Yankees Jose Caballero blasts MLB over sudden pitch-clock crackdown: They know theyre wrong

If José Caballero is going down — and it seems as if he is, now forced to begrudgingly adjust a routine he had perfected — he is going down swinging at Major League Baseball.The Yankees shortstop, whose pre-pitch habit designed to take advantage of every allowable second of the pitch clock became subject of an MLB crackdown — without any warning — on Wednesday, still was upset a day later and said the league knows it is “wrong.”“It’s very easy to simply invent rules and change the world’s most beautiful sport and then not be responsible for those mistakes,” Caballero said in Spanish in an Instagram post, according to a translation provided to The Post.“They know they’re wrong but it’s very difficult to accept that a regular player, who only wants to play the sport he has always loved, can adapt and use it in his game.” Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Greg Joyce about the inside buzz on the Yankees.

All season — and even earlier than that, toying with the timer since its inception in 2023 — Caballero has mastered a technique that appeared to be within the rules and yet led to frequent arguments with opposing pitchers and home plate umpires.To prevent quick-pitches or pitchers throwing toward not-ready batters, hitters must make eye contact with the pitcher with at least eight seconds on the clock.And thus Caballero would refuse to look at the pitcher — perhaps playing with his bat or staring into the dugout or crowd — until there were 8 or 9 seconds left.

Doing so 1) put pressure on the pitcher, who had to be engaged at that moment to ensure an automatic ball would not be called, 2) provided the pitcher the least allowable amount of time to then release the pitch and 3) often annoyed the pitcher, which a pest like Caballero considered an advantage.That changed Wednesday, when MLB instructed the Yankees-Pirates umpiring crew to police the routine by enforcing an on-the-...