SEC tournament changes could set bad trend (Yahoo! Sports via Yahoo! Sports)

[Umpire-Empire Reporter]

The SEC announced a set of sweeping changes to its annual tournament this week. Among the changes are pitch and half-inning clocks.

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[Umpire in Chief]

Seemingly interesting, but not terribly new. There's always been a 20 second rule to pitch the ball with or with out runners on base, just never enforced with a clock.

[BT_Blue]

Thats the one thing that I was curious about was how do the umpires know when the time clock as expired? Is there going to be a buzzer going off like in a basketball game? And if so, I can only imagine the problems if that buzzer goes off, say, while the pitcher is winding up because someone forgot to turn it off or when a pitch is thrown and the batter is trying to hit it and the buzzer goes off. Just bad things happening in my head at that point.

Anybody else on this? Especially those D1 guys and the guys that live in SEC territory.

P.S. Why are they only going to do this during the post season tournament? Wouldnt it make sense to try it during the regular season to see if it works and say that there are plans to use it in the tournament if it does?

[BrianC14]

“The clock also lends itself to a bigger issue, and that’s making college baseball more manageable to television.”

More details also were available in the published report.

The 20-second clock between pitches only comes into play if no runners are on base. A ball will be called if the pitcher does not pitch the ball in 20 seconds. For the hitter, the umpire will call a strike if he is not in the box ready to hit five seconds before time expires.

Good luck tracking that!

[arbiter22]

20 second clock is a sh!t house waiting to happen. 90 second clock needs to be kept by one of the base umpires (usually 2nd base).

[BrianC14]

20 second clock is a sh!t house waiting to happen. 90 second clock needs to be kept by one of the base umpires (usually 2nd base).

Agreed, that's easily done - heck, MLB does it.

But a 20 second clock... great google-moogley. :2cents:

[jjb]

What a great marketing opportunity: indicator/stopwatch/pitch counter/lineup card/brush