The NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel on Wednesday approved two experimental baseball rules for the 2024 season requested by the Southeastern Conference.
One requires the batter to be in the batter's box and alert to the pitcher with 8 seconds remaining on the 20-second visible action clock for SEC games only. The other experimental rule permits a pitcher or relief pitcher an unlimited number of warmup pitches during the time between innings (120 seconds) or during a pitching change (150 seconds). Again, this would be used during SEC games only.
Panel members also indicated that if other conferences would like to use these two specific experimental rules in conference games, the requests would be met favorably.
Current action clock rules require the batter to be alert to the pitcher with 10 seconds remaining. The rationale for the experimental rule request was to reduce the amount of time a batter is alert to the pitcher and prevent a batter from being "frozen" by the pitcher.
And since the time between innings is being regulated with a visible clock, providing strict limits regarding the number of warmup pitches is unnecessary. The current rule limits the number of warmup pitches between innings to five for pitchers who were in the game the previous inning, and eight pitches when a relief pitcher enters the game.
