Should MLB playoff games be earlier? Are long games actually bad? TV analysts weigh in on baseball postseason
averaging three hours and 10 minutes.
Now that we’ve reached the postseason, games have the potential to last even longer – with additional commercial time for the television networks and more pitching changes by the playoff teams with so much on the line.
However, the playoffs also mean more drama – and longer games aren’t necessarily a bad thing, according to Baseball Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez.
“Just because it’s the postseason and we are having the best teams out there go compete makes it fun. … So the games don’t seem to be as long,” Martinez said on a conference call Tuesday to kick off TBS’s coverage of the National League playoffs.
“And also, because the better teams are the ones playing, the mistakes are less. So you figure that the game is going to be a little shorter and a lot more fun.”
Martinez, along with former players-turned-analysts Jimmy Rollins and Curtis Granderson and host Ernie Johnson Jr., will be in the TBS studio before and after every NL playoff game this postseason, starting with Wednesday’s NL wild-card clash between the Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals.
Those long games could keep the studio crew up late on game nights, but Granderson sees a possible solution to that issue.