We’re almost three hours into game three of the World Series, and the game is only in the top of the eighth inning. With the Dodgers leading the Yankees 4-0, imagine how long this game would be taking without a pitch clock and the three batter reliever rule.
The Rockies became the first team to win a game on a walk-off pitch clock violation:
Ryan McMahon drew a bases-loaded walk on a full-count pitch clock violation by Kyle Finnegan as the Colorado Rockies scored two runs in the ninth inning for an 8-7 victory over the Washington Nationals on Saturday night.
It was the first game decided by a pitch clock violation in major league history. Nationals closer Finnegan leads the league with nine pitch clock violations this season.
“I’m just trying to focus on the pitch and then location,” Finnegan said. “I thought I picked up the clock. I guess by the time I picked up and looked at the catcher and delivered the pitch, I was just a hair too late. Those situations, it just can’t happen. We deserved to win, and I wasn’t able to do my job.”
ESPN.com
If you know you have trouble tracking the clock, and the game is on the line, maybe a pitcher should a third point of focus?
Kiri Oler at FanGraphs proposes an innings tax to reduce pitcher velocity:
My proposal also incorporates a roster limit on pitchers, but extends the theory behind it in a more targeted manner to protect pitchers with the previously alluded to use tax.
Say every pitcher, regardless of role, starts the season with an allotment of 180 innings (roughly the median IP for qualified starters over the last three seasons), but the 180-inning cap only kicks in if a pitcher throws more than 15 pitches over 95 mph. Meaning pitchers who pride themselves on eating innings can still aim for 200, if they are willing to keep their velo in the mid to lower 90s. Once a pitcher logs 15 pitches harder than 95 mph, the 180-inning cap goes into effect (including innings already thrown on the season). The first 15 pitches act as a buffer, a few freebies doled out to every pitcher so there’s some room for error before any innings tax is imposed. From that point forward, for every three pitches thrown over 95 mph, the pitcher loses an inning from the initial allotment of 180. Under this rule a pitcher who makes 30ish starts can deploy three heaters that top 95 mph per outing and still throw 155 innings while averaging five-plus innings per start. Meanwhile, relievers who don’t need to worry about throwing at least 150 innings, can reach back for their high octane stuff four to six times per inning as leverage dictates, and still carry a workload of 60 to 80 innings.
FanGraphs.com
I like this idea, as I like solutions that provide an incentive without forcing anyone to change. I thought speeding up pitchers could be done with bonuses to those who worked quickly, allowing high earning veterans to keep their pace.
I would add that any reduction in pitch velocity should come with batters required to swing heavier bats, so the game doesn’t get too out of whack.
Game times are down a minute compared to April of last season. I’m not sure the two fewer seconds with men on base made the difference:
The major league batting average of .239 is down from .249 through the first month last season following the implementation of limits on defensive shifts. The average finished at .248 last year.
Chron.com
As followers of this blog are aware, all aspects of offense are down, and lower scoring games tend to go a bit faster.
In the top of the sixth inning in Milwaukee, Aaron Judge of the Yankees walked to start the inning. Alex Verdugo then hit a double play grounder. Judge slid properly into second base, but held up his sliding mitt hand and deflected the throw, allowing Verdugo to reach base. Milwaukee asked for clarification, the umpires gathered, and they let the play stand.
Was this interference? There seem to be two rules at work here. The first is the slide rule.
When sliding into a base in an attempt to break up a double play, a runner has to make a “bona fide slide.” Such is defined as the runner making contact with the ground before reaching the base, being able to reach the base with a hand or foot, being able to remain on the base at the completion of the slide (except at home plate) and not changing his path for the purpose of initiating contact with a fielder. The slide rule prohibits runners from using a “roll block” or attempting to initiate contact with the fielder by elevating and kicking his leg above the fielder’s knee, throwing his arm or his upper body or grabbing the fielder. When a violation of the slide rule occurs, the offending runner and the batter-runner will be called out.
Accidental contact can occur in the course of a permissible slide, and a runner will not be called for interference if contact is caused by a fielder being in the runner’s legal pathway to the base.
