Baseball: The Birth of the Pitch Clock
The New MLB Rules, Part II ... by Ari Schutz
To read Schutz’s Part I: The Death of the Shift, click here.
The rule of unintended consequences is a warning against change. Fears of what cannot be anticipated—and, by extension, cannot be prepared for—haunt those who try to upset apple carts. A new policy from the government or from a company comes with unforeseen boons and hardships. Such is also the case with the addition of the pitch clock in Major League Baseball.
While the minor leagues have been using the pitch clock since 2015, this season is the first time many major league pitchers will be subject to it, and, as we have seen in a small sample, gamesmanship is already afoot.
This is not to say that the pitch clock is a bad thing. So far it has sped up games and kept the action moving as intended. Games are an average of 20 minutes faster, and there is more action. These are all good things.
The issues will begin to surface when players fully understand how to use this new weapon against each other. We are already seeing pitchers taking advantage of the clock with quick pitches or by deliberately holding the ball to force the hitter to take his only time-out, thereby giving the pitcher the ability to freeze a hitter who has no recourse. This strategy is probably just the tip of the iceberg.
From my perspective, there are advantages to be had from multiple perspectives. Pitchers have more control over the tempo of the at-bat. As mentioned, the pitcher can freeze or quick-pitch, and he gets one more “disengagement” than a hitter does—meaning, a pitcher can step off twice to the batter’s one time-out, and that number goes up to three with runners on base if a pick-off attempt is successful. (If the pick-off is not successful, a balk results, so we will probably not see much of that).
Also, the batter must be looking at the pitcher—having “eyes up”—when there are eight seconds left on the pitch clock. What constitutes “eyes up”? Say a batter is looking in the general direction of the pitcher, but he isn’t looking at the pitcher when the pitch is thrown. Can the batter call for a balk or a no-pitch? There is a lot of ground to cover here.
Another potential issue is base-stealing. This is a place where I see a major advantage for the baserunners. The rule is two throw-overs or step-offs with a third being acceptable only if it is successful. This puts a runner in a good position. If the runner provokes the pitcher into throwing over twice, then the odds of a third throw-over go down dramatically due to the low risk-reward percentage for the pitcher. Now the runner can take a bigger lead. Also, if the hitter waits until the eight-second mark to step into the box, the length of time the pitcher has to make the runner guess goes down dramatically as well. Much of the guesswork goes out the window, and the runner can feel much more comfortable going on first movement—a strategy that would result in bigger jumps and more success.
This might be what the MLB wants. Stolen bases are exciting. I still have vivid memories of the adventure it was every time Ricky Henderson was on base. But is it good if stolen bases become that much easier to accomplish? What if records start to fall because of it? Baseball is notoriously protective of its records, so we will have more asterisk debates on this issue.
The pitch clock is going to have many unintended consequences. The pitch clock is now incorporated at the highest level, with the most competitive and savviest players utilizing it. Now the often-debated and sometimes-maligned “unwritten rules” could potentially mitigate some of these issues, but that is going to depend on the pitcher and the rule. We have already seen Max Scherzer use the clock to freeze, quick-pitch, and strike out an obviously unready batter.
But then you have pitchers like Alex Manoah, who, when describing how he approached it, said, "I feel like there's still a respect factor. [Twins hitter] Tyler White blew his timeouts in both at-bats, and I could’ve pulled a Scherzer on him, but ... I think he needed to use those timeouts because I was working very fast, and he didn't have a chance to think." This is a very different sentiment than Scherzer’s. I think Ethan Diamandas, Blue Jays reporter for Yahoo Sports, summed it up best, “There are tons of variables in this equation on top of the fact that it’s spring training and players are still adjusting. But this brief trial period has made one thing clear: the pitch clock era is here to stay, and the chaos is only getting started.”
We shall see how chaotic it gets—and just how far players are going to push the envelope.