Blue Jays' Kevin Gausman target of MLB's balk crackdown: 'I need to re-evaluate'
Toronto ace Kevin Gausman has some changes to make to his delivery thanks to MLB's increased focus on balks in 2023.
Amid MLB’s balk crackdown, Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Kevin Gausman intends to feature a slightly different pitch delivery this season, but he isn’t overly pleased about it.
With MLB introducing a pitch clock, operators will manually stop the timer as each pitch is delivered. To avoid human errors, the league plans to enforce its often-overlooked rule on pitchers coming to a complete stop before beginning their windups.
Gausman, however, is among a small group of hurlers who feature pre-pitch movement — an illegal occurrence that has rarely been enforced in previous seasons. It won’t be tolerated moving forward, though.
The 32-year-old is widely known for his toe-tapping and rocking back and forth on the mound before releasing a pitch, although he’ll have to spend the next six weeks attempting to undo that muscle memory. That process didn’t begin Thursday, as he opted not to make any changes on Day 1 of spring training.
Toronto’s dominating right-hander threw a side session and afterwards explained his thoughts on MLB hammering down on balk calls. He understands the decision but isn’t looking forward to changing a significant aspect of his craft.
“I get why they changed the rule. It just sucks when you’re one of the guys that’s on the list,” Gausman told reporters.
Kevin Gausman expects umpires "will definitely be watching me a little bit closer than normal" to ensure his toe tap is in compliance with delivery rules and pitch clock.
Gausman understands but adds, "It just sucks when you're one of the guys that's on the list."— Shi Davidi (@ShiDavidi) February 16, 2023
Gausman intends to start making adjustments his next time out, doing so under the watchful eyes of manager John Schneider and pitching coach Pete Walker. It’ll be a group effort to find something comfortable while still abiding by the letter of the law.
After using the same motions year after year, Gausman now has to focus on an aspect that previously felt natural, requiring very little thought. And that may take some time to get used to.
“It's probably more of a mental thing, getting over it, knowing that you can't use that as a crutch,” said Gausman. “That's obviously now what I'm trying to do, but it's going to be a little weird, you know? It'll be different.
“Like anything, you do something long enough, you just develop weird habits of doing things. But now that it's a rule, I definitely need to kind of re-evaluate.”
Gausman believes these adjustments will feel less strange as spring training progresses and should reach a point where they become normalized. But when the regular season opens, the 6-foot-2 hurler hopes there will be a clear guideline for umpires to follow.
“All we want is consistency,” said Gausman. “If you're going to call something, call it. Like if you're going to have a big zone, have a big zone, but keep the zone big. If you have a small zone, same thing. We have to be able to make adjustments based on that. Hopefully this is kind of like a hard line and then hopefully there's no like discrepancy between whether I stopped or didn't stop. If I do the same thing every time, they can't really say that.”
Balks were not Gausman’s friend last season as the veteran righty was called for a pair of illegal pitches, including one against the Baltimore Orioles in September that nearly resulted in an ejection. He wasn’t thrown out, largely thanks to Bo Bichette, but didn’t shy away from expressing his frustration over the call.
After signing a five-year deal worth $110 million, Gausman excelled during his inaugural campaign with the Blue Jays in 2022, posting a 3.35 ERA and 205 strikeouts across 174.2 innings. He led AL starters in FIP (2.38) and ranked second in fWAR (5.7).
