The average postseason game so far: three hours and forty-one minutes - MLB

Last night’s ALDS game ended before midnight, but not too long before. Yesterday’s Nats-Cubs game ended before the Yankees-Indians game, but just barely, despite starting four hours earlier. Many fans east of the Mississippi have likely not even seen the Dodgers play due to late start times, but most who began to watch their playoff games likely haven’t seen them end.

Indeed, anyone who has budgeted less than three hours for any playoff game has missed at least some action this October, because not a single playoff game has finished in less time. Don’t believe me? Here are the lengths of every 2017 playoff game through last night’s Yankees-Indians Game 5:

Astros-Red Sox Game 4: 4:07
Astros-Red Sox Game 3: 3:38
Red Sox-Astros Game 2: 4:00
Red Sox-Astros Game 1: 3:26

Nationals-Cubs Game 4: 3:57
Nationals-Cubs Game 3: 3:09
Cubs-Nationals Game 2: 3:06
Cubs-Nationals Game 1: 3:02

Yankees-Indians Game 5: 3:38
Indians-Yankees Game 4: 3:47
Indians-Yankees Game 3: 3:17 (1-0 game)
Yankees-Indians Game 2: 5:08 (13 innings)
Yankees Indians Game 1: 3:26

Dodgers-Dbacks Game 3: 3:36
Dbacks-Dodgers Game 2: 3:48
Dbacks-Dodgers Game 1: 3:37

Rockies-Dbacks Wild Card: 3:54
Twins-Yankees Wild Card: 3:51

The average game time in the 2017 playoffs so far: three hours and forty-one minutes. If you take out the 13-inning game between the Yankees and Indians as an outlier, it only brings you down to three hours and thirty-six minutes.

For comparison, last October 28, Rob Arthur of FiveThirtyEight looked at the length of the 27 playoff games up through Game 2 of the World Series and found that they had averaged three hours and 24 minutes, which was the highest average for any continuous block of 27 games in the previous five years. Through 18 games, we’re poised to shatter that mark.

As everyone has noted, there are a lot of factors which go in to long games: replay reviews; longer commercial breaks in the playoffs; an increased number of pitching changes and mound visits; the tendency for max-effort pitchers, almost all of them throwing high-90s gas, to take longer and longer between pitches; and batters farting around and stepping out of the box in response. The measures Major League Baseball has attempted to institute to speed things up — mostly umpires directing batters to stand in and pitchers to pitch — are basically ignored now that the games mean more and the umps, presumably, want to let the players do what they want.

But whatever the reasons for these long games are, the result is a bad product for anything but the most hardcore fans.

Watching baseball games is a huge part of my job. I literally get paid to do it. I don’t write on a deadline so I don’t have to stress if they go late into the night. Bill and Ashley write in the evenings, so if I get too tired it’s OK if I go to sleep and catch up in the morning. All of which is to say that, personally speaking, I don’t get terribly upset at long games. At least not as long as they remain interesting, which long games often are.

It’s hard for me to believe, however, that people who aren’t paid to watch these games or who aren’t super invested in the outcome of any single one (i.e. casual fans) are attracted to super long games. People have lives and jobs and stuff and unless you’re a hardcore fan of one of the teams involved or on the far right of the obsessive baseball fan bell curve, you’re not likely to invest your time in a ballgame if doing so commits you to three and a half or four hours of time every single time out.

If you doubt that, know that Major League Baseball has made a point to address game length and pace, and they’re not doing it just for giggles. The league has a vested interest in maximizing fan interest, ratings and revenue, and it’s not for no reason that Rob Manfred has made game length and pace of play his top priority over the past couple of years. While an occasional marathon game can deliver peak excitement, long games as a matter of course are bad for baseball.

I can’t help but think these playoff games, however entertaining some of them have been and no matter how much I, as a baseball obsessive like them, are bad for baseball. It’s simply not the kind of product that will draw fans in or keep less-than-obsessed fans interested. I suspect Major League Baseball knows it too and that, barring some miraculous increase in the speed of these games in the NLCS, ALCS and World Series, we’re going to see some pretty major changes initiated this offseason to try address it.

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NEW YORK — With the stench of smoke permeating Yankee Stadium and wafting through its walkways, Major League Baseball postponed games in New York and Philadelphia on Wednesday night because of poor air quality caused by Canadian wildfires.

A National Women’s Soccer League game in New Jersey and an indoor WNBA game set for Brooklyn were also called off Wednesday amid hazy conditions that have raised alarms from health authorities.

The New York Yankees’ game against the Chicago White Sox was rescheduled as part of a doubleheader starting at 4:05 p.m. on Thursday, and the Philadelphia Phillies’ game against the Detroit Tigers was reset for 6:05 p.m. on Thursday, originally a day off for both teams.

