Pitchers pitch and batters bat.

It's "the unknown," like that Matthew McConaughey movie where he went into a black hole and found a man-made tesseract which he used to communicate to his daughter back in time but the robot didn't survive the trip into the black hold and then his daughter solved time travel and saved humanity.

"Yet preparing hitters for this change is tricky. They’re used to being able to call time whenever they desired. A particularly stressful plate appearance might have previously entailed stepping out of the box several times. Adjusting their uniform. Taking a few deep breaths. Undoing and redoing the Velcro on their batting gloves. Maybe repeating all of the above."

When you write it down that way, it sure sounds exciting.

 

"Which, of course, is exactly why this rule was put in place: MLB wanted to cut out as much of that dead time as it could. But it means there’s a lot for batters to change—as much psychological as physical."

Get over it.

 

"And given the reactive nature of hitting, it’s more difficult for hitters to know how the clock will feel than it is for pitchers, who have been practicing with the timer all spring. Of course, there’s no replicating the environment of pitching in a real game, with all the attendant stressors that might cause someone to need more time. They can’t simulate a real game even with a sim game—and certainly not with a bullpen or live BP. By using the timer in all of those contexts, however, pitchers can still get a feel for how their delivery works (or not) against the clock."

It all sounds so very stressful. My advice is shut up and hit.

"For hitters … it’s tricky. They can’t set the pace of any given plate appearance the way a pitcher can. While a pitcher can work quickly or slowly, a hitter can only slow him down, and now, he won’t even be able to do that. That’s a hard dynamic to practice. Of course, hitters can use the timer in live BP, too. (Many teams are.) But most hitters already know they can take swings without stepping out of the box in BP. It’s specifically the context of hitting in a faster game situation that feels tricky—and that can’t truly be replicated in any practice or drill."

None of this sounds tricky.

Whatever your job is, anywhere in the world, I can almost guarantee you are faced with trickier challenges on a daily basis. In all likelihood, you've climbed the learning curve and have figured it out by now, but that's my point. Five or six at-bats to figure it out, tops.

Heck, I think a lot of retired people are facing trickier decisions this Monday morning.

The easiest task I can imagine in a workplace is, if I was a batter in a baseball game, standing in the batter's box. They even outline it with chalk.