We did a study to find out.
Pace-of-play has one of the hottest topics in major league baseball. A likely rule change–it is being tested this season in minor league baseball–involves putting a runner at second at the start of extra-inning games.
Courtesy: Yahoo! Sports
My team at Casino.org was curious about how such a rule change would affect games. We conducted a study that investigated the last three years of playoff games. Here’s what we found.
Thirteen of 103 playoff games (12.6%) went to extra innings. Twelve of those 13 games would have ended with a different score, but only one game would have had a different winner–Game 2 of the 2014 NLDS.
How do fans feel about starting a runner at second base in extra-inning games? On a scale of 1 (love) to 7 (hate), fans ranked this rule 6.3. However, over 2/3 of those who responded would still watch the same number of games.
View the full analysis here.
