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589 record and back-to-back Triple-A national championships in 2021 and 2022 after managing the Triple-A Durham Bulls for three years, Brady-Williams is getting calls to Biggs this season . He served as the third base coach for his Rays in Tampa Bay, a notoriously savvy one, and his knowledge of the organization’s up-and-coming players helps determine whether to send players.
He also brings valuable experience with some of the rule changes that are poised to be implemented at the major league level this season. Seeing bigger bass, Williams nervously sweated the pressured pitch timers and even factored in roboamps (which would take at least a year to break into the majors). The aim of all of this is to create a more lively game packed with more action in less time, with defensive position limits tested at lower levels.
Williams has his own opinion on how effective the rule is in realizing that vision — he emailed the league that umpires who call balls and strikes for clock violations play and suggested a different penalty system — but now the game is to adapt to this new reality. And to that end, he has some advice as teams prepare for spring training, which will be spent speeding up.
“For any coach, let’s be honest, we have to coach better,” he told Yahoo Sports.. “Catchers and pitchers can’t rely on their coaches to call pickovers, so they need to teach their players to be more fundamentally sound on some things.”
He was referring to a subsection of the pitch timer that could have even more strategic implications than the clock itself. It became clear that pitchers making the whole enterprise pointless by doing it, when they can restart (e.g., to throw to first base). Abandon.
So, along with managing the amount of time allotted to pitchers, this year’s majors will have 15 seconds between pitches with bases empty and 20 seconds with runners on. Pitcher can get off the rubber. For each at-bat he is allowed two “breakaways”, or pickoff attempts. If the third pickoff attempt fails, the runner is awarded 2nd base.
Following Williams’ advice, several major league managers at the December Winter Meeting thought they needed to rethink the running game and pay particular attention to this rule in order to prepare pitchers not to be taken advantage of.
“It’s our responsibility as managers,” said Brewers skipper Craig Counsell. There’s probably a little more strategy involved. ”
Counsell said the Brewers began talking to pitchers last season about how to keep runners down without having unlimited pickoffs. “It doesn’t matter because it’s one of the things that doesn’t matter. And then one day you realize it matters.”
The pitching coach talks about the time between pitches from the next set. Anything more than 1.4 seconds is responsible for stolen bases, but the length of time in possession has also become too predictable.
“We’ve got to do everything we’ve been doing for 100 years,” said Cincinnati Reds pitching coach Rob Wooten in Double-A last year and Single-A this season. , with some rules in place that can make it a little more interesting.”
Stealing picked up slightly in the majors last season, but the team was still stealing just 0.51 bases per game, about a 75% success rate. In the minors, the pickoff he ruled, the bigger bases, and the pitch timer itself — runners, as Williams put it, were “out of time,” or were jumping right before they ran out — in total, the team It turns out he steals 1.1 bases per game. , with a success rate of 77%.
After 2019 saw Lucas Jolito transform from one of the worst starters in the game to an ace, we explained some of what went wrong for him in 2018. Second,” he told NBC Sports Chicago.
These skills – quick but unpredictable pitching – become more important for pitchers in more running environments.
“It’s about changing your appearance,” Williams said. Are you going to run? Know how many step-offs you’re taking, and know how important the situation is because it changes during the game.”
If all of this seems too much to handle for a pitcher, well, it kind of is.
“When the pitchers slowed down the game, it was easier for them,” Williams said. “But early? It was tough early on.”
As manager, he requested only one pickoff attempt per at-bat.
“Because I didn’t want to hurt the pitcher by picking twice,” Williams said. “So if he calls the pickover twice, the pitcher can’t get off the pitch. If so, he can’t even do it.”
To use that discomfort to his team’s advantage, Williams told runners to steal right after the first throwover.
That’s when Wooten realized the pitcher should be offensive. Third Pickoff attempt.
“My thought process was Dugout. If he’s a base stealer and we’ve already thrown twice, he’ll have a good jump. So let’s see if we can trick him into doing it again.” “What do you do when he gets back in the bag? We give him second base. If he’s a little too cute in the third, he’s out.”
In other words, the lack of residual release gives runners a false sense of security. It will be
“We hadn’t done enough of it.” but he was out.
This is a new game within a game. All of the rule changes have been carefully researched for their intended effect, but more importantly they also force adaptation. The most successful teams anticipate and capitalize on how their opponents will adapt, delving into their experience and giving their opponents the situations that make their players most uncomfortable.
For example, Wooten realized that hitters are also feeling the pressure of a ticking clock and can be forced to reset by calling timeouts only once per at-bat.
“Hitters don’t like to stand in the box while staring at the pitcher with the ball, especially when he comes into the set,” he said. “If the hitter calls a timeout, on the next pitch that bad his boy he’ll be down to one second and he’ll stand there. Figure out how to turn these things into positives and use them to your advantage.” I have to.”
Both minor league coaches said the number of clock violations and general confusion about the new rules declined over the course of the season, which MLB expects. They want a faster game with more action on the base pass, something akin to old baseball, rather than a showcase of increasingly arcane regulations. adjust.
“I look at it like this: The pitching is so good that the game is trying to find ways to create more offense and confusion,” Wooten said. has to say, ‘Okay, how good are we at this?’ I’ll adjust this plan too, but that’s enough.
“At least, that’s the message we tried to send to our players.”
Follow Hannah Keyser of Yahoo Sports on Twitter @.Hannah R Kaiser.
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