MLB.com
Judge’s slide looked legal to me.
The other rule has to to with interference:
(f) if, in the judgment of the umpire, a base runner willfully and deliberately interferes with a batted ball or a fielder in the act of fielding a batted ball with the obvious intent to break up a double play, the ball is dead. The umpire shall call the runner out for interference and also call out the batter-runner because of the action of the runner. In no event may bases be run or runs scored because of such action by a runner;
Baseballrulesacademy.com
Now, technically, Judge did not interfere with a batted ball. Nor did he interfere with the fielder.
I can’t find a rule that says you can’t block a thrown ball. If someone else has a rule that applies that, please let me know.
The Yankees went on the score seven runs in that innings, and now lead the Brewers 15-5 in the top of the ninth inning.
Update: The umpires said they missed the call. The play was not reviewable.
With two out in the bottom of the ninth in a game between the Mariners and the Rockies in Denver, catcher Jacob Stallings launched a ball to the wall in leftfield. At first, it looked like Seattle leftfielder Dylan Moore knocked the ball back into the park, Stallings reaching second on a double. There was some question, however, and it’s not clear if Bud Black asked for the review or the umpires took it upon themselves.
The replay showed that the ball hit a fan first, but the fan was reaching over and seemed to make contact with Moore. After a long review, the fan was called for interference, and Stallings was out. I think it was a good call.
The Mariners scored the first run of the game as they bat in the top of the tenth. Opponents shutout the Rockies in three of their last five games.
Update: Rockies score two runs in the bottom of the tenth to win game one of the doubleheader. No word if Gideon’s Bible had any hand in the Rockies revival.
MLBPA chief Tony Clark spoke on a number of issues, and seems to come down against the change to the pitch clock:
“That’s a conversation that should have warranted a much longer dialogue than what we had,” Clark said Saturday. “We voiced those concerns, players voiced those concerns, and yet, the push through of the change to the pitch clock still happened.”
…
Clark’s main concern is that pitchers have less time between pitches to recover, particularly when maximum effort and pitch velocity are so important.
“When fatigue happens, you’re more susceptible to injury,” Clark said. “We’re seeing a lot of injuries and we’re seeing them in a way that simply can’t remove the question of whether or not shortening recovery time is in anyone’s best interest.”
Chron.com
He is also very concerned that the Athletics situation regarding a location for 2025 is not resolved.
Chris Bassitt complains about pitchers needing to work even faster with runners on base. MLB is dropping the time to deliver the ball to the plate from 20 seconds to 18 seconds. Note that Bassitt doesn’t complain about the pitch clock change directly, he puts his complaint in the context of the first derivative:
“I mean, the fact that we’re changing rules yet again … when is this going to stop?” Bassitt said on a rainy Sunday at the Jays’ player development complex. “We just need consistency in our game and the officials are just not providing that at all.
“We’re yet again having to learn new rules. So hopefully in 2025 we stop doing this charade.”
TorontoSun.com
In terms of pace with men on base, Bassitt needed to make a big adjustment in 2023. While he worked decently fast with the bases empty before the rule change, he worked about five to six seconds slower with men on base. In 2023, that difference dropped to three seconds slower. I suspect Bassitt liked the time to think about the situation, the time to study base runners, and so forth. A lot of players must believe they get an advantage by slowing the game down.
It’s one reason baseball might have been better off going for a monetary rewards system to speed up the game. The batters and pitchers who came in under a 20 second pace would receive rewards in the millions of dollars. That would be a big deal to someone making the league minimum, while a veteran like Bassitt could decide to keep a slow pace in runners on base situations, since his contract is already large. With luck, the young players who take advantage of the bonuses would keep the faster pace going throughout their careers, and the need for the incentive would wane over time.
Andrew McCutchen provided a leading voice in bringing stricter enforcement to the obstruction rules:
“I had a lot to do with that,” McCutchen said with a smile.