“These postponements were determined following conversations throughout the day with medical and weather experts and all of the impacted clubs regarding clearly hazardous air quality conditions in both cities,” MLB said in a statement.

The National Weather Service issued an air quality alert for New York City, saying: “the New York State Department of Health recommends that individuals consider limiting strenuous outdoor physical activity to reduce the risk of adverse health effects.” In Philadelphia, the NWS issued a Code Red.

The Yankees and White Sox played through a lesser haze on Tuesday night. A day later, stadium workers and fans arriving early to the ballpark wore face masks for protection in a scene reminiscent of the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It was business as usual for me coming in. I got in around 12, 12:30, and didn’t really think too much of it,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “I actually walked outside about 2 o’clock and was like – like everyone else, like – whoa.”

White Sox manager Pedro Grifol thought MLB made the right decision postponing the game.

“These are health issues, right? So this has got to be it. We’ve been through everything – snow, rain, hail. I don’t think I’ve been through something like this,” he said. “Today at one point, it was pretty bad out there. We walked out of the dugout and it was kind of orange. They did the right thing. They got all the information.

“I’m assuming if Major League Baseball is comfortable setting up a doubleheader tomorrow, they have some type of information that it should be better than what it is today, or at least safe.”

In Philadelphia, the Phillies beat the Tigers 1-0 on Tuesday night in a game played in hazy conditions with the smell of smoke in the air. Afterward, manager Rob Thomson and his Phillies players said the conditions didn’t affect them.

About a half-hour before Wednesday’s postponement, Thomson said he thought the game would be played. But the Philadelphia skyline could not be seen from the ballpark in the afternoon, and the smoky smell remained.

Minor league teams nearby also changed plans. The Yankees’ Triple-A affiliate at Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in Pennsylvania, and the Mets’ top farm club in Syracuse, New York, postponed their games for the second consecutive night.

The Mets’ High-A affiliate in Brooklyn completed a game Wednesday against Greenville that began at 11 a.m.

The WNBA called off a game between the Minnesota Lynx and New York Liberty, saying the decision was made to “protect the health and safety of our fans, teams and community.” A makeup date wasn’t immediately announced.

Even inside Barclays Center at the morning shootaround, reporters could smell smoke in the arena.

The NWSL postponed Orlando’s match at Gotham in Harrison, New Jersey, from Wednesday night to Aug. 9.

“The match could not be safely conducted based on the projected air quality index,” the NWSL said.

At nearby Belmont Park, the New York Racing Association said training went on as planned Wednesday ahead of Saturday’s Triple Crown horse race. However, NYRA canceled training Thursday morning at Belmont and Saratoga Race Course upstate “due to poor air quality conditions forecast to impact New York State overnight and into Thursday morning.”

NYRA said a decision about Thursday’s live racing program, scheduled to begin at 3:05 p.m., will be made Thursday morning “following a review of the air quality conditions and forecast.”

“NYRA utilizes external weather services and advanced on-site equipment to monitor weather conditions and air quality in and around Belmont Park,” spokesman Patrick McKenna said Wednesday. “Training was conducted normally today, and NYRA will continue to assess the overall environment to ensure the safety of training and racing throughout the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival.”

New York’s NFL teams, the Giants and Jets, both had Wednesday off from offseason workouts. The Giants had been planning to practice inside Thursday, and the Jets said they are also likely to work out indoors Thursday.

Youth sports in the area were also affected, with parents quick to voice concern about their children’s safety outdoors.

In a statement Wednesday, the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association said schools should understand that all schedules were subject to change.

“NJSIAA is closely monitoring air quality data across New Jersey and local/state health advisories. As start times for athletic events draw near, we will make decisions for each venue and sport based on currently available information,” the organization said.

It’s not the first time in recent years that wildfires forced changes to the MLB schedule. A two-game series in Seattle between the Mariners and Giants was moved to San Francisco in September 2020 because of poor air quality caused by West Coast wildfires.

About an hour after Wednesday night’s game at Yankee Stadium was postponed, two fans visiting on vacation from Vancouver, British Columbia, were still lingering outside the ballpark.

“It’s just circumstances. What do I say? It makes me disappointed because this is one of the highlights of the trip,” said Malcolm, who was in town with his daughter and didn’t want to give his last name.

“I have a heart condition. That’s the only reason I’m wearing two masks and whatever. And my personal thought is that, why wasn’t it canceled two days ago? Because we knew about all this two days ago. But having said that, I don’t want the players running around and putting out in this, too. It can’t be good for them.”