Empirical study reveals that pitch timers simplify pitch sequences and worsen pitcher performance in Major League Baseball, highlighting the cognitive costs of time pressure.
This paper revisits the relationship between time constraints and strategies in decision‐making by investigating the short‐term impact of the pitch timer rule on Major League Baseball (MLB) pitchers’ strategy. I find that the pitch timer reduces the complexity of pitching sequences. Furthermore, this reduction in complexity is subsequently associated with a decline in pitching performance in the following season. These results underscore the negative effects of time constraints on pitchers’ performance and decision‐making. This paper contributes novel empirical evidence to how rule changes and time constraints influence individual behavior in professional sports and in real‐world contexts.
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Xinyi Wang (2026) studied this question.
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