“If I’m stealing a base, a guy can pretty much throw his whole body in front of the base to stop me from getting there. There’s no rule that says he can’t. I feel like it was pretty important, that there needs to be some language in there that speaks on that so guys aren’t getting hurt on both sides — defense or offense.
“I think it’s a good thing. We’ll see what happens.”
Post-Gazette.com
Good for McCutchen. He asked questions and spoke to the right people to try to make a change for the better.
Major League Baseball decided to strictly enforce a part of the obstruction rule that players exploited:
Obstruction is defined as the act of a fielder who, while not in possession of the ball and not in the act of fielding the ball, impedes the progress of any runner. The league is focused on the latter part of the rule as it believes infielders are blocking runners’ paths to the bag under the guise of fielding the ball from a teammate.
The enhanced enforcement of the rule, which is already on the books, will mostly impact plays around second and third base. The most common infraction is when a middle infielder puts his lower leg on the ground to block the runner’s path to second, sometimes leading to hand or ankle injuries depending on how a runner slides. A common infraction at third base involves an infielder moving up the line to block a runner’s path as he receives the ball from an outfielder.
Umpires have been instructed to call the runner safe due to obstruction unless the infielder must move into the path of the runner to receive the ball.
ESPN.com
The article notes that this practice rose after rules to prevent collisions around the bases went into effect. Since the runners are not allowed to slide in a way to discourage the practice, the umpires will need to enforce the rule better.
Players found ways to slow the game down as the 2023 season progressed under the new rules, so MLB is taking steps to counter that:
Major League Baseball’s competition committee approved several rule changes for the 2024 season, including subtracting two seconds from the pitch timer with men on base — from 20 to 18 seconds — while also widening the runner’s lane to first.
Previously, batters had to essentially run on the dirt between the foul line and 3-foot line or be in risk of being called out for interference. Now, that lane will extend to the cut of the infield grass. The distance between the foul line and the infield grass will be between 18 and 24 inches in all parks, with some limited grace periods granted by MLB due to difficulty in modifying the field.
The rest of the changes for 2024 relate to the pace of the game as the league tries to trim time on the margins. MLB said the average nine-inning game increased by seven minutes from April to September last year, the first season with a pitch clock.
ESPN.com
For example, pitchers were delaying the start of the clock by walking around the mound. In 2024, the pitcher having the ball is enough to start the clock, even if the pitcher is not on the mound.
I’m very glad MLB is fighting back against this I suspect if they had not, games would be up another seven minutes by the end of the 2024 season.
MLB is considering rules that would prevent the kind of waiver wire salary dump the Angels executed in 2023 to get under the luxury tax threshold. :
While baseball executives with other teams understood the strategy — and some agreed with the Angels’ decision to offload as much salary as possible — there was some queasiness within the industry about this becoming a regular late-season practice for failing teams, with a flood of established players suddenly being given away, sources told ESPN.
The issue was discussed at the GM meetings in November, sources told ESPN, and it was decided then that more data was needed — at least another season of evidence, to determine whether the Angels’ salary dump was precedent for more of the same by other teams, or if the Angels’ waiver choices in 2023 were a one-off event.
ESPN.com
If it winds up working, it won’t be a one-off event. The problem, of course, is that people will game the system, and the more complex the system the more creative they will get at finding flaws they can exploit. The answer may be less rules, not more, but that’s now how organizations tend to work.
David Laurila talks hitting with Tigers outfield prospect Justice Bigbie. One of the more interesting parts of the conversation contains this bit on velocity training (emphasis added):
Laurila: How high do you dial up the velocity?
Bigbie: “So, in the offseason I’ve kind of mapped out my hitting program… maybe not program, but how I plan to operate. I’ll start with a normal BP fastball for the first couple of weeks, kind of getting back into things — getting my swing back underneath me — and then I’ll kind of crank it up a little more. With the baseballs, you can crank it up to the low-to-mid-90s, depending on how far you are from the machine. You can scoot up a little bit and have it closer than the 60 feet, six inches that the mound would be.
“This past year, I started using the foam balls, just so it doesn’t hurt your hands as much off the machine. I mean, you can crank that thing up to where it’s close to 100, or even 101-102, depending on where you’re at in terms of reaction time.”
