Blue Jay's Gausman: How is he NOT balking?

[agdz59]

This is from April but I'm watching today's game with the Cardinals and the guy never comes set - just like in this video. 

How is that not a balk?

[Jimurray]

24 minutes ago, agdz59 said:

This is from April but I'm watching today's game with the Cardinals and the guy never comes set - just like in this video. 

How is that not a balk?

That, the video, is a balk. Just perused MLB.com and saw him in T2 with Pujols on 1B. 1 pitch could have been a balk. So now you're watching hard. Rest of pitches I saw had a stop, hands together, continuous leg resets with hands stopped and final stop to the leg movement which didn't happen once with Pujols on and didn't happen with no runners. This F1 would piss you off making you pay so much attention.

[umpstu]

I've been saying it all game today.  Go Cards.

[The Man in Blue]

Because pitching rules, like human rights, have been slowly dismantled. [/nihilism]

[noumpere]

I've said it before (without watching the video) -- you can't learn about balk rules by watching MLB.

[maven]

What amateur umpires need to know is that the MLB umpire supervisors review tapes like this (and thousands more) every season and determine how their umpires will handle the pitcher. They issue directives to their crews, who enforce the rules in accordance with those directives.

None of that has anything to do with how amateur ball should be officiated.

[Jimurray]

17 minutes ago, maven said:

What amateur umpires need to know is that the MLB umpire supervisors review tapes like this (and thousands more) every season and determine how their umpires will handle the pitcher. They issue directives to their crews, who enforce the rules in accordance with those directives.

None of that has anything to do with how amateur ball should be officiated.

If you treated this pitcher as an amateur the Youtube balk would have been an amateur balk. In the ongoing game today through the T3 I saw 1 no stop with R1 with Pujols on 1B in T2 which most of us would miss and then he stopped good enough for me through T3 with runners on. He is problematic which makes you pay attention. In amateur baseball balk the sht out of him so you don't have to work so hard but we actually need an MLB manager or @beerguy55 to say relax, leave it alone, it doesn't affect my runners.

I would ask @umpstu what inning, batter, count he had a balk. I'm not watching but have MLB.com.

[Richvee]

Gausman balks close to every time as far as I'm concerned. there's rarely a stop, and I consider myself fairly lenient on what I consider a stop.  

Just like this guy's windup is illegal but MLB doesn't care. The rule clearly states ONE step forward sideways or back and ONE step forward to deliver the pitch. This is 3 steps all day every day. But no one cares in MLB. 

 

[DDSportsTalk]

My guess is the latitude is offered for consistency. These pitchers have an approach in coming to the plate. There's no deceit if they do it every single pitch (or, at least, in Garcia's case, every pitch with no runner on base - he doesn't do that whole thing when there are runners on base, go figure).

At any rate, with Gausman, if it's a balk every single pitch, well, then, by all means. call it - every single pitch - and make him stop; otherwise, it is curious when an ump let's it go all game and then, out of the blue, decides to call it and it just so happens to coincide with a critical part of the game.

It's like a plate ump's strike zone - each is entitled to call their zone...just, once established, stick to it. Don't be calling ball all night long, and then, when a batter is patiently working the at-bat with runners in scoring position and down one run late in the game, that same pitch all of a sudden is a called 3rd strike to end the inning.

[834k3r]

I see two problems with Gausman's "style."

First, there's the issue of the unwritten rule of "if the windup is the same for all pitches it's not a balk." If I'm R1 and Gausman is pitching, what am I supposed to be looking at? To me, there's clear intent to deceive the runner with Gausman's "style."

Second, it's been allowed so long that it's now accepted and infrequent is the time when he's called for a balk--which means it's a big deal each time the rule is properly (in my opinion) enforced.

I hope during the off seasons the MLBUA and MLB really tighten this down--it's a terrible look for the game.

[Richvee]

Not that it matters according to the rules, but he's not even "doing the same thing every time". His "taps" aren't even consistent. Sometimes there's 5, sometimes there's seven. Last night once I counted NINE taps before he delivered, and if there's any difference in the timing between these taps, or stops, it's infinitesimal... that includes the last one before delivering.  

I'm sorry. it BS. They've been letting this guy do this since he was a Giant. You cannot tell me his last tap is followed by a stop that is any longer than any of the other of his "stops" along the way. You can't have it both ways, If he's actually stopping before delivering a pitch, then he's stopping five or six times before delivering a pitch. I hate that they allow this crap. Then they go and balk some guy for the slightest little infraction that no one without years of experience and training can even see,  and they wonder why we've got announcers and fans claiming balk rules are ridiculous. The rules are not ridiculous,  the way they're enforced at the major league level is ridiculous, inconsistent, and arbitrary. 

[Thunderheads]

Comments regarding the Marlins Richard Bleier balks / John Tumpane have been moved to the Close Call Sports post on those ejections.