How MLB coaches, pitchers and hitters adapt a new strategy regarding pick-off limitations

After three years managing the Triple-A Durham Bulls — to a cumulative .589 record and consecutive Triple-A national championships in 2021 and ‘22 — Brady Williams is getting the call to the bigs this season. He’ll serve as the third-base coach for the famously savvy Tampa Bay Rays, with whom his knowledge of the organization’s up-and-coming players will serve him in deciding whether to send a guy.

He has valuable experience in assisting with the planning and execution of some of the projects. rule changes poised to go into effect at the major-league level this season. Williams saw the larger bases and nervously sweated through pressure-packed pitch times. reckoned with robo-umps (which are less than a year away) The intent of all this — along with limits on defensive positioning that were tested at lower levels — is to create a livelier game that packs more action into less time.

Williams has his own opinions about how effective the rules will be in actualizing that vision — he emailed the league to explain that umpires calling balls or strikes for clock infractions were bad for pace of play and to suggest a different penalty system — but understands that the game now is about adjusting to this new reality. And for that, he has some advice as teams prepare for a spring training that’ll be spent getting up to speed.

“For any coach, you have to coach better, honestly,” he told Yahoo Sports. “You gotta teach your players and hopefully get them more fundamentally sound with some things because the catcher and the pitcher can’t rely on the coach to call a pick-over.”

This was the section of the pitch timing system that could have strategic implications beyond the actual clock. When the timer was introduced on an experimental basis in the minor leagues, it became apparent that if pitchers could restart the clock by stepping off the rubber — to throw to first base, for instance — they would render the whole enterprise moot by doing so with abandon.

And so, along with governing the amount of time pitchers are allotted — in the majors this year, it will be 15 seconds between pitches with the bases empty and 20 seconds with runner(s) on — the rules also limit the number of times a pitcher can step off the rubber. Two “disengagements,” i.e. Pick-off attempts will be allowed for two times per at-bat If the third attempt fails, the runner is awarded second base.

MLB pitchers will have to adjust this season to a new limit on the number of pick-off attempts allowed per at-bat. (Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

MLB pitchers will need to adjust their season to allow for a lower number of pick-off attempts per at-bat. (Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images).

In accordance with Williams’ advice, several major-league managers at the winter meetings in December mused that this rule in particular would require their attention as they rethink the running game and prepare pitchers to not be taken advantage of.

“It’s on us as managers,” Brewers skipper Craig Counsell said, “to help them manage it and be better in it. There’s probably a little more strategy involved in it.”

Counsell said that Brewers This past season, they began talking to their pitchers about how to keep runners in the game without allowing for unlimited pickoffs. arsenal. “Because it’s one of those things where it’s not important, it’s not important, and then we’re going to find out one day that it’s important.”

Talk about the time it takes to get to the plate. This includes getting set up and delivering a pitch. A stolen base liability is anything more than 1.4 seconds. But, being too predictable with how long you hold the ball is also a problem.

“You’ve still got to do all that stuff that we’ve been doing for 100 years,” said Rob Wooten, a pitching coach in the Cincinnati Reds’ system, at Double-A last year and Single-A this upcoming season. “But now there’s just some rules in place that can maybe make that a little bit more interesting.”

Stolen bases bounced back ever so slightly Last season in the majors, teams stole 0.51 base per game. This was an average success rate of 75%. In the minors, pick-off rules, bigger bases and the pitch timer itself — runners were “going off the clock,” as Williams put it, or getting a jump just before it ran out — combined to see teams steal 1.1 bases per game, at a 77% success rate.

In 2019, after Lucas Giolito He turned himself into one of the worst starting pitchers in the game and became an ace. He explained what had gone wrong in 2018 for him. “Every time a guy would get on first, he was pretty much standing on second,” he told NBC Sports Chicago. “I was slow to the plate, I wasn’t varying my times, I wasn’t varying my looks.”

Those skills — a swift but unpredictable delivery — will be all the more important for pitchers in an environment more conducive to running.

“It’s more changing your looks,” Williams said. “Talking about it daily with the pitcher, about how important it is to not rush but make sure you’re under control out there. Know who’s on first base — is he going to run? Know how many steps you have. Know how important the situation is because it’s going to change over the course of the game.”

With bigger bases, limited pickoffs and a pitch timer, MLB hopes to increase the incentive for baserunners to attempt to steal in 2023. (Photo by Jeff Robinson/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

MLB hopes to increase baserunners’ incentive to steal in 2023 by offering bigger bases, fewer pickoffs, and a pitch timer. (Photo by Jeff Robinson/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

It’s not hard for pitchers to handle all of this.

“Once the pitchers slowed the game down, it got easier on them,” Williams said. “But early on? It was tough early on.”

He would only call for one pick-off attempt as a manager.

“Because I didn’t want to pick over twice and put my pitcher in harm’s way,” Williams said. “Meaning if I call two pick-overs, the pitcher is no longer allowed to step off. So if he can’t get the sign or he’s having trouble breathing or he’s just got anxiety, he can’t even do that.”

In an effort to leverage that discomfort for his own teams’ benefit, Williams told his base runners to steal right after the first throw over, assuming opposing managers would be similarly reluctant to call consecutive pick-off attempts.

Wooten then realized that pitchers should be aggressive. Third pick-off attempt.

“My thought process was in the dugout: If he’s a base stealer and we’ve already thrown over there twice, he’s going to get a good jump. So let’s see if we can’t trick him and throw over one more time,” he said. “If he gets back to the bag, so what? We give him second base. If we do get him trying to be a little too cute on that third time, then he’s out.”

The lack of disengagements should be enough to lull runners into false security. If they think the pitcher is unwilling to risk another throw over, perhaps they’ll be a little more reckless and leave themselves exposed to a successful pickoff.

“We didn’t do it enough, I’ll say that,” Wooten said. “Not one time last year did we throw over on a third attempt and it was called a balk. Every time we did it, and it was not many, he was out.”

Deciding when and how to use pick-off attempts will be a new challenge for coaches and pitchers this season. (Photo by David J. Griffin/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

This season, pitchers and coaches will have to decide when and how to use pickoff attempts. (Photo taken by David J. Griffin/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images.

This is the new version of the game. All rule changes have been carefully studied, but perhaps even more important, they force adaptation. The most successful teams anticipate how their opponents will adapt and use their experience to make their players uncomfortable.

Wooten, for instance, recognized that hitters felt the pressure from the ticking clock. He could force a reset by calling timeout only once every at-bat.

“Hitters do not like to stand in the box while the pitcher is just staring at them holding the ball, especially when he comes set,” he said. “So if a hitter calls timeout, that next pitch we’re taking that bad boy down to one second and making him stand there. You just have to take these things and figure out a way to turn it into a positive and use it to your advantage.”

Both minor-league coach said that the frequency of clock infractions as well as the overall disruptiveness of new rules has decreased throughout the season. MLB expects that. They want baseball to be faster and more exciting, not just a showcase of increasingly complex regulations. Guys will adjust, because they have to.

“I look at it as this: Pitching is so good now that our game is trying to figure out how to create more offense, more chaos,” Wooten said. “So pitchers just have to say, ‘OK, that’s how good we are. We’ll adjust this plan, too, and still be that good.’

“That’s the message that we tried to send to our players, at least.”

Follow Hannah Keyser @yahoosportsHannahRKeyser.

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