FanGraphs.com
Earlier in the discussion he talked about failing a lot in the cage against high velocities. Part of that failure is missing the sweet spot of the bat, which causes the vibrations that hurt the hands.
One way we learn is through positive and negative feedback. Missing the sweet spot is negative feedback, and should push batters toward doing things that avoid the vibrations. Modern players, however, don’t get the full feedback as batting gloves dampen those vibrations. Batting gloves make the sweet spot a bit bigger in terms of what the batter feels, not necessarily in terms of how the ball reacts off the bat. The gloves allow the batter to swing harder against high velocities, helping to lead to more home runs and more strikeouts.
Would a simple banning of batting gloves help reduce two of the three true outcomes? One would think that the true negative feedback from missing the sweet spot might lead to shorter swings aimed at meeting the ball on the sweet spot. One would hope that would lead to more line drives into the outfield for hits, and more hard hit ground balls through the infield. Some great batters might even try directing the ball, a la Ty Cobb.
I suspect this would lead to a huge fall in offense the first season implemented, and that is probably something MLB doesn’t want to see. Luckily, the league is now in the habit of testing rules in the minors, so we would get some idea of the long term effect if this was implemented for three years at AA, with it sliding up to AAA and then the majors eventually. That would train the upcoming generation. It could even be like the hockey helmet rule, where veteran players allowed not to wear helmets if they were more comfortable without them. It’s something worth investigating.
Baseball United, a organization trying to popularize the sport in Asia, introduced a rule for their All-Star tournament that led to Pablo Sandoval hitting a six-run homer:
Throughout the game, there are occasional “moneyballs” that are put in play. If a home run is hit off of a moneyball, then it counts for twice as much as it normally would have.
Yardbarker.com
I like the concept of this rule, that randomly adjusting the value of an outcome can change the frequency of that outcome. For all the good the 2023 rule changes accomplished, strikeouts, walks, and home runs were all up in in 2023. The majors added more non-home run hits to the mix, but the game continues to evolve toward a three-true outcome battle.
If MLB truly wants fewer of these outcomes, MLB needs to devalue these outcomes. They could set the value of a home run randomly before a game. Make a dice role part of the exchange of lineup cards:
The league may or may wish this to occur before lineups are set so managers can take advantage of the rule of the day, but waiting for the lineups to be set forces the manager to take all the possibilities into account.
The days when home runs are a single may lead to fewer strikeouts. Power hitters might try to make more contact than swinging with all their might to blast the ball out of the park
With walks, I believe we need to devalue the defensive element of the outcome. Pitchers use walks to avoid certain hitters, so that can be taken away by making walks randomly worth two bases instead of one. That way a walk cannot be used to set up a double play, and with two men on, the walk would force a run home. With men on second and third and two out with a three-run lead, you still walk Barry Bonds, but few batters are Barry Bonds.
At some point, MLB will move to cut down on the three-true outcomes. This might be a fun way to do it.
Tom Tango analyzes the new pickoff rule (and all the other rules, too) as he tries to develop the game theory used by batters and pitchers to decide when to throw to the base and when to run. A couple of things stood out for me. First of all, the problem of teams gaming/abusing rules came into play. Tango uses an example from ice hockey:
In the NHL, coaches would sometimes delay games as a tactic, as allowed by rule. This was done by swapping goalies. Swapping goalies was reserved for two things, in its history: poor play of the goalie and injury to goalie. And, like with relievers entering a game, as a courtesy, the new goalie got to warm up. Until one coach decided to swap goalies back and forth to get a defacto timeout. The referees would always allow the goalie warmup each time, though it became apparent quickly that this was getting out of hand. The NHL put a stop to it by eliminating ALL goalie warmups. If you can’t police yourself, then the league will came in with a zero-tolerance policy.
TangoTiger.com
Pitchers using pickoffs as a delaying tactic could get out of hand. I often wondered if pitchers who executed multiple pick-off attempts were simply afraid to pitch to the batter.
