re: SEC adopting 3 batter min rule for pitchers, only 2 pickoffs

Also, I saw that Vandy beat writer Aria Gerson is in favor of the throw over rule. She's possibly the dumbest fricking baseball writer I've ever seen, so a good rule of thumb is that if she's for it, it sucks.

Gives the runner incredible advantages.

I like the minimum batter rule. Too many pitching changes. You bring in a pitcher for a matchup, he fails at his job and walks the batter anyway and you change pitcher again is stupid.

The pick off rule is a head scratcher imo

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increasing the size of the bases,

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I almost brought this up. I don’t know if the MLB throw over limit and the increase in size of the bases were implemented the same season, but close enough. It was the combo of those 2 things that lead to the uptick in stolen bases.

So without the bigger bases, stolen bases may not drastically increase. Or they might. College has worse catchers than the bigs (pop time and arm strength/accuracy). And college pitchers don’t have the control to be giving free balls on pitch outs like MLB guys do. And, in certain situations, like 0-2 on a hitter with a runner on 1st and after having already thrown over twice, coaches may not be as willing to call breaking balls in the dirt. Will probably see more upper fastballs to try to get guys to chase. And teams with good scouting analytics will figure out pitcher’s tendencies on when they use their pick offs. Some will save them longer and stolen base attempts may come more often BEFORE the 1st pickoff attempt than after the 2nd. Who knows. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

I agree with you that it’s not necessary at the college level, which see plenty of action already. And their intent is misguided. I’m not sure it will speed up the game much, if any at all. Hell, it could lead to some clusterfricks that could actually make games longer.

But I disagree with the takes that it gives the offense an advantage over the defense. Or an unfair one. Every team has an offense. If anything, it will help the better defensive teams, especially ones with really good catchers. And the ones who spend a little extra practice time on rundowns between 1st and 2nd with the pitcher busting his arse to 1st base after picking over and catching a guy.

And teams that self scout their tendencies and change them up. Like, if after 3 SEC starts, William Schmidt hasn’t had a pickoff attempt until after his 1st pitch in the 7-8 times he’s had a runner on 1st only, teams might start running on 1st move on 1st pitch. If we notice the tendency too, he starts throwing over before his 1st pitch with guys on that are threats to steal. Probably catches a guy or 2. Then it’s back to a guessing game and teams will go more conservative again.

But the good coaches aren’t gonna want to establish tendencies at all. All pickoffs may be called from the dugout in SEC games next year for some teams. (Relayed with pitch comm.) In the end, the better teams with the better coaches who pay fantastic attention to detail, with the better staffs, and the better players will eventually be the ones who benefit from this the most. On both offense and defense (by limiting the opponents’ offenses benefiting).

Again, we’ll just have to see. Could be a bigger deal than I originally thought. Could be a slight deal. Could be no deal at all. But the more I ramble on about it, the more I think some analytics nerd GAs we’ll never know of, might affect how this manifests on the field more than anybody. Figure out tendencies and how to exploit them and how to prevent from being exploited. And be constantly reevaluating as tendencies change. The forward thinking, cutting edge HCs should have interviews lining up for next week. The ones with MLB ties should be talking to their guys to see how they handled the 2 pickoff rule change analytically to begin that season and how they’ve adjusted with new data.

There are going to be a lot of faked injuries for the 3 batter rule.

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I’m not a big fan of any of the speed the game up rules, but if you HAVE to add something, how about the batter can’t step out of the box after every single pitch.
Two strikes, ok take a breath and step back in. Ball wizzes by your head? Yeah take a second.

No need to step out of the box and adjust your 47 different pieces of equipment after that 1-0 pitch you were never going to swing at anyway.

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None of this matters with the pitch clock.

I'm not even sure if they can step out fully anymore, but they have 12 seconds from the last pitch to be fully in the box and looking at the pitcher.

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What next a max? Minimum pitches? Little League maximum pitches?

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Pitch speed limits LOLOLOLOL.

They forget that fans of a sport want more of it. Not less. But if they're so hell bent on shortening the game then they should remove offensive timeouts

I think that there should be two or three "free" pickoff moves, and then after that a ball is awarded to the batter for each subsequent failed pickoff attempt. That allows for pitchers to still try to nail someone leaning too hard, but would stop throwing over 10x between pitches.

As for the minimum batters faced, on one hand I think it's a good way to speed up or at least not slow down the game. On the otherhand in college sometimes a pitcher straight up doesn't have it or anywhere near close to it and with this rule that means you might see a pitcher come in wild and load the bases and there's noting you can really do. Also, while it kind of sucks as a fan, in garbage time innings of nonconference play you might see a coach get a lot of back end or young arms a chance to get an appearance for experience's sake and that becomes harder with the 3 batter rule. 2 batters might make more sense.

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What next a max? Minimum pitches? Little League maximum pitches?

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I'm leaning towards runners not being allowed to leave until the ball crosses the plate...