Baseball hits hard on use of sticky materials
Pirates: Consistency vital to crackdown
WASHINGTON — After twoplus months of speculation and curiosity, with teams and players trying to anticipate which route the league might go to take sticky substances out of the game, Major League Baseball finally delivered its pitch on Tuesday.
It was, without a doubt, MLB’s most serious step taken to date to combat a form of cheating not seen since the steroids scandal of the mid2000s.
The Pirates were one of 30 clubs to receive a memo outlining how MLB plans to crack down on the use of foreign substances by pitchers starting June 21, and manager Derek Shelton reiterated before a game against the Washington Nationals at Nationals Park that his team will abide by the guidelines the league has established and plans to enforce.
“It’s something that we knew was coming,” Mr. Shelton said. “All along they had been very transparent that we were going to get guidelines. The biggest thing, I think, for myself and the Pirates is that we have consistent guidelines of what they’re going to be and how they’re going to be enforced. From the start, that was the one thing that I asked. As long as we have consistency and enforcement throughout the same way, then I’m fine with it.”
As for what those guidelines look like, it’s not a whole lot different from before, which MLB admitted. Starting in less than a week, there will be an “enhanced enforcement” of rules 3.01 and 6.02(c) and (d), which prohibit the application of foreign substances to baseballs.
Pitchers who are found to violate these rules face immediate ejections and 10-game suspensions with pay. Repeat offenders will be subject to progressive discipline.
To police the issue, MLB plans to have umpires make frequent checks of pitchers. Prior to Tuesday’s news, umpires only checked when there was a complaint and valid reason to investigate.
Now, checks for foreign substances will become routine. Umpires have been instructed to check starting pitchers multiple times per game. Relievers will be checked at the conclusion of the inning or upon removal from the game, whichever comes first.
Catchers will be checked, other position players can be checked if they do anything suspicious, and teams are responsible for illegal substances discovered in their dugout or clubhouse.
“After an extensive process of repeated warnings without effect, gathering information from current and former players and others across the sport, two months of comprehensive data collection, listening to our fans and thoughtful deliberation, I have determined that new enforcement of foreign substances is needed to level the playing field,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. “I understand there’s a history of foreign substances being used on the ball, but what we are seeing today is objectively far different, with much tackier substances being used more frequently than ever before. It has become clear that the use of foreign substance has generally morphed from trying to get a better grip on the ball into something else — an unfair competitive advantage that is creating a lack of action and an uneven playing field.”
This entire issue has gained considerable steam over the past couple of weeks. In late May, Cardinals manager Mike Shildt delivered a made-for-Twitter, postgame rant after he felt that umpire Joe West had targeted one of his pitchers, Giovanny Gallegos.
“This is baseball’s dirty little secret,” Mr. Shildt said.
At the root of the secret has been a subjective view of what’s OK and what’s not, and what MLB did Tuesday basically took an objective approach to the situation — pretty much everything is bad.
But talk to people around the sport, and like most things with baseball, it’s nuanced. There’s certainly an appetite for removing things like Spider Tack, a paste popular with weightlifters and so sticky that it generally requires a second substance to remove it from your skin.
Pitchers have used it because they believe it can help them grip the ball better. It has also shown an ability to increase spin rates, specifically with breaking pitches, to make them move more and harder to hit.
On the other side, hitters are not universally against pitchers having something to control a baseball thrown upward of 90 mph, sometimes into the triple digits. MLB’s updated process here allows for the continued use of rosin, but that’s pretty much it.
Most hitters would have no issue if pitchers continued to use things like sunscreen or pine tar — substances that aren’t engineered specifically to manipulate grips or pitches and things that have been part of baseball for more than a century.
“These balls when they’re fresh, they’re slick,” Pirates outfielder Bryan Reynolds said. “As soon as something gets outside of that and starts really altering spin and stuff, that can go. But they still need something to get a grip on the ball.”
Added Pirates outfielder Gregory Polanco, “They have to control the ball. If they can’t have something to control the ball, I don’t want people to get hit.”
Players have even argued among themselves over the issue. Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer a few years ago accused the Astros of relying on Spider Tack and other grip enhancers, later estimating that 70% of pitchers around MLB used something.
One of the poster boys of this issue has actually been a former Pirate, New York Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole, whose answer last week when asked whether he had ever used Spider Tack was a big word salad that offered nothing even close to a denial.
“I don’t know quite how to answer that, to be honest,” Mr. Cole said after a lengthy pause. “I mean, there are customs and practices that have been passed down from older players to younger players from the last generation of players to this generation of players. I think there are some things that are certainly out of bounds in that regard, and I’ve stood pretty firm in terms of that, in terms of the communication between our peers and whatnot.”
An extra layer to this occurred Tuesday, when another former Pirate, Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Tyler Glasnow, was diagnosed with a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament and flexor tendon strain in his right elbow, an injury that he blamed on MLB’s policies and the pitcher making sure he was in compliance ahead of Tuesday’s news.
That threat of injury is what worries Pirates reliever Kyle Crick the most.
“The fact that it’s happening during the season might potentially be a problem because guys were either using something and now they’re not used to it and throwing a little differently than they were before,” Mr. Crick said. “The repercussions and ramifications of this won’t be felt for months to come, and no one really knows what it’s going to be like. It’s been a gray matter in baseball for a long time. We’ll see. I just hope everyone stays healthy.”
The crackdown could come at a good time, as offense this season has never been worse. It’s an issue plaguing baseball that many attribute to the use of foreign substances, with pitchers looking to stash sticky stuff under their uniforms, on their belt buckle or in any number of other creative places.
With better enforcement, MLB hopes to help hitters put more balls in play, which has absolutely been an issue with baseball trying to modernize its product and provide more entertainment value.
Will it work? Good question. But it seems like it might have started already. News broke on June 3 that MLB told owners about the results of a two-plus-month investigation into the issue of pitchers using foreign substances and the immediate need for action.
In the 12 days before June 3, MLB hitters produced a .233 batting average and struck out 24.3% of the time. In the 12 days after, they hit .246 and struck out at a 23.3% clip. The sample size is small, but it is something, a nudge in the proper direction.
“This is not about any individual player or club or placing blame,” Mr. Manfred said. “It is about a collective shift that has changed the game and needs to be addressed.
“We have a responsibility to our fans and the generational talent competing on the field to eliminate these substances and improve the game.”