Major League Baseball

Carter Capps working to remove hop from his delivery

Published May. 20, 2015 8:13 p.m. ET

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Miami Marlins reliever Carter Capps has become known for his jerky hop-step pitching motion, but now he's working to take the idiosyncratic step out of his delivery.

As he transfers weight from his lower body to his upper body, Carter hops off the mound towards home plate. He constantly reaches the upper-90s with his fastball despite the erratic delivery, but there are some drawbacks to it.

In addition to raising concerns about his durability, there's also been a debate as to whether his delivery is legal within MLB's official rules, as his cleat is at least a foot off the mound when he releases the ball.

According to the MLB rulebook's Rule 5.07.8.01:

Although Capps had no issues with the delivery in his three prior season in the majors with both the Seattle Mariners and the Marlins, an umpire in the minors ruled Capps for a balk earlier this season because of the hop-step.

"If they have a problem with it now, obviously it was different," the 24-year-old righty told the Sun-Sentinel. "I would have liked to make the adjustment in spring training instead of being told at the beginning of the season, my first outing. But it's just another challenge to overcome, like anything else in this game."

Capps is now focused on gradually phasing the hop out and creating a smoother pitching motion.

"I tried to make everything simpler and be more relaxed and make it a little more fluid, and minimize the jumping aspect of it," he said. "Other than that, it feels pretty comfortable right now. Still working on it. It's a daily thing, and I'm sure it will be a daily thing for a while."

Capps' delivery tweaking isn't exactly a self-imposed mission.

The flame-throwing reliever was contacted by MLB earlier in the season, who ordered him to take the jump out of his motion and drag his foot instead.

"I'm making the adjustments that they said I needed to work on," he added, "so hopefully they'll be happy with it. ... As far as I'm concerned, it shouldn't be an issue any more."

(h/t Sun-Sentinel)

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