Yankees player’s pitch clock antics prompt wild hot-mic moment, backlash: ‘You’re picking on me’

On Monday night, the benches cleared against the Pittsburgh Pirates after pitcher Dennis Santana had some choice words for Caballero, and two days later, hot mics caught Caballero in a heated discussion with an umpire.

In short, Caballero has become notorious for waiting until the last possible second to make eye-contact with the pitcher, which, in the pitch-clock era, is required before a pitcher comes set or starts his windup. Batters and pitchers have until there are eight seconds left to become alert with the opponent.

Caballero did his usual on Wednesday afternoon, though, and was promptly called for a violation before striking out, despite even looking up a second earlier. Mics picked up Caballero saying that the umpire was “picking on” him. Home plate umpire Quinn Wolcott said Caballero did not “get to do the three-four seconds thing in the box anymore.”

Caballero replied that he had been “doing my f—ing routine,” and manager Aaron Boone said the umps were “making up rules as we go.”

Boone said that neither he nor anyone else on the Yankees were made aware that Caballero could potentially be called for violations. However, Wolcott cited the MLB rules, which state that maneuvers by batters “to deceive a pitcher into beginning their windup or coming to the set position” will first result in warnings before being called for pitch-clock violations.

Crew chief Adrian Johnson said Caballero has “been warned all season,” prompting a change in how he is dealt with.

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“He’s been warned all season. We were instructed not to warn him. We were instructed to violate him. That’s what it is. It’s a violation,” he said to a pool reporter.

So, as long as umps believe Caballero is purposely baiting pitchers, the Yankees might have a losing battle here.

Johnson also said that the violation was a result of the benches-clearing incident on Monday.

“He’s not allowed to do an inordinate amount of time looking down, trying to get the pitcher to cause a violation,” Wolcott told a pool reporter. “There’s no other hitter that gets in the box, takes the amount of the time that Caballero does while looking down, not making eye contact with the pitcher. Obviously it’s caused a lot of problems in the past. It’s not going to be allowed anymore.”

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Boone called the umpires’ decisions “embarrassing.” Based on previous conversations with MLB, Boone instructed Caballero to “make sure you’re looking up at nine so that you are alert by eight.”

“He actually said that they were making new rules today and it’s on me because I was deceiving or something like that to the pitcher, which doesn’t make sense,” Caballero said. “I don’t know, maybe my English is so bad that I don’t understand, but deceiving kind of means that you’re trying to trick someone and I’m not trying to trick someone because I do the same thing over and over. You can check my last 50 at-bats and see if I do it the same or not, or check maybe 100 at-bats or 150.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.