MLB Is In Another Sticky Situation
A few months ago, commissioner Rob Manfred and the other suits in MLB’s administrative offices made the decision to change the composition of the baseball used in games. Of course, the storyline that has been getting a lot more press the last few weeks has been a different form of doctoring the baseball. Pretty much ever since the sport has been around, pitchers have slapped goop on the ball to try and gain a competitive advantage. Sticky substances increase spin on pitches, meaning that their movement will increase – which makes it a lot harder for hitters to do their job well. The “spitball” was banned following the 1920 season, after Ray Chapman was killed by an errant spitball to the head. Yet here we are, literally a hundred years later, dealing with a more advanced form of the same sticky situation.
Today’s pitchers aren’t just using saliva to doctor baseballs, they’re using anything and everything they can to gain any semblance of an extra advantage – and the vast majority of them are doing it. A Sports Illustrated report claims that “80 to 90 percent” of pitchers are using grip enhancers in some capacity. Pine tar, rosin, Spider Tack and other gripping agents are used by pitchers who hide it in their gloves, on their hats, their socks – anywhere that helps them be as inconspicuous as possible. It’s definitely a big reason, probably even more so than the launch angle revolution, why strikeouts around the league have been going way up for quite some time now. In 2021 so far, the average pitcher strikes out 8.98 batters per nine innings. Five years ago, they struck out 8.03/9. Ten years ago, only 7.1/9.
Batting averages have also been falling more precipitously than ever just in the past couple of years. The highest league-wide batting averages have ever been this century was back in 2000, when the average hitter hit .270. In 2017, the average was .255. This year, it’s only .237. What in recent history could be described as a very poor batting average is now what the average MLB player is hitting. Home runs are still being hit at higher rates than throughout the majority of the steroid era, so the quest for power hitting is clearly coming at the expense of some contact hitting, but other fishy things have to be happening for both strikeouts and batting averages to be trending this alarmingly. These problems are what’s been stirring up a lot of the controversy about pitchers doctoring baseballs. Everyone agrees that steroids are wrong. Fans and players alike were irate at electronic sign-stealing accusations.
So why is this form of cheating permissible?
MLB executives are starting to decide that they have to do something – they just haven’t decided what that something should be quite yet. It’s a difficult problem to tackle when more people are probably guilty than innocent, and this problem is not always as easy to prove as steroids are with drug testing.
Sadly, it’s probably going to become a kind of witch hunt where any pitcher who finds success is going to be accused or suspected of doctoring baseballs. Jacob deGrom, who is having one of the best seasons any pitcher has ever had, at least seems to be vindicated for the moment thanks to a slew of testimonials from his teammates swearing his innocence. Other prominent big leaguers, like Trevor Bauer and Gerrit Cole, aren’t so lucky. Both Bauer and Cole have done everything they can to condemn themselves aside from publicly begging for suspensions.
Bauer’s case was the more egregious of the two. Prior to his Cy Young-winning 2020 season, Bauer commented:
“I’ve been chasing spin rate since 2012. For eight years I’ve been trying to figure out how to increase the spin on my fastball because I’d identified it way back then as such a massive advantage. I knew that if I could learn to increase it through training and technique, it would be huge. But eight years later, I haven’t found any other way except using foreign substances.”
-Trevor Bauer
He went on to say that he could use them to dominate the game if he didn’t “have morals.” Lo and behold, months after these comments he went on to dramatically increase his spin rate on the way to his Cy Young win. Sportswriter Jayson Stark tweeted that Bauer’s spin rate is “500 RPM higher than it was 3 years ago”. The hypocrisy is obvious.
Always one who enjoys hearing himself talk, Bauer had lots more to say about the issue:
“Let everyone compete on a fair playing field. So if you’re gonna enforce it, enforce it. And if you’re not, then stop sweeping it under the rug, which is what they’ve done for four years now. It would be nice as players to know what rules we’re competing by and what rules are going to be enforced. As everyone knows, a rule that’s written down that’s never enforced is not a rule. So it’d be nice just to have some clarity on what the rules of the game are that we’re playing under.”
-Trevor Bauer
The highlight there is his saying that “a rule that’s written down that’s never enforced is not a rule.” Well, it’s still a rule, Trevor, even if you don’t feel like following it. Therein lies the problem for MLB. They have dragged their feet on this issue for years. Now that ignoring foreign substances isn’t going to make the sticky stuff go away, they only have two options: Enforce the rule, or abolish the rule. Having players openly flouting league rules without consequences makes the league weak and encourages on the very constructs that make sport worthwhile: fair competition. The league has already been inspecting more game-used balls for data collecting purposes, so now is the time to begin sharing their findings with the Players Association and collaborating on appropriate courses of action.
Cole, for his part, was asked a direct question by a reporter about whether or not he had used Spider Tack and went silent for a time before answering, “Um, I don’t… I don’t know… quite know how to answer that, to be honest.” Kudos to him for not outright lying, I suppose, but his indirectness told us more than words ever could. In the one start he has made after that awkward interview, his spin rates on his four-seam fastball, curveball, changeup, and slider all coincidentally fell by between 48 and 125 RPM’s according to Baseball Savant. Josh Donaldson, who has referred to the doctoring of baseballs as “the next steroids of baseball ordeal,” called out Cole’s performance as further evidence of cheating. In Donaldson’s estimation, umpires should be checking pitchers “every half-inning” to make sure they aren’t hiding any illicit substances.
While Bauer and Cole are two of the more prominently accused, two other MLB pitchers – Craig Kimbrel of the Cubs and Giovanny Gallegos of the Cardinals – had their hats confiscated mid-game due to questionable spots on the brims of their hats. Mike Schildt, the manager of the Cardinals, was ejected after arguing with umpire Joe West in support of Gallegos. In a postgame interview, Schildt commented that doctoring baseballs was “baseball’s dirty little secret, and it’s the wrong time and the wrong arena to expose it.” Echoing that sentiment, Kimbrel said that “(the discussion) needs to be something internal instead of it being so public.” Cole, of course, would rather that skeleton stay tucked away in the closet.
Cheaters like to hide in the dark. Now that everything’s out in the open, MLB needs to wash their hands of this once and for all.
-Michael Swinehart
