Manfred reiterates desire to implement pitch clocks

Rob Manfred hasn't changed his stance on pitch clocks in MLB.

The baseball commissioner has been vocal in the past about his intention to speed up the sport in order to draw in younger fans, previously throwing his support behind a pitch clock to limit a pitcher's downtime between pitches.

While the idea has yet to feature in the big leagues, baseball successfully introduced pitch clocks in the minors last season, a point Manfred makes in his argument for possible big-league implementation.

"The reason I like the clock is not that I'm looking to force somebody to do something, but I think it is a constant reminder of the need to move things along," he told the New York Daily News' John Harper, "and I think that's really important in terms of dealing with the pace-of-play issues.

"It's had great results in the minor leagues. Quantitative data shows that it made the games go faster, but equally important, players don't complain about it. They get used to it and they work within it."

Along with capping a pitcher's rest, Manfred has also looked to limit the number of relievers a manager can call upon in an inning, though he's treading more cautiously on that front due to a direct impact on the game itself.

"I don't want to pre-judge these issues. The easiest things to deal with are dead time," he said. "How much time does it take a batter to get into the box? How much time is there between pitches? How much time does it take to effectuate a pitching change? There are lots of things around the concept of a pitching change. How quickly does the guy get in from the bullpen? How many warmup pitches does he need?

"Those are all non-competitive things. When you get into dictating the use of a particular kind of player that affects the competition more directly, you have to go slower."