I think you've formed a pretty good hypothesis. The Phillies' pitchers are inducing clock violations. If this is the case, we would expect to see similar success on the road. We would also expect to see visiting pitchers inducing an average number of clock violations when pitching in Philadelphia. But there could still be something going on at CBP. First, your analysis used a very small sample size, and used video frames and broadcast overlay clocks as reference. The clock could still be slightly faster or slower, or inconsistent (things that could mess with players' rhythm). The clock positioning (if not standardized) or something else about the park could be throwing players off, particularly road players who aren't used to it. That's off the top of my head, of course. There are many more things that could be tested here, and there's the possibility that I'm missing something that might already give us a more definitive answer.
Fully agree. I just scratched the surface and this is just a knee-jerk quick look at what the article was saying. I'm actually pretty disappointed in the article because in the title it says "the data shows this" without even looking at the footage, which should be the obvious first step in looking into these claims. The article brings up questions based on what looks like outlier data, but then jumps to answers based on one chart and players saying it feels faster in Philly. That isn't good analysis and my video is more a response to that by looking at the specific violations they mentioned in the article. I probably should've been more clear in the video, but I'm really more saying that The Athletic article brings up questions but then tells you the answer without doing due diligence and showing two examples of that.
@@BaseballsNotDead Ah, yeah, of course you were addressing something specific. Sorry. It could be an interesting deep dive, though, for someone who has access to all of the relevant data...or has the time to generate data from game footage.
Players are getting paid millions of dollars. If they're not doing their job by knowing the layout of a stadium then thats their problem. As soon as the rule was put in place they should have asked someone in their clubs office to see if they can scout out every field and find out where the clocks are going to be. Stop making excuses for millionaires.
It isn't just pitchers manipulating the clock, either! Willson Contreras did a similar thing to freeze out Kenley Jansen earlier--keeping his forward foot outside of the batter's box while looking right at the pitcher--to get pitch clock violations. It's kind of brilliant (although I think that Contreras loophole gets closed eventually).
I love this little mind game. We’re all thinking of the pitch clock in terms of pitchers being slow as molasses-the Phillies are turning this on its head, putting the pressure on the batter to get ready with the new rules. No rule tightening needed. Hitters just need to adapt and stay aware. More succinctly, this is just Spahn’s “Hitting is about timing. Pitching is about disrupting timing.” in action.
Phillies pitchers (particularly Kimbrel) have also run afoul of the clock at times. I also wonder if the article mentioned the weird minutes long delay in an Diamondbacks Phillies game on May 24th when Josh Rojas committed a violation in extras, didn't get called, and then Kimbrel got called for being set too soon.
As a Phils fan when I saw that article I really wanted to see an analysis like this. You deserve way more subs, I appreciate the effort you put into your videos.
I think you would definitely be the perfect choice to make the best Tommy Johns video. I'd love to see your in depth analysis of the guys it worked best for and the guys who lost or all but lost their career after surgery.
So this to me seems like a loophole in the rules. I don’t blame the hitter for not being ready until the pitcher steps on the mound. Kinda smart of Nola and the Phillies to do this to mess with the hitters timing.
I really don't want to make any overarching conclusions based on this since I only looked at 4 pitches, but in the two violations mentioned in the article where the Tigers said they felt rushed, the clock started when it was supposed to and ran correctly.
@@BaseballsNotDead yea of course and Nola is kinda taking advantage of hitters old habits to wait for the pitcher to be ready on the rubber it makes sense
This is a great breakdown of the situation! It’s still surprising just how much of an outlier the amount of violations is in Philadelphia compared to other stadiums, though. Very interesting.
yeah, the pitch clock is not only for pitchers but for batters as well. It's important that at least the scorekeepers/clock managers are doing their job correctly and it's the players who are messing up. If that's the rule, you got to play by it for as long as it is in effect.
Good video to debunk some lunacy published by the Athletic. Jumping to the conclusion that the clock runs faster without watching the violations but instead just seeing that there's more violations at Citizen's Bank is ridiculous, awful journalism. The rules clearly state the batter needs to be ready before the pitcher, but for whatever reason batters wait for the pitcher to be ready first. Smart on Nola to take advantage until batters learn to watch the clock, not the pitcher
It was my understanding that the clock shown on broadcast is not the official clock i.e. it is not tied into the stadiums clock directly. The tv Production just tries to line it up with what they see on the field. Would be interesting to see a view of the field clock as well.
So if the batters were paying better attention and were in the box ready even if nola wasnt, they wouldn’t have gotten violations? Doesnt seem that hard to adapt too
If you can do it effectively without getting a violation on yourself, then its a good strategy. Annoying if you're a fan of the team that gets dinged for it tho
I expect these rules to change, or people to finally catch on to them. Because this is just bad baseball. No one pays for tickets to watch teams be struck out by a rule violation.
Baseball only has itself to blame for this. Watch games in the 70s on RU-vid and most batters never leave the box. Result - a game time of a little more than 2 hours.
Get rid of the clock period. It's stupid just to save 20 min. in a game ? Watch basketball if you enjoy watching a clock. It destroys a lot of the drama in the game. Baseball has been just fine for 200 years. Leave it alone already.
Baseball in the 70s didn’t need a clock yet their games were the same time as today. We need a clock to get players to actually do their jobs rather than sit around fiddling their gloves for 40 seconds before taking a ball and doing it again. If they can speed the game up, they’ll take the clock away in the future.
I mean Nola has always been notoriously slow. Could it be gamesmanship? Yes, but I think more likely he’s just going through his old routine and trying to deliver on time.
