re: Will New NCAA Baseball Rule on HBP Help/Hurt LSU

I've spoken with an SEC umpire and his general rule is if the batter is crowded over the plate and the pitch is thrown near the plate, he would expect the batter to move away.

However, if the pitch is so far out of the zone that it would travel through the batter's box, he'd call the HBP.

Basically, he would reward a pitcher for having control and penalize him for throwing way out of the strike zone.