You learn something new every day.

Here are some things I learned from MLB Chief Baseball Officer Joe Torre when he and Commissioner Bob Manfred addressed the media Tuesday at the Glendale Civic Center.

Deadening dead time: While everyone talks about pace-of-game changes as a way to shorten games, the new six-mound-visit limit isn’t expected to accomplish that.

“I used to get calls from Commissioner (Bud) Selig, ‘Why do the Yankees and Red Sox play such long games?’” Torre said. “It was all strategy. I said ‘Commissioner, nobody left the ballpark.’ It’s the dead time. I don’t think it’s the length of game as much as it’s the time when nothing happens.”

Well, Selig wasn’t wrong, was he?

“We did play some long ballgames,” Torre said. “It was like World War III all the time.”

Slow-mo arrives: Torre said the average time from a manager’s challenge to the umpires’ decision last season was 1 minute, 20 seconds. This year every replay room will be equipped with slow-mo, which I had assumed everyone had before.

“That’ll help speed things up,” he said.

Of course. They should’ve been equipped with slow-mo from the get-go.

Details, details: Catchers can still talk to pitchers from the infield grass without going to the mound for a visit, and they can talk behind the plate after pitchers come home to cover a play.

How will managers know when an official mound visit is called so they can keep track?

Torre said the hope is to list the number of remaining visits on every video board, like timeouts in basketball. The umpires also will have a designated signal to dugouts for every official visit.

“It’s got to be pointed out,” Torre said. “I don’t want a manager surprised, ‘What do you mean I don’t have any left?’ It’s going to be acknowledged in some way.”

No relief from walk-up songs: Walk-up songs, my pet peeve, are here to stay.

I asked Torre if there was any discussion of banning the walk-up music, which I figure could save about five minutes per game because players wait until their song starts, then go to the box and adjust their gloves and finally get set when they know the last chord of their sound bite is over.

Sorry, Grandpa, but by the time David Ross got into the box to “Forever Young,” we were forever old.

“In most cases they’re walking up a little sooner,” Torre insisted. “Also we’ve talked to the people playing the music to keep it to one stanza.”

I’ll believe that when I see it.

Wheel play: When a team is preparing for a bunt, often the first baseman goes to the mound for a few seconds to make sure the pitcher knows the plan. Anthony Rizzo, for instance, likes to make a running charge toward the hitter on bunts and lets the pitcher know so he won’t be surprised. Or perhaps they’ll confirm if a wheel play is on.

That no longer will happen unless teams want to waste a visit on it.

“I had a job when I was a first baseman to go tell the pitcher during bunt plays what was the case,” Torre said. “You have to do it a different way now, unless you want to invest a trip to the mound every time you have a pitch thrown with a bunt in order, or else you’ll eat them all up. It’s just going to be a different way to do it.”

Rizzo can still charge in but he’ll have to let the pitcher know some other way.

Strikeout totals are ‘weird’: One reason the games are longer is because players are striking out more frequently instead of putting the ball in play.

“Strikeouts are not something we’re looking forward to going into ’18,” Torre said. “We want more balls in action. But again, I’m not going to tell a player how to play. I think that was just a weird happening last year.”

Not sure it’s really a “weird happening.” I think it’s more of a trend.

Get on that bus, boys: Starting March 1, teams will be monitored to ensure at least four regular players are on the traveling squads at Cactus and Grapefruit league games. MLB is allegedly cracking down on teams that let almost all of their regulars play only home games so they don’t have to drive or take the team bus to an opposing venue.

“Those teams have fans, too, that come (to games) and say, ‘What are you doing to us?’” Torre said.

It’s nothing new. The stars don’t like to be inconvenienced for meaningless games, even though the fans are paying outrageous prices to see them. And it’s a bigger problem in the Grapefruit League, where some teams have to travel several hours to get to opposing ballparks. In the Cactus League, the longest trip is generally an hour or so, depending on traffic, which is brutal in the valley.

Spring training games begin Friday, but because of the condensed time between the first full-squad workouts and the start of the exhibitions, MLB is giving teams a break on the traveling rule for the first week.

psullivan@chicagotribune.com