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[QUOTE="storrsroars, post: 3931577, member: 2500"]
Pitchers were mostly fungible assets back then. Before free agency, pay wasn't much more than 2-3x the average professional worker's salary, although plenty of doctors and lawyers made more than Sandy Koufax. It's not that the fans don't clamor for it, it's that owners won't let it happen. When you start paying pitchers 100s of millions, you protect those assets. So, shorter outings, more relievers. Add the lust for analytics and you've got less first ball swinging, more takes, longer counts, longer games.

Pitches per plate appearance:
2019 = 3.93
2010 = 3.82
2000 = 3.75
1990 = 3.61 (first year measured by Baseball-Reference)

So that's .32 more pitches per plate appearance. If the average WHIP is 1.33, then that's 11-12 more pitches per game on each side, so 22-24 more pitches per game, basically like playing well into the bottom of the 10th on a daily basis compared to 30 years ago.

Obviously there's more, such as batters time out of the box, longer between inning breaks for ads, etc. But the economics of the game is a huge part of it.
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