's different. ... Increased injuries is a big concern."
Cotham and Eflin each mentioned how they would like MLB to give the pitchers some opportunities to call a timeout, to slow the game down momentarily. This is something that the hitters can do -- each batter is allowed to call time once in each plate appearance. "Kind of like in basketball," Cotham said. "You get a full one timeout and a 30-second timeout, especially for the starters in games that are going fast. Maybe there's no one on, and [the pitcher] just had a 15-pitch at-bat. He needs a breath."
Texas Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said the learning curve for staffers and catchers was as steep as it was for pitchers and hitters. "The biggest part of our job was to build that internal clock for the players so that it became second nature for them," Bochy said. "The catchers were a big part of the preparation, to make sure they were giving signs right away to give the pitchers more time -- and to utilize timeouts when needed."
Last year, players spent much of the spring preparing for the change. Teams installed pitch clocks in the bullpens and on the back fields within their spring training complexes. This spring, with players more comfortable with the clock, it's been less of a focus. Bochy and Boone both said there's been much less talk about it in their camps. The pitch clocks are all around again in the Cleveland Guardians' camp. Tampa Bay Rays manager Kevin Cash said there have been more conversations about the clock with his group, building on what they did last year.
In the Phillies' camp, pitchers have worked through fielding drills instead. The Chicago Cubs have focused less on the clock, a staffer reports, with the notable exception of Shota Imanaga, who is making the transition from MLB to Japan this year and is adapting to the new pace.
Miami Marlins manager Skip Schumaker feels his players were better prepared for the impact of the clock as spring training began this year. "By that, I mean that in their bullpen work in the offseason, they used the clock this time around, so it's much more natural."
"I think now [the question is]: How do you use it to your advantage? And not just making sure you're on time."
That's how Cotham framed the change to his pitchers last year, and he's doubled down this spring.
"My experience was that most guys took it as a challenge -- because it was an opportunity to maybe put more pressure on the hitter," he said. "That's how we ended up talking about it and practicing it. You can complain about it, or you get wrapped up in figuring it out and evolving ... and putting more pressure on the hitter."
Last season, the Seattle Mariners had the fewest pitch clock violations of any team. "My best explanation would be that I do think we have a disciplined group," said Jerry Dipoto, the head of baseball operations for Seattle. "We didn't hear a single complaint from the start. They just rolled with it."
"We've always stressed working quickly, and staying in good [ball-strike] counts. We're also younger than most staffs, so many of our guys already had some experience with the clock."
A year and a month into this enormous change, you can still find a wide range of opinion on its impact, on how pitchers will learn to use it to their advantage, on tweaks that might be made within the rule. But there seems to be near-unanimity on this point: The pitch clock has improved the quality of life for players and staffers, because they are required to spend less time at the park and return home earlier, to see children and significant others sooner in the evening.
"It's amazing, it is absolutely amazing," Eflin said. "Baseball's a long sport. It's a long, long night, and to be able to put my daughters to bed ... I go to the field at 1 o'clock in the afternoon, and typically, before this last season, I wouldn't see my daughters until the next day.
"It's nice to be able to get home, see them for 15-20 minutes. Read them a story. Put them down for bed. And then be able to hang out with my wife."