Due To MLB's New Balk Rules, Luis Garcia's "Rock The Baby" Windup Is Now Illegal As Well As The Windups Of Mike Clevinger, Kenley Jansen, And Others

Tony Gutierrez. Shutterstock Images.

BOOOOOOOOOOO! BOOOOOO! What happened to guys being able to have fun on the mound? Showing some personality out there? In December the Astros were told by MLB that Luis Garcia's "Rock The Baby" windup where he does a two step while rocking his glove back and forth is now illegal thanks to MLB's new pitch clock rules. 

The new rule states a pitcher must have a clear point to begin his delivery in order to stop the pitch timer, and Garcia’s multiple steps and arm motions don’t provide that. The rule says the pitcher is permitted to take one step back (or laterally) and one step forward. Thus, taking multiple steps before lifting the free leg is now deemed an illegal pitch movement.

So Garcia can say bye bye baby to his famous windup with MLB rolling in a ton of new rules and the pitch clock being one of them. Will this help shave, seconds, maybe minutes off of a game? Sure. Does it stink? Yeah. A few other pitchers have been targeted by MLB as having "illegal" windups now including Mike Clevinger and Kenley Jansen. They all do the little baby steps with their feet like Peyton Manning in the pocket, but no more. They've now got to get a whole new windup down. 

Just let the guys have their windups! They didn't do this to Hoyt Wilhelm or Dizzy Dean or Tungsten Arm O'Doyle when they were winding their arms up on the mound. I thought you could personalize stuff in baseball. No one has the same batting stance, swing, pitching motion, why are we cutting it off here? What is the one or two steps during a windup going to do? More balks are going to be called this season and I'm not sure that is a good thing. Why is MLB going out of its way to enforce balks? Especially if these guys aren't doing the motions while in the stretch. Come on Rob. Major League Baseball says it is to cut down time of the games but in honesty what is the difference between a 3:24 minute game and a 3:31 minute game? Nothing. No one is going to notice and it's not worth making guys who made The Show using one windup try to figure out a new, legal one on the fly.