Fact: Nobody likes a cheater … well, except maybe the Houston Astros.

Fact: Every Major League Baseball pitcher doctors a baseball in some way, even if to only wipe their brow and then ‘rub up’ a new baseball – a long time and generally accepted practice in America’s National Pastime.

According to a March 23 New York Post article by noted MLB writer Joel Sherman, this may be about to change in Major League Baseball. This per Sherman:

In an attempt to lessen the use by pitchers of foreign substances on balls, MLB is notifying clubs that it will begin using its Statcast data to analyze increases in spin rate, specifically for pitchers suspected of doctoring baseballs, The Post has learned.

Manipulating the baseball by changing its structure with a nick or cut or by using substances that change the trajectory of pitches is as old as the game. Nevertheless, in recent years the analytic wave has increased awareness of the benefit of spin to make fastballs ride better and breaking pitches break more.

That has led to pitchers using various forms of sticky substances that help foster more revolutions per minute on their offerings. This is against rule 6.02 on doctoring the baseball. But for years a gentlemen’s agreement existed not to challenge a pitcher, namely because so many were doing it that to challenge an opponent was to risk having your pitchers challenged as well. Also, even hitters were generally in favor of pitchers using something sticky, especially with slick balls in cold weather, to better control them and avoid those hitters being hit by pitches.

But an increase of velocity and breaking-ball usage has been instrumental in strikeout-per-game records being set annually for the last decade and a half. That in turn has led to greater desire to hit homers because it has become so hard to string hits together. That also fosters more walks as pitchers try to miss bats. And MLB is now trying to counter the ever-rising three true outcomes (strikeouts, walks and homers) to get more balls in play and more action.

Although it has long been established that a higher spin rate does indeed ‘make fastballs ride better and breaking pitches break more,’ it also – as Sherman notes – significantly reduces the number of batters being hit by pitches … at least the unintentional ones.

Sherman notes that MLB is sending out a memo to all 30 teams this week that to notify them that they are ‘…back on the case of trying to dissuade foreign-substance usage’ by using their proprietary Statcast system to track every pitch for velocity, spin, and movement, noting that they plan to use the data to compare with both career norms and in-game to see if there is an increase in ‘…revolutions with runners on second and third in the sixth inning than with no one on in the first,’ as an example used by Sherman.

Needless to say, this could, as Sherman notes, have a ‘seismic impact’ in a game in which Dodgers newcomer Trevor Bauer ‘…estimated 70 percent of pitchers used a sticky substance and that the impact was greater than steroid use.’

If MLB does indeed open this proverbial ‘can of worms,’ the baseball won’t be the reason for a significant increase in the number of home runs hit (and their attempt to reduce them by changing the seam height), it will be due to pitchers no longer being able to ‘rub up’ baseballs to their liking.

Stay tuned…

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