San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Pitchers await substance policing
We’ll all be scrutinizing baseball stats preMonday versus postMonday, the looseygoosey era versus the era in which using foreign substances gets you suspended for 10 games.
We’ll monitor whether ERAs and batting averages start to soar — while strikeouts start to drop — and wonder whether it’s a result of MLB finally policing its rules forbidding the application of substances other than rosin on the ball.
We’ll also wonder how much a team’s performance will be impacted by the new set of guidelines and, taking it a step further, how much they’ll affect the playoff races.
The Giants and A’s are in first place today, and here’s the question: Will the new guidelines, at least in roundabout ways, alter their ability to remain contenders?
The question can be addressed on many levels. First and foremost, if the success of any pitchers is contingent on using heavyduty products such as Spider Tack or even a dab of sunscreen, and suddenly they pitch “naked,” their effectiveness could nosedive.
Then there’s the injury issue. If anyone gets caught using a foreign substance, he’s ejected and suspended 10 games without getting replaced on the roster. His absence would mean other pitchers would need to amp up their workloads, leaving them susceptible to sore arms.
Or, to loop in Tampa Bay’s Tyler Glasnow, who blamed MLB’s crackdown for his elbow injury, there’s a possibility pitchers could get hurt by ditching their forbidden concoctions and holding the ball more tightly to get a good grip, putting extra strain on forearm muscles, which Glasnow said led to his partial UCL tear.
Whether it’s a pitcher getting hurt because he’s without his substance or because he gets overextended while filling in for a suspended teammate, or whether a suspended guy loses 10 games for cheating, or whether a pitcher no longer is any good because his slowerspinning pitches get pummeled without his using some secret sauce … a team’s chances of winning are significantly diminished.
So the Giants and A’s, like other teams, are preparing for a new world order in which all pitchers in a game will be thoroughly checked (cap, glove, fingertips) by umpires. MLB said starters will be checked more than once a game while relievers will be checked between innings or after their outings, whichever comes first.
“Our players understand the position the league has taken,” Giants manager Gabe Kapler said. “They’re in support of the position the league has taken in terms of enforcing and being more stringent about the rule that was already in place, which is no foreign substances on the baseball, and our players are prepared to comply.”
As much as the stats, spin rates will be under the microscope. When MLB announced its guidelines Tuesday, it cited the analysis not only of balls taken out of play but Statcast data on spin rate, and the conclusion confirmed banned substances can do wonders for spin, which leads to more movement and velocity, which leads to more strikeouts, which leads to less action.
A drastic spin spike is a sign a pitcher has possibly been loading up and getting an unfair competitive advantage over hitters.
Of the starters on either side of the bay, Frankie Montas of the A’s has the highest average spin rate on his fastball (2,444 RPMs), ranking him in the 73rd percentile among bigleague pitchers.
Montas’ fastball spin has been steady over the years, averaging between 2,421 to 2,444 RPMs in three of the past four years. It dipped to 2,384 in last year’s shortened season.
By comparison, Sean Manaea’s fastball spin rate (1,991 RPMs) is in the bottom 5%, and so is his curve (2,042). Oakland’s best starter, Chris Bassitt, is in the 27th percentile with his fastball, 26th with his curve.
“It will be interesting, to say the least, to see how this goes down,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said. “This is something that’s unprecedented in baseball where you’re going to see umpires checking pitchers regardless. We’ve never seen this before. I don’t know how I’ll feel about it. I don’t know how it’s going to look. It’s going to be different.”
The Giants’ pitcher with the highest spin on his fastball (2,293) is their ace, Kevin Gausman, in the 52nd percentile. Anthony DeSclafani is in the bottom third (his curve is in just the first percentile) while Logan Webb (18th percentile) and Aaron Sanchez (ninth percentile) get by with relatively little fastball spin.
Gausman’s fastball spin hasn’t fluctuated much and averaged between 2,2492,313 RPMs in four of the past five years. His career high was back in 2015, 2,348.
On the other hand, Giants lefthander Alex Wood has increased his sinker spin from an average of 1,915 RPMs in 2015 to 2,153 this year, and both teams have relievers with highlevel spin.
“My spin rate has been pretty much the same my whole career,” Gausman said. “Some days, I spin a little bit more than others.”
Such as Thursday, when the temperature at game time at Oracle Park was 81 degrees and he pitched eight innings of tworun ball.
“I spun the ball a little bit more, but you ask anybody who was at the game, it was pretty hot, especially those first three innings,” Gausman said. “The ball is coming out pretty good, and ... you don’t really need anything, just rosin and sweat does the trick.”
If it’s true what Gausman says about the Giants and the new guidelines — “our pitching staff in general is in a really good spot going forward” — they have few concerns, but one starter or reliever getting busted could impact their place in the standings.
Meantime, the rival Dodgers might have issues starting with Trevor Bauer, who speaks about spin more than anybody and dramatically amplified his numbers. Teammate Walker Buehler also has climbed the RPM charts.
No one compares with
Bauer, whose average fastball RPMs have skyrocketed from 2,225 in 2015 to 2,815 this year while his cutter has climbed from 2,203 to 2,901.
Likewise, his slider jumped from an average of 2,666 in 2018 to 3,001 this year and his curve increased from 2,601 to 3,036.
That’s incredible, and that’s taking into account Bauer’s RPMs mysteriously dropping in recent starts when it became known MLB would begin policing.
If the crackdown is about leveling the playing field and resolving the competitive imbalance between pitcher and hitter, maybe Gausman is right and the Giants are in a good spot. The A’s as well.
Maybe the new policing actually will boost both teams’ postseason chances if indeed their pitchers stay both clean and successful while their main competitors don’t.
The baseball world will be watching.