Stop Motion Wind Ups to be Banned from 2006

As I recall, there was similar discussion about Akinori Otsuka's "interrupted delivery" when he first came to MLB with the San Diego Padres. Here's a link to a news story from May 2, 2004 on the Padres' home page at MLB: [Link]

Upon rereading it, it sounds like the challenging Mets had more of a problem with him taking the ball out of his glove and returning it during his wind-up, but don't I remember him also sort of pausing before firing the ball?

MLB finally ruled Otsuka was doing nothing wrong - as long as there were no runners on base. (With runners on, it constitutes a balk.) If the bases are empty, once a pitcher's motion has begun he can, as Manager Bruce Bochy argued, do pretty much whatever he wants with his hands.

Perhaps this new NPB rule will streamline some of those funky Japanese deliveries we see coming over to America and avoid more controversy, but I for one enjoy the strange deliveries pitchers come up with. Japanese pitchers seem to be especially creative, but there are others like the Florida Marlins' Dontrelle Willis who make an art out of disguising the ball as they deliver it. Seems to me that's just part of the pitcher's game.

[Revival of old thread.]

Were stop motions actually banned? They continue today (2014).

Interesting article. I found it hard to suppress a guffaw at the part that said "[The rules currently] prohibit any pitching motion in which the pitcher intentionally interrupts the motion or performs it in stages. However, in recent years, the number of pitchers such as Yokohama's Miura and Rakuten's Iwakuma who have pitching forms that it would not be out of line to call 'two-stage pitching motions' has increased".

I think it is about time. Many Japanese pitchers actually have two stops in their motion: one after they step back to begin the windup, then one at the balance point in the middle of the windup.