This is the fourth MLB season with a pitch clock, so one might think that any beef around the rule change has long ago expired. But José Caballero's got a huge supply of dry-aged steak in the walk-in freezer.
The Yankees' base-stealing utilityman, who hits just a tick below league average, has made himself notorious around the league for the way he takes advantage of the pitch clock protocol. The big book of rules says that the batter needs to be ready for the pitch with eight seconds remaining on the clock—"ready" meaning in the box and making eye contact with the pitcher—and Caballero's favorite time to lock eyes with his opponent is something like 8.001 seconds remaining, which ideally gets him inside the pitcher's head and messes with his routine. Sometimes the pitcher, unused to coming set and delivering within those eight seconds, will run afoul of the clock and take an automatic ball. This strategic equivalent of "I'm not touching you!" earned Caballero a dramatic umpire warning in Toronto last month, though afterward his manager, Aaron Boone, sought and received assurance from MLB that he's just on the right side of the rule. It makes for the kind of line-toeing peskiness that keeps everyone alert.
"There's some gamesmanship to what he does, but he's a smart, gritty player," Boone said in June.
The Pittsburgh Pirates were in the Bronx on Monday, and relief pitcher Dennis Santana was the right guy at the right time to be especially bothered by Caballero's routine. He's a nine-year vet currently suffering through a disaster of a season that's tagged him with an ERA over six, and his previous outing saw him surrender a walk-off dong to Cleveland's Travis Bazzana. Plus, remember last year when he tried to jump up and hit a fan in the first row by the bullpen? Entering the game in the eighth inning at Yankee Stadium, facing a team that had cut him loose in 2024, I could imagine Santana feeling a little edgy.
The box score tells the story of a successful inning where Santana got Caballero to ground weakly into a double play. But the interesting part is what happened afterward. Caballero's psychological warfare had sabotaged Santana's attempt to throw the first pitch of the AB, where the umpire had to wave him back off the mound because the hitter wasn't ready, so once Santana had retired the side he started jawing at Caballero. The man in pinstripes walked toward the pitcher, who suddenly got hot and had to be restrained by his catcher, Rafael Flores. The benches cleared, and the bullpens made their long jog to the infield as Santana continued to rage. Caballero, meanwhile, looked as satisfied as a player can look after hitting into a two-for-one.
I'm not sure any other pitcher is going to be as vulnerable to pick on as Santana, but Caballero is clearly getting what he wants out of these barely legal shenanigans. “If you get frustrated, I’m winning,” he said after the game. He's right. The Pirates got frustrated, and the Yankees won the game, 8-5.
