NEW SPIN ON AN OLD PROBLEM
Metric makes it easier to see impact of pitchers using sticky stuff (or not)
HOUSTON — Replace the radar gun and miles per hour with high-speed cameras and revolutions per minute.
Baseball’s growing fascination with spin rate — the number of revolutions a pitch makes on its way to home plate — has produced a new way to measure a pitcher’s success, and his value when it came time for a new contract.
Spin rates are not yet flashing on ballpark scoreboards, but they are behind the biggest issue in the first half of the season: MLB’S crackdown on the use of foreign substances. Sticky fingers produce a better grip, more friction and, thus, a higher spin rate.
“This year is the most I’ve ever heard it talked about in casual conversations or the bullpen conversations or whatever,” said Houston Astros reliever Joe Smith, a veteran of 14 major league seasons. “It was before (the crackdown). I’d sit down (in the bullpen) and be watching the ipads and they’d be like, ‘Oh, look he spun it!’ ”
Basic physics explains it best — baseballs spin. Pitchers hurl them at a high velocity toward home plate, generating what some once thought an incalculable number of revolutions per minute. The amount of spin a pitch has will change its trajectory. Four-seam fastballs with elite spin hop into the upper half of the strike zone. Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole mastered the art pitching for the Astros, but they were far from the first.
“Hank Aaron told me when you’re facing Tom Seaver, he said, ‘If it’s a fastball waist or higher, take it, because by the time the catcher catches it, it’s going to be up out of the zone,’ ” Astros manager Dusty Baker recalled. “I remember at that time they said it was mathematically impossible for a ball to rise in that short dis
tance. And I know what my eyes saw. That ball was rising.”
Tools and technology now exist to measure the movement Houston’s 72-year-old skipper saw firsthand so many years ago.
“There was spin rate when I played,” said Baker, whose career spanned from 1968 to 1986. “There were guys that threw more popups than they did ground balls. They didn’t say (it was) spin rate.”
A renewed focus
Pitchers have doctored baseballs since Baker’s playing days, breaking a rule baseball only now has chosen to enforce.
The first sign of a change came in February 2020 when former MLB senior vice president Chris Young issued a memo to owners, general managers and managers that warned “club personnel are strictly prohibited from providing, applying, creating, concealing, or otherwise facilitating the use of foreign substances by players on the field.”
In January, a lawsuit by a former Los Angeles Angels clubhouse attendant described making a sticky substance and distributing it to pitchers across the league, including Verlander, Cole, Max Scherzer, Adam Wainwright and Felix Hernandez. The attendant, Brian Harkins, lost his defamation case against the team but the ruling judge wrote, “The basic
facts of making the concoction, providing it to Angels pitchers, providing it to visiting pitchers, MLB’S interpretations of the rules, and so on are not contested.”
In spring training, MLB told teams it would increase monitoring and initiated steps that included collecting balls taken out of play from every team and analyzing Statcast spin-rate data.
The convergence of technological and tacky advancements placed the sport in its current predicament. Major League Baseball began enforcing a strict ban on foreign substances last month with the threat of a 10-game suspension.
Only Seattle’s Hector Santiago has been punished — and he is appealing the ban after denying any wrongdoing. Santiago asserts he used only rosin, which is legal.
Pitchers sometimes have mixed sunscreen with rosin or used a glue-like substance called Spider Tack to better their grip.
Command and confidence
Modern front offices are assigning value to pitchers because of the statistic, sometimes making free-agent acquisitions or consummating trades based heavily on spin rate. The New York Yankees gave Cole a nine-year, $324 million contract in 2019. The Los Angeles Dodgers doled out three years and $102 million for Trevor Bauer last winter.
Bauer, who is on paid administrative leave amid a sexual assault investigation, leads the sport in
spin rate with his four-seam fastball and slider. He underwent a dramatic increase in his spin after the 2019 season and won the National League Cy Young Award in 2020. Cole increased his spin rate substantially after joining the Astros in 2018.
Both players have seen dramatic downturns since umpires started checking for foreign substances. Cole averaged 2,584 rpm on his four-seam fastball during a start against the Astros on May 6. The average spin rate on his fourseam fastball has not exceeded 2,442 rpm in any of his past four outings.
“To me, the biggest problem with this sticky thing is not so much that spin rate has dropped, it’s command of the baseball,” Astros pitching coach Brent Strom said. “That’s what I’m seeing (as) the biggest issue is guys being able to control the ball better. You see velocities going down on pitches because of the lack of, how should I say, an insurance plan, so to speak.
“For example, you look at a lot of the spin rates have gone down, but the command of the pitch is the thing I’m seeing. And it’s because of a confidence level. They’re doing something they haven’t done in a while.”
The highest four-seam fastball spin for a qualified Astros pitcher belongs to Luis Garcia. The rookie righthander averages 2,332 revolutions per minute. Teammate Cristian Javier averages 2,331.
“It wasn’t anywhere (near) an everyday conversation around
here in ’18 and ’19,” Smith said. “We had a veteran staff. We were just more worried about executing our pitches because everyone already knew their stuff. This has been the most I’ve ever heard about it.”
An early look at the numbers
Sixty-five major league pitchers have a higher average on their four-seamer than Garcia and Javier, neither of whom saw a drastic drop once baseball enacted its crackdown. Closer Ryan Pressly gets 2,549 rpms on his four-seam fastball. He’s seen a moderate drop in games since June 3, when baseball increased its scrutiny.
“If a guy has not been using (sticky stuff ) and it drops, that could be anything,” Strom said. “It could be environment, humidity, it could be any number of things. I think it’s a fair assumption to think if you see drastic changes over a period of time. It shouldn’t be a one-time shot.”
“You’re seeing it a lot across the board, not like one or two people.”
Bauer and Cole are the faces of the spin rate situation because of their stature, but the problem has permeated the game.
The sport ignored it long enough for it to become commonplace. As of June 2, the league had a .707 OPS, a .236 batting average and a 24 percent strikeout rate. It had a .758 OPS in 2019 and a .750 clip in 2017.
Major League Baseball informed owners June 3 of its new
enforcement policy on sticky substances. The league slash line is .247/.321/.415 since the edict — a 29-point increase in OPS from the .707 mark June 2.
The unequal sample size merits obvious mention, but the numbers demonstrate movement toward the offensive rejuvenation MLB envisioned all along.
It comes at pitchers’ expense, and many around the sport are frustrated at the midseason implementation. Rays ace Tyler Glasnow blamed it, in part, for his elbow injury. Astros starter Lance Mccullers Jr. said it was handled “in a poor way.”
Saturday’s start against the Astros was Cole’s seventh since June 3. The six before went poorly by his standards. He struck out just 38 in 341⁄3 innings and allowed opponents a .756 OPS. His ERA inflated from 1.78 to 2.91.
“I’ve definitely said on the record talking about there is an adjustment (to be made),” Cole said Friday. “We weren’t forcing enough of the issues on the edge of the plate and continue to miss outside of the zone. Those are intent changes, those are delivery-focus changes.
“At this point, (it) has nothing to do with the rule enforcement from four or five weeks ago. There’s ebbs and flows to your delivery as the game goes on throughout the season. We’ve got to tighten up some stuff, and we’re looking to do that here.”