Zach Plesac did a thing against the Pirates over the weekend.
That is, indeed, lightning quick. It’s something people have picked up on previously, and Plesac credits Akron pitching coach Tony Arnold with helping him to get the move right. But Plesac’s pickoff isn’t just lightning quick, it is already elite in his young career.
In his rookie season, in 115 innings pitched, Plesac picked off six runners. That put him alone atop the leaderboard for all of baseball. Out of the 831 players that threw a pitch in 2019, 168 of them picked off at least one batter, which is twenty percent.