Second, STATS, Inc. found in the early 1990s that the first pick-off attempt was the one that mattered, and that was true in the 2010s as well:
Let’s describe all this in terms of run per 1000 opportunities. In the 2010-2022 time period, the baserunner was at almost exactly 0 runs (-0.1 runs), when no prior pickoff was attempted. He was at -0.6 runs with at least one prior pickoff. So, the pickoffs worked for the pitcher.
We had known for three decades that throws to first base after an initial attempt were a time waster. While the pitch clock rule sped up the game tremendously, reigning in pick-off attempts helped a good bit also.
There is so much more excellent analysis in the article, I hope you read the whole thing.
There is no ghost runner in the post season!
Update: Jose Leclerc of the Rangers retires the Diamondbacks in order in the top of the tenth inning.
Update: Nathaniel Lowe of the Rangers leads off the bottom of the tenth with a walk against Kyle Nelson of the Diamondbacks. Lowe reaches base for the first time in the game.
Update: Josh Jung hits into a double play.
Update: Leody Taveras walks with two out.
Update: Marcus Semien singles on the first pitch to bring up Corey Seager.
Update: Seager gets ahead 2-0, then grounds out to second, and this one goes to 11. The teams are tied at five.
The Mets get a win and the Marlins get a loss after the suspended game was not completed on Monday:
Major League Baseball, after consulting the Elias Sports Bureau, said Wednesday the score reverted to 1-0 under 7.02 (b) (4) (A) of the Official Baseball Rules, which deals with suspended games.
“If one team is ahead, the team that is ahead shall be declared the winner (unless the game is called while an inning is in progress and before the inning is completed, and the visiting team has scored one or more runs to take the lead, and the home team has not retaken the lead, in which case the score upon the completion of the last full inning shall stand,)” the rule states.
ESPN.com
I am awaiting an update to the Day by Day Database. If I were the commissioner, I would have let the game stand as a no decision with the top of the ninth’s stats counting.
The pitch clock brought game times down to two hours and forty minutes on average in 2023:
There were nine 3½-hour games, down from a record 390 in 2021.
ESPN.com
The Major League Baseball Players Association opposed the implementation of the clock. From reading the article, batters seem to like it more than the pitchers. Fans appear to love it. It will be nice to get to bed at a decent hour even if World Series games start after 8 PM eastern time.
MLB will use neutral clock operators in the post season:
MLB evaluated each team’s clock operators during the regular season and said Friday it will select up to a dozen of the best performers for postseason games, which start Oct. 3. A clock operator cannot work a postseason game involving the team whose games the operator times during the regular season.
ESPN.com
Leroy Anderson could not be reached for comment.
I paid attention to the Padres at the Phillies over the last two days, watching parts of both the home and away broadcasts on Friday, and then listening to parts of both ends of the doubleheader as I drove around New England on Saturday. The theme that ran through all of these broadcasts was the poorly called strike zone. This wasn’t the usual, “I don’t agree with the umpire’s zone, but at least he’s consistent,” gripe. This was, “That ball was three inches off the plate and called a strike,” combined with, “that pitch was over the heart of the plate and called a ball.” I know that can happen with one game, an umpire having a bad night. This came from three different home plate umpires over two days, and three broadcasts all picking up on the same thing.
Toward the end of the day on Saturday, one of the radio announcers suggested we get rid of the box (on the screen) and just let umpires call their own zones again. I am not opposed to that, as the feed back from batters and pitchers can lead to umpires calling the organically negotiated zone both sides want, as happened in the 1990s. While I did not like it at the time, it may be that the rule book changing to the reality of the called zone might be a better outcome than the rule book strike zone being imposed on the game.
The MLBPA wants tweaks to the pitch clock in the post-season:
“I don’t think there are too many folks that want to have a new rule affect a game in a pennant chase or in the playoffs,” MLBPA executive director Tony Clark said Tuesday. “There are adjustments that can be beneficial.”
