04/20/24
February 17, 2017
Carter Capps' pitching delivery is illegal and MLB doesn't care.:
If I was an opposing manager, I'd protest every single pitch he made against my team.
To the somewhat informed fan it looks illegal - he's not throwing the pitch from the rubber, baseball's equivalent of traveling in basketball.
If he is allowed to use the triple jump approach he'd have zero chance of ever holding a base runner and be much more susceptible to getting nailed by a line drive. If legal I suppose he might be a fit throwing relief against weaker hitters but nothing else.
posted by cixelsyd at 11:29 PM on February 18, 2017
How did he ever get to the majors with that motion? What coaches along the way thought, "Yeah, that's ok. Kind of pushing the envelope but it's not like it's 1 million percent obviously against the rules"? I clicked on the link expecting to see some pearl clutching from Old Tyme Baseball men but c'mon. That looks like something from a shitty sports movie.
posted by yerfatma at 03:37 PM on February 19, 2017
Give a crap what MLB says, if some kid in a game where I had the plate delivered something like this, I would call time, explain that the pitch is illegal (and why), and warn him and his coach that each tie the pitch was delivered in this manner it would be called illegal and would be a ball. I wonder why MLB would allow this.
If Capps were due to pitch in a road game, all the home club has to do is loosen up the surface of the mound in his landing spot. This would not be likely to affect your own pitcher, since his landing spot would not be as far down the mound. Since Capps has some forward motion as his left foot lands, he would slide on the loosened surface, thus losing any semblance of control and possible injuring himself. That would be drastic, but it would send a message.