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[QUOTE="Cowtown, post: 2926250, member: 2350"]
[URL="https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-sports-11e36724-b04b-4738-83f7-21b3e75070fe.html"]Axios Sports[/URL]

In an attempt to speed up our national pastime, Major League Baseball has embarked on a crusade against sluggishness in recent years, implementing new rules that limit things like mound visits and instant replays.

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[*]And this season, there is a "real possibility" that we could see the introduction of a 20-second pitch clock, ESPN's Jeff Passan reports.
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Why that might not matter: What if these rule changes are targeting the wrong thing? What if the real culprit here isn't the time being wasted between pitches, but rather the result of those pitches? What if the real culprit is ... foul balls?

By the numbers: Over the last 20 years, the number of foul balls has increased by 11.98%. To put it another way: there were almost 14,000 more foul balls in 2018 than there were in 1998.

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[*]The shocking truth: Things have gotten so out of hand that there were actually more foul balls than balls put in play in each of the past two seasons. No wonder you left in the 6th inning...
[*]The big picture: There were 26,313 more pitches thrown in 2018 than in 1998, which is the equivalent of adding 88 games to the schedule. And roughly half of that growth can be attributed to foul balls, according to FiveThirtyEight.
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