Update: That secret pickoff play in action

Plus, Scherzer strikes out Joey Meneses in 28 seconds

A quick update to last week’s post speculating on the Mets’ secret workout - it didn’t take too long to find out what kind of work they were up to. Tim Britton did some digging and found that a big early focus in camp is indeed “pickoff strategy.” Britton’s piece mentions that Showalter has spoken on the value of throwing over after that second disengagement has been burned. He also confirms that the Mets have brought in Reid Brignac, a minor league coach and two-year veteran of the new set of rules, to assist in preparing for the new running game.

How it actually played out

Last week, I covered two potential plays the Mets could install to best leverage a pickoff limit and clock. The first of those plays (the “4th Down Hard Count” play) requires the pitcher to embrace the two-pickoff limit by plowing right through it. This play forces the pitcher to hold the ball until the last possible moment (freezing the runner’s legs with a long hold) before surprising the runner with a do-or-die throw.

I also suggested that, with the severity of the penalty that comes with the second disengagement, teams might treat the two-pickoff limit as a one-pickoff limit. It looks like Brignac found that to be true in Double-A last year:

“Once you disengage once, runners get bigger leads and those pickoff attempts are very valuable.”

So, if runners treat that first pickoff as a marker, could you run that same play after one pickoff, instead of two? It turns out that you can - and Max Scherzer did yesterday.

The situation: it is Scherzer’s second Spring Training inning. He’s got runners at first and third (Michael Chavis is the runner at first). With the count at 2-1 on the hitter, Scherzer tries his first throw over to check on Chavis. The play at first isn’t that close.

Brignac’s quote above in mind, Chavis takes a healthy lead after that first pickoff. Keep in mind - this is the same Michael Chavis who stole one bag last year. We’re looking at a runner who has been injected with some confidence:

With a 2-1 count, Scherzer burning his second throw on a double-up might be the last thing you’d expect. But Scherzer takes a peek over, sees this lead, and puts that play on. We see (courtesy of the pitch-clock-infused SNY broadcast) the timer tick all the way down. With two seconds left, Scherzer spins and fires (this screenshot is taken slightly after Scherzer “officially” begins to throw over - it shows :01 remaining on the clock):

Here, Chavis shifts from a confident runner to a surprised runner. It’s not Scherzer’s best move, but he almost gets Chavis with this:

The post-pickoff effect

So, with Scherzer having burned both throws over, do things get wacky? Does Chavis walk halfway to second base? No. Here’s Chavis before and after that second throw:

Chavis extends by another half-step - it’s still a generous lead, but it isn’t anything like what you’d project against a pitcher who doesn’t feel like he can throw over. Scherzer didn’t care about hitting the pickoff limit, and he probably doesn’t care about passing it, either.

The Mets aren’t wasting any time. Even if this strategy (and the plan to throw over in do-or-die situations) gets exposed or copied during Spring Training, it will do its work as a deterrent to other clubs: the Mets don’t care about this limit, so you should keep that in mind when you take your lead. Advance scouts working for the Mets’ April opponents will watch Spring Training tape and report back accordingly.

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He’s screwing with hitters, too

Britton has another good piece out on how Scherzer tried to use the clock against hitters yesterday. After watching Scherzer’s start, there are few additional points beyond what’s in Britton’s piece that I think are worth covering.

First, some context here: pitch clock aside, pitchers can start their deliveries as soon as a hitter’s “eyes are up” (Scherzer’s words). Hitters can signal readiness as early as they’d like, but they can’t let the pitch clock dip below :08 before doing so. After that mark, the hitter gets called for an automatic strike (what happened in that Red Sox game on Saturday).

A pitcher’s window to pitch works in the opposite direction - it starts whenever the hitter signals readiness. If a hitter flashes his eyes at Scherzer at :14, Scherzer can pitch at as early as :14 or as late as :01. Scherzer controls the timer from that point onward.

Scherzer has found two loopholes in the “start as soon as the hitter’s eyes are up” clarification. Depending on the length of the pitch clock (15 seconds with nobody on base, 20 seconds with runners on), he’s either rushing or freezing hitters. Let’s walk through both scenarios.

With nobody on, rush them

Without a runner on base, hitters don’t have much time to signal readiness. The clock starts at :15, and you must get your eyes up by :08. Most hitters are readying well before :08 (the :10-:12 mark) then taking another second or two to settle in. A pitcher could theoretically rush that “settling in” process by pitching as soon as they see eye contact, but most pitchers aren’t ready to pitch by that :10-:12 range - they’re still getting the sign from the catcher.

Not Scherzer, though. He was wearing his own PitchCom device (on his glove) and selectively calling his own pitches to catcher Omar Narvaez

¹

. The device allows Scherzer to call his next pitch before he even gets the ball back from Narvaez. He can then get set and deliver in one or two seconds, leaving the hitter flat-footed.

He used this ploy to strike out Joey Meneses in 28 seconds (three pitches). He even added a little hop-shuffle to get back to the mound after the first pitch to speed things up. After the second pitch, Meneses jumps back into the box while muttering to the umpire (potentially calling out Scherzer for moving too fast?):

It was fast, but that’s because Meneses was probably looking at Scherzer (and not the clock) as his reference point.

When facing pitchers who want to go hurry-up, hitters will have to be mindful of when and how they signal readiness. This is going to sound weird - but because this all comes down to eye contact, the adjustment might mean a hitter needs to go through his entire pre-pitch routine while staring at the ground. I don’t know how feasible that really is, though; pitchers that master this might just have the upper hand.

With runners on, make them wait

With runners on base, the clock gets another 5 seconds added to it. So, theoretically, if a hitter doesn’t wait around before flashing his eyes at Scherzer and is ready at :14, Scherzer can make him wait 14 seconds before throwing a pitch. That’s exactly what happens to Michael Chavis in the at-bat that preceded the pickoff sequence I described earlier. Chavis stood like a statue for about 12 seconds before calling the only timeout he’s allowed in the at-bat:

At this point, there is nothing stopping Scherzer from doing the exact same thing again. Which is what he does. And this time, Chavis flashes his eyes even earlier - he is ready at :17 this time! Scherzer makes him wait 13 seconds before pitching at :04, and Chavis, in a hitters’ count, takes an off-balance hack that looks more like he’s protecting a cricket wicket than taking a baseball swing in a good hitting count. Keith Hernandez concludes, “Max has figured it out.”

Remember: don’t make eye contact

The counter to the runners-on-hold ploy seems similar to the one you’d use for the bases-empty-rush ploy. Alex Call is up next, and he knows what to do: he takes his time to signal readiness, raising his eyes just before the :08 mark and turning Scherzer into the one who has to wait around.

So there you have it: Max Scherzer has found two different ways to twist the clock on hitters. And Call demonstrated one way hitters can thread the pitch clock needle to counter him. While this start may have come across as a scattered attempt by Scherzer to try everything at once, it also demonstrated how much practice some of these strategies are going to require to work them into game flow. When that familiarity is built, Scherzer can shift his focus back to executing pitches.

See you later this week to continue our running game deep dive: this time, with a focus on catcher back-picks.

1. This development (pitchers using PitchCom to call their own games) is definitely worth monitoring. It has the potential to change the catcher’s role in the way games are planned for. I’m planning to cover it in a future post.