Jose Caballero calls out MLB after Yankees pitch clock controversy vs Blue Jays

Much as Jose Caballero has blossomed into an invaluable spark plug for this Yankees team since coming over from Tampa last year, it's fair to acknowledge that he can sometimes stretch the boundaries of acceptable behavior in the name of getting under his opponent's skin. Over the weekend, however, he found himself in hot water for ... following the letter of the MLB rulebook?

Said rulebook tells hitters that they have until there are eight seconds remaining on the pitch clock to "engage" — read: make eye contact in the batter's box — with the opposing pitcher. Caballero has consistently made use of every bit of that time in an effort to give the pitcher as little time to come set and deliver as possible.

He did the same in the top of the sixth in Toronto on Sunday, but despite the fact that he clearly engaged with Blue Jays reliever Spencer Miles while the pitch clock still read eight, home-plate umpire Steven Jaschinski decided to make a stink anyway.

Watching the video above, it's clear that Caballero is about to look up at Miles as the clock strikes eight ... only for Jaschinski to blow things up before he even gets the chance. After a lengthy conversation in which Caballero tried to (correctly) plead his case, Jaschinski issued a warning over the PA system, charging Caballero with "intentionally delaying" the game. But again: Nothing that Caballero did was actually against the rules.

Jose Caballero has a point with criticism of MLB's pitch-clock enforcement

“They’ve been changing the rules without any warnings ahead [of time],” Caballero told the New York Post afterward. “I don’t know why they’re doing that. The rules are the rules. Nobody wanted the rules. They invented the rules. They should take care of it. I’m just trying to play with the new system that they got us playing in, it’s not like I invented the rules.”

He's pretty spot-on here. MLB rules don't say anything about what a batter is or is not allowed to do, so long as he's engaging with the pitcher with eight or more seconds remaining on the pitch clock. Caballero did just that — or he was going to, until Jaschinski stepped in and made himself the story. How can Caballero be "intentionally delaying" when he's ready to hit at the moment the rulebook says he needs to be ready to hit?

Of course Caballero knows what he's doing. Could he have technically engaged with Miles sooner? Absolutely. But if Jaschinski or the Blue Jays have an issue with that sort of gamesmanship, they can petition the league office to change their own rules. Until then, nothing about what Caballero did violates anything; the fact that Jaschinski threatened to punish him for failing to follow an unwritten code he'd just made up is the real scandal here.

Not that any of that stopped Toronto manager John Schneider from huffing and puffing as he always does.

John Schneider should worry more about the Blue Jays and less about everyone else

Schneider has long had one of the shortest tempers in the sport, so perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that he started barking at Caballero from the Jays dugout. After the game, he made clear to reporters what he thought of the whole incident.

“There’s a lot of major league players in this league,” Schneider said. “There seems to be one guy that has an issue with it. It sucks that a pitcher like Spencer Miles has to sit out there for as long as he did. Seems like it could have been handled a lot quicker and a lot more efficiently than it was. But, again, that’s not why we lost, but it’s Major League Baseball, everyone knows the rules.”

Lecturing a player about knowing the rules sure is rich coming from a guy who apparently doesn't know the rules himself. Sure, it does "suck" that Miles had to linger and couldn't start his delivery until Caballero engaged with him. But again, why is that Caballero's problem? League rules give him until eight seconds, and he took until eight seconds; if that's not sufficient time, then it seems like Schneider's issue is with Rob Manfred and Rob Manfred only.

And spare us the token "that's not why we lost" there at the end. If Schneider didn't want it to be an excuse, he wouldn't have said anything in the first place. Maybe that's why Toronto has been one of baseball's bigger disappointments so far this season.

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