Jeff PassanESPN18:11pm ET4 minute read
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Major League Baseball plans to emphasize enforcement of the Balk Rule in 2023 as it implements sweeping rule changes, including a pitch clock more focused on the obscure rule, league officials said Tuesday.
“We slipped a bit in the middle by labeling the rulebook as illegal pitches and barks,” MLB executive vice president of operations Morgan Sword said at a media briefing to elaborate on the rules.
The balk, designed to keep pitchers from faking runners on base, can be called by umpires for more than a dozen reasons. Balks are scored with runners only. Prohibited deliveries to empty bases are considered illegal slots. The importance of both is particularly acute with the new pitch timer rule, which mandates a pitcher throw within 15 seconds of receiving the ball with empty bases and 20 seconds with runners. If a pitcher refuses, the runners advance one base.
It is important to emphasize the delivery of legal pitches as it coincides with the start of a delivery when the pitch clock is supposed to stop. Pitchers who break the rule receive a ball as a penalty. If hitters are not in the batter’s box and face the pitcher with 8 seconds remaining on the clock, they will receive an automatic strike.
Trying to understand what makes a balk is tantamount to what makes a catch in the NFL. Umpires called 122 balks in 2022, the fewest in a full season since 1973, with some umpires being more vigilant than others. Referee John Tumpane set a major league record three bars in an at-bat during a late September game against then-Miami left-hander Richard Bleier. Bleier’s three bars tied with left-hander Will Smith for the major league lead last year.
A number of pitchers, including Houston’s Luis Garcia, Toronto’s Kevin Gausman, Boston’s Kenley Jansen and the Chicago White Sox’s Mike Clevinger, are expected to change their deliveries under the new rules.
In Garcia and Clevinger’s cases, their potential infractions come from tucking up, where they have significant movement, with Garcia swinging his arms and taking two sidesteps before throwing, and Clevinger looking like he’s dancing with his foot movement . Clock operators are supposed to turn off the pitch timer when a pitcher begins his pitch, and accordingly umpires have been told that a pitcher may take a backward or sidestep step before moving toward the plate to pitch. Gausman and Jansen’s problems have gotten out of hand. Gausman would tap his front foot and not come into a fully set position, while Jansen would sit and then shrug his front hip and leg. Outside of the set position, the clock will stop when a pitcher raises his front leg.
These are just two of the ways a pitcher can be called for a bale. If he flinches after the coming set, the umpires should call Balks. A pitcher drops the ball? Bar. Incomplete throws to bases present obstacles, as do coming sets and separating hands, and perhaps the most borderline call: when left-handed pitchers head for home plate but still trying to hit a runner from first base.
The balk would already experience a significant increase due to the new rules. One of them, restricting a pitcher to two “disengagements” during an at-bat — either pickoff moves, step-offs, or a combination of both — calls for a block if a pitcher disengages a third time and doesn’t record an out. MLB’s new edicts, which include limiting defensive moves and larger bases, will be implemented during spring training games. The new rules won’t apply to games at the World Baseball Classic, the tournament that will pit 16 countries against each other and which is expected to draw hundreds of major league players, and players involved will have to adjust to a suite of changes on the fly that people aren’t aware of in baseball as potentially transformative.
“Honestly,” Sword said, “it’s probably the biggest change made in baseball in most of our lifetimes.”
Sword said the league plans to show explanatory videos in stadiums and a special on the MLB Network to further explain the rules to fans. The league hopes spring training will give players enough time to adjust, as they did in the smaller leagues where they were tested last year. According to MLB, there were 1.73 violations per game in the second week of play using the pitch clock. By week five, that had dropped to .73, and last week, the league said, the injury rate dropped to .41 per game.
MLB’s increased emphasis on Balks has had a significant impact on past seasons. In 1988, when MLB rewrote the balk rule, the umpires called out 924 – nearly three times the number of any previous season. The balk rate was halved next season and has remained relatively stable between 122 and 182 since the turn of the century.