Bassitt proposes pitch-clock break for long innings after Gausman debacle

As Chris Bassitt watched Toronto Blue Jays teammate Kevin Gausman labour through a 53-pitch inning against the New York Yankees a week and a half ago, he kept coming back to a single thought: stop the clock.

The veteran right-hander understood manager John Schneider’s handling of the situation.

“I agreed with him staying in the game, he’s the best pitcher we’ve got to get through the inning, get out of the inning, and I don’t think there’s really a huge difference between, like, 40 and 50,” Bassitt said.

However, what really frustrated Bassitt was the way the pitch clock acted as a force multiplier as the inning dragged on. 

“It’s too much, too fast — by an extreme — at that point,” he said.

So Bassitt, elected to the union’s influential executive subcommittee during the off-season, decided to do something about it. The veteran sent Major League Baseball a proposal to, at minimum, at extend the pitch clock by a few seconds — if not shut it off entirely — once a pitcher reaches a certain threshold within a single inning.

Doing so, he argues, would increase pitcher safety during vulnerable situations while offering more runway for them to escape their own jams and, potentially, eliminating one or more pitching changes.

All are consensus industry goals.

“I’m not looking at this from a stance of like, I’m trying to help Kevin Gausman — I don’t think that’s going to happen again. But watching that game, I’m like, this is just not right, this is wrong,” said Bassitt. “If you’re truly looking after the pitcher, taking care of them, you want starters to go deeper into games, then turn the pitch clock off after 30, 35 pitches. …

“The reality is, if 35 is the max they want to do, pitch 36 on, you can kind of calm down a little bit. You’ve had a high-stress inning. The pitch clock has really sped you up. It’s basically like marathon pitching from that standpoint, where you’re just physically gassed because you have no way to slow the game down. So we’re just going to help you out a little bit just to get you through it. I don’t think that’s going to change the outcome of the inning or the outcome of the game, but it’s just protecting the guy on the mound.”

For context this season, pitchers have thrown 30-plus pitches in a single inning 258 times, 35-plus 72 times and 40-plus 12 times in 9,773.2 innings before Thursday’s play. Here are the numbers since 2021:

Data via Sportradar

MLB implemented the pitch clock in 2023 to help eliminate dead time from games, setting the timer at 15 seconds with the bases empty and 20 seconds with runners on. Last year, the timer with runners on was reduced to 18 seconds — a change the union resisted — while mechanisms for pitchers to slow the game down during especially gruelling innings were also built into the rules.

For instance, with runners on, pitchers can step off the rubber twice each at-bat before opening themselves up to a balk call. They can ask the umpire for a different ball. Catchers can make up to four mound visits in a game, plus a fifth in the ninth inning if the other four have been used, something that rarely happens as clubs are averaging only 2.02 mound visits per outing and teams have only exhausted their mound visits in six per cent of games. A coach can also make one visit from the dugout before a pitching change must be made.

Given all that and the clock’s success in reeling back out of control game times, it’s hard to envision MLB building in an exception for outlier situations. After all, opening the door for one exception leaves room to do the same for others, potentially leading to an erosion of the current pace-of-play standard.

Still, since the lockout in 2022, commissioner Rob Manfred has also made a point of seeking more regular contact with players through in-season visits to clubs; the creation of the 11-member competition committee made up of six ownership representatives (Blue Jays president and CEO Mark Shapiro among them), an umpire and four players (Cal Raleigh, Ian Happ, Corbin Burnes and Casey Mize); and former players hired in a variety of roles, including those working under head of baseball operations Morgan Sword and Michael Hill, the senior vice-president of on-field operations and workforce development.

There are more ways than ever for ideas to flow back and forth.

Bassitt was uncertain “what (MLB officials) are going to do with” his suggestion, but remained adamant that “it’s something that will help all 30 clubs.”

“You’re not going to say, X team is going to get an advantage from this, no one’s going to get an advantage from this,” he said. “From my standpoint, my job is always to look after the player and I don’t care what jersey you’re wearing, it’s too easy of a rule change not to do it.”

Among the arguments against the change is that a fatigued pitcher and stress on the opposing pitching staff is a reward for an offence grinding out the pitcher on the mound, with benefits accruing into subsequent games.

Bassitt acknowledged the point, but added that any pitcher who logs that many pitches is “still going to be fatigued if he’s still out there.”

“You want pitchers to be able to stay in the game. I don’t think any team is going to argue it because every team is going to run into it at some point,” he said. “It’s not like we’re talking about changing the clock at pitch 17. We’re talking about changing the clock at pitch 31 or 36. Even if they say turning the pitch clock off is egregious because you can just sit there for 30 seconds, catch your breath and go, OK, let’s add three seconds. Give him three extra seconds just to calm down. He’s still struggling. But his heart rate is not 180 throwing pitches. The injury risk is going to go down a little bit.”

After his 53-pitch inning, Gausman acknowledged the physical toll of the entire experience and his frustration in trying to self-correct along the way.

“That’s kind of where the clock comes in,” he said at the time. “It’s hard make an adjustment on the fly when you’re constantly go, go, go. Whatever the adjustment I needed to make, I couldn’t make it.”

How even an extra few seconds between pitches might have helped him is impossible to know for sure. With the benefit of an extra off-day in between starts, Gausman looked sharp in his next outing, with his average fastball velocity ticking up from 93.8 m.p.h. in that fateful April 27 start at Yankee Stadium to 95.2 m.p.h. Saturday at home against Cleveland.

He and the Blue Jays are without doubt fortunate that he’s no worse for the wear, but the sensitivities around pitcher usage intensified questions about the decision to let him pitch that long.

In the rare cases when it does happen, Bassitt wants all pitchers — not just his teammate and friend — to get a bit of a break.

“You can even have multiple rules where it’s like starters past this pitch count, relievers are this pitch count. That’s fine,” said Bassitt. “It’s just being human, understanding the pitch clock is an element that stresses the pitcher out and if it gets to this pitch count, we have to somewhat help him. We’re not trying to help you get out of the inning and get a zero. We’re just trying to help you stay healthy. That’s it.”

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