MLB likely to implement 18-second pitch clock with runners on base in 2024: Sources

Major League Baseball will likely reduce the pitch clock to 18 seconds from 20 with runners on base next year, major-league sources confirmed Wednesday. In 2023, the first season of the pitch clock, MLB reduced the average time of a nine-inning game by 24 minutes, down from 3 hours, 4 minutes. One is that game times grew gradually longer as the season went on, as players adapted to ways to control the pitch clock. Players actually would prefer a uniform clock, where the time between pitches was the same on every pitch — so an 18-second limit, both with runners on base and nobody on, would likely be their preference, sources said.