Soon after Clark spoke with reporters on the subject, Manfred was asked if there was a chance that MLB would tweak the current rules, which allow for 15 seconds between pitches when the bases are empty and 20 seconds when runners are on.
“In general, I think you ought to play the postseason the way you play the regular season,” Manfred said. “We are comfortable the way the clock and the violations — particularly late in the game, in high-leveraged situations — have been managed.”
ESPN.com
I’m with Manfred here. I’m looking forward to getting to bed on time this post-season.
If MLB is going to automate ball and strike calls like this, I am totally against the system:
At first, the robots were programmed to call a two-dimensional zone at the front of the plate, and MLB also experimented with a three-dimensional zone. This year, the ABS calls strikes solely based on where the ball crosses the midpoint of the plate, 8.5 inches from the front and the back.
MLB reduced the top of the zone to 51% of a batter’s height from 56%.
“The two-dimensional zone has minimized the number of pitches that feel wrong to people, particularly when it’s at the middle of the plate because you’re not catching quite as many of those breaking balls down and also those balls that clip the back of the plate,” Sword said. “We like the two-dimensional nature of it.
“It also allows whatever zone we use on the field to match the representations of the zone that we provide to fans and players and coaches and everybody else. But the specifics of what two-dimensional shape you use and what the dimensions of that shape are, I think are still in flux.”
Chron.com
So pitchers won’t be able to drop a curve ball into the back of the strike zone for a strike? That’s ludicrous and ridiculous.
The idea shouldn’t be to please fans, it should be to get the calls right.
The article also discuses that umpires call more of an oval zone than a rectangular zone, and they may need to adjust the robot for that.
I will also note that over the years I have come to believe that MLB might be better off with a less stringent strike zone. In the 1990s, the strike zone shrunk top to bottom, but expanded left to right. Batters no longer wanted to swing at high strikes, and pitchers wanted more of the edges to compensate. Baseball eventually adjusted the rules to that reality, but started enforcing that zone. Had they not enforced the zone, the area called a strike might have changed again as the game evolved. Letting the batters, pitchers, and umpires set the zone based on conditions of the game may lead to the best outcome for the sport.
San Diego suffered the same fate as Texas a day earlier, when an out at the plate gets overturned by replay, as the crew in New York decided Gary Sanchez blocked the plate. You can find the video here. Once again, the throw was as much at fault as the catcher:
“The throw took [Sanchez] up the line,” Melvin said. “Based on where he started, it looked like they showed the replay from when the throw was already on the way, and as a catcher, you have to have some feel for that. You’ve got to also understand the impact and where the runner was. To me, it was just one of the worst calls I’ve seen this year.”
Sabol knew quickly that something was amiss on the play,
“I was running as hard as I could,” Sabol said. “I was trying to avoid a collision there. I feel like I didn’t even have a chance to touch [the plate]. That was a big, big challenge for us.”
ESPN.com
Once again, the catcher had the ball before the runner reached him. While Blake Sabol didn’t have a clear lane to the plate, he would have had plenty of room to run around Sanchez if the throw was late. The play loomed large in the 4-2 Giants win.
Sorry I missed this post on Monday. A combination of COVID time warping and the development of grandpa brain took it’s toll.
I did want to mention that week eleven turned out to be high scoring at 9.51 runs per game, off from the highest scoring week of the season by a tiny bit. The higher number of runs was due to not home run hits coming in at 15.0 per game, the highest of any week this season.
I bring that up because David Laurila is running a poll:
I voted no. Overall, non-home runs hits are up just 0.2 per game. All three true outcomes are up as much or more. Balls are finding holes, but there are fewer balls in play to find holes.
If MLB had been able to keep the K rate low, I would feel differently. Pitchers compensated for the reduced shifts by simply striking out more batters.
David Laurila notes:
Games between the Red Sox and the Yankees at one time defined slowness. Speeding up those two teams might be the greatest achievement of the various timers.
David Laurila at FanGraphs interviews starting pitchers about the differences from last season working with a pitch clock. Note that he speaks to rather good pitchers, and Shane Bieber‘s response was typical:
But for me, personally, I’m not finding much of a difference. I work pretty quick, especially without runners on. Last year, I think I was the second fastest without runners on base.
