Yankees' Jose Caballero Embraces Role As Pitch-clock Instigator: 'i’m Winning The Battle'

Once a week these days, it seems, Jose Caballero annoys an opponent so much a baseball game stops because of it. Last week, it was Cleveland Guardians catcher Patrick Bailey. This week, Toronto Blue Jays manager John Schneider and young pitcher Spencer Miles.

Sometimes, the games stop for a few seconds as pitchers grapple with his unique approach to the limits of the pitch clock. Sunday, the game stopped for nine minutes as Caballero argued with home plate umpire Steven Jaschinski after Jaschinski stopped play with nine seconds left on the pitch clock to scold Caballero when, by rule, the Yankees’ sparkplug need not be set until eight.

“There’s a lot of major league players in this league,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider told reporters in Toronto after the game, frustrated with the delay that ensued as Caballero argued his innocence.

“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.”

Funnily enough, that one guy with an issue might know the rules better than anyone. And he does not shy away from his willingness to use them to his advantage.

The plan, familiar to many by now, is this: Caballero must be set and looking at the pitcher with eight seconds left on the pitch clock to avoid a violation. So as the pitcher readies himself with 15 or 12 or even 10 seconds left, Caballero will step in to the batter’s box, tap his bat, and look set. But he will not look up until the clock hits eight seconds, forcing the pitcher to wait until he does.

“My thing is, I don’t want the pitcher to take control of the at-bat,” Caballero said, while kneeling gleefully, arms hanging over the back of his chair in the Yankees clubhouse.

“So if I am ready right when the clock starts, he has 17, 18 seconds to work with it, and I don’t want to be stuck in there thinking about oh, what’s he gonna throw? He might be shaking his head seven times and then I’m in there just thinking and I get tired of having my bat ready. I don’t want that.”

Caballero was in the Tampa Bay Rays organization when the pitch clock was tested in the minor leagues, so he says he has been honing this strategy since 2019. The clock didn’t hit the big leagues until 2023, so he thinks he has an advantage over veterans who did not grow up playing with it. He says the idea to delay as long as possible was his, and he is not surprised more players do not try it.

“It’s not always an advantage to do it. Sometimes there is more bad than good that you can get out of it – that’s why I’m always involved in all of these bad things,” Caballero said with a smile, referencing his early June disagreement with the Guardians over his approach.

“[Those disagreements] do bother me because it’s the rules. You’re supposed to call the rule,” he said. “Why do I have to stop my at-bat to let you know about the rule you’re supposed to be knowing? If I’m running, and you as a pitcher balk, why would I have to tell the umpire to call it? You know he’s making a mistake. Call the mistake. Simple as that.”

Caballero said every time the game stops because of his late set-up, the argument is “something different.” 

Last week against the Guardians, for example, he said umpires told him he looked up once before looking down again, which Caballero disputed, and that Guardians catcher Patrick Bailey said he was waiting to look up until the last minute on purpose. Sunday, John Schneider said he took issue with how long Caballero argued with umpires about the situation. 

In both cases – as in every case – Cabellero said he does not understand why anyone is still surprised by his strategy.

“The rules are the rules, and I have my time to do so, and I always do it. It doesn’t matter what inning, it doesn’t matter what count. It’s not like I’m trying to mess you up. You already know,” Caballero said. “I’m pretty sure every team has a meeting before facing us about it. You already know! All you have to do is wait until seven seconds and come set. It’s that simple. If you want to make it a scene, I’m going to look like the bad guy, but the rule is the same for everyone.”

Caballero, 29, probably draws more angst in part because his reputation as someone who tries to distract opponents precedes him. His manager, Aaron Boone, once referred to Caballero’s on-field agitating as “Woody Woodpecker stuff.”

“The instigator,” Boone said.

The Yankees have not had many instigators in Boone’s tenure – or perhaps, more accurately, in Aaron Judge’s reign. Judge towers over a notoriously buttoned-up clubhouse, one known for a business-like approach punctuated only by Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s fearless candor in recent years. When asked about how his willingness to push opponents’ buttons plays with his teammates in a clubhouse full of rule-followers, Caballero interrupted.

“I’m following the rules! It’s just a different way to follow the rules,” he said, smiling and twisting his chair side to side like an energetic kid who could not wait for class to end.

“It’s not that I want to get in trouble But for me, it’s a battle. If I can make you think about something else, I’m winning the battle right there,” he said. “I’m trying to get on base, no matter how, so if that bothers you, I couldn’t be more happy.”