FanGraphs.com
Good pitcher work fast.
I hope Laurila does the same question for relievers. Maybe he could identify the slowest working relievers from last season and see how they reacted to the clock.
A friend sent me this video of the conversations after Noah Syndergaard of the Mets threw behind Chase Utley of the Dodgers the year after Utley broke Ruben Tejada‘s leg with a slide in the playoffs. That led to the institution of the Utley rule about sliding at the bag instead of at the fielder.
While there is plenty of profane language, the most interesting thing came from the Mets arguing they should have been warned, instead of the pitcher and manager Terry Collins finding themselves ejected. Basically, the Mets tried to game the system. If they threw early, then both sides would get a warning and the Dodgers couldn’t retaliate. MLB thought ahead on this, as the umpire basically tells the Mets that the league would come down on the umps if they didn’t take action. It’s an example of how a rule that is meant to decease throwing at batter could actually increase that happening.
Players, mangers, and front offices are always looking for loopholes to get an edge. That why rules should be kept simple and direct. These groups will not follow the spirit of the rules.
MLB issued a clarification of the batter set rule in regards to the pitch timer in the wake of Willson Contreras causing two quick-pitch calls against Kenley Jansen.
From now on, when a batter gets into a hitting position and engages with the pitcher, with one or both feet out of the box, he’ll be warned and then assessed a strike on subsequent violations, according to the memo.
Chronic offenders will be subject to further discipline by the commissioner’s office. Teams were informed in early March that pitchers were prohibited from quick pitching, while this clarification restricts batters from inducing such action.
Pitchers must continue to be aware of the position of the batter and identify when he is “appropriately” in the batter’s box and alert to the pitcher before the pitcher begins the windup or comes set, according to the memo.
ESPN.com
I have been rather impressed with MLB quickly adjusting to players attempting to game the pitch-clock rule. The spirit of the rule is to speed the game along, not to invent ways to induce the other player to do something wrong.
Houston Astros starter Luis Garcia needs Tommy John surgery:
A date for Garcia’s surgery has not been set, and the Astros said that he is expected to return at some point during the 2024 season.
“That’s a tremendous blow. I mean, I was praying that it was something different, something minor,” manager Dusty Baker said after Houston’s 6-4 win over the Mariners on Friday. “You’re always afraid of that when it’s in the elbow.”
Garcia, 26, was placed on the 15-day injured list this week. He left Monday’s start against the San Francisco Giants after just eight pitches with elbow discomfort.
ESPN.com
MLB forced Garcia to change his delivery this season due to the pitch clock:
The Astros were informed in December by Major League Baseball that Garcia’s signature windup — in which he rocks his arms back and forth, then takes one step forward and one step backward before delivering the ball — would no longer be legal under the new pitch timer rules.
The new rule states a pitcher must have a clear point to begin his delivery in order to stop the pitch timer, and Garcia’s multiple steps and arm motions don’t provide that. The rule says the pitcher is permitted to take one step back (or laterally) and one step forward. Thus, taking multiple steps before lifting the free leg is now deemed an illegal pitch movement.
MLB.com
I suspect there will be plenty of speculation about the pitch clock and elbows. There have been quite a few elbow injuries lately, but that seems to be the case every year.
Here’s a breakdown of how the new rules changed the game in through April:
The biggest noticeable impact has been when games are ending. Average time of a nine-inning game is 2 hours, 37 minutes, down from 3:05 at the same point last year.
…
Boosted by new rules designed to speed play and increase action, stolen bases rose 40% to their highest level in nearly a quarter-century and scoring increased by 1.1 runs per game.
…
The big league batting average was .248 through 425 games. Lefties hit .247, up from .229 through April last year. Righties are hitting .250, an increase from .234.
Lefty batting average on balls in play went up nine points to .292 and righty BABIP rose seven points to .302.
Chron.com
So far so good. I am still a bit flummoxed that major league batters could not figure out how to beat shifts without the new rules.