Think back to two years ago when you first giggled at the idea of a sticky ball controversy in Major League Baseball. Without rehashing the details and without guessing at the intent, the broad outlines of the problem were this: Putting foreign substances on baseballs has always been illegal; However, pitchers generally require some extra stickiness to get a good grip. The rules regarding sticky stuff went unenforced for decades, allowing for a creeping increase in usage that became tactically beneficial with a better understanding of how spin rates affect pitch.
In a way, there were two problems: a permissive culture that had created an aesthetic problem in the game (pitchers dominate hitters) and some pitchers that went to particular extremes to gain a competitive advantage (i.e. SpiderTack).
The crackdown — which in recent years has had more to do with the lack of insults than anything else — had to stamp out what MLB calls “performance-enhancing” stickiness, which was achieved through illegal substances without interfering with the pitchers’ ability to play baseball reliable grip. That’s why rosin is legal, the mudding process has been meticulously standardized over the past season, and MLB continues to experiment with a pre-tacked ball in the underclasses.
The trends in spin rate and the replay of memos reminding teams of the raid since then suggest the process of pitcher verification is working — but not perfectly.
On Wednesday in Los Angeles, New York Mets ace Max Scherzer was sacked and suspended for 10 games for having hands that were “too sticky,” according to the umpires’ post-game interview with a pool reporter. Referees have been told to do more, more thorough and more random checks this season.
After the second inning, the umpire checking Scherzer found his hand was “slightly sticky,” but Scherzer offered to wash it off. Coming back for the third inning, Scherzer was checked again. This time his hand was clean, but the referee expressed concern about the glove’s stickiness, so Scherzer changed his glove. Coming back for the fourth inning, the umpire checked Scherzer again, and this time his hand was “a lot stickier than anything we’ve felt today and this year,” resulting in the ejection.
The story goes on
Scherzer insisted — on the field and to reporters after the game — it was just rosin and sweat. The umpires explained that the checks they regularly perform provide a basic understanding of how rosin feels on pitchers’ hands — last year, MLB standardized the rosin bags that are inspected before each game.
But it wouldn’t really matter.
The original rules for ball doctoring included rosin on the list of ways a player could “deliberately stain or damage” the ball. Even more notably, on March 16 of this year, the league sent a memo to teams stating that the use of rosin could become illegal:
“Please remember that player use of rosin must always conform to the requirements and expectations of the Official Rules of Baseball. When used excessively or otherwise incorrectly (e.g. on gloves or other parts of the uniform), rosin can be classified by referees as a prohibited foreign substance, the use of which can expel and discipline a player. See OBR 3.01 and OBR 6.02(d). Also, players may not intentionally combine rosin with other substances (e.g. sunscreen) to create extra stickiness.”
So the crucial point is not the substance; it’s the stickiness.
To be honest, that seems pretty bleak. Stickiness is not objective and cannot be measured. The knowledge of stickiness is not transferable; it cannot be described in a way that necessarily creates a unified understanding. At the moment it can be easy to determine if one thing is more sticky than something else, but stickiness level is not a memory that can be checked retrospectively.
That subjectivity is baked into this whole endeavor to monitor pitchers’ use of grip enhancements. Much of the officiating is imperfect, but this inherently seems a little absurd in a way that only becomes relevant when a pitcher is banged. I believe the frequent, coordinated checks do some of the work to discourage behavior, but when a launcher is ejected there doesn’t seem to be a way to ascertain satisfactory detail.
(Because it was Scherzer’s hand and not the ball or glove, no physical evidence will be sent to the Commissioner’s office for further investigation.)
This absurdity is rarely highlighted, however, as only three pitchers have been thrown out for sticky hands since the crackdown was announced. Curiously, all three instances have occurred after referee Phil Cuzzi conducted a review.
I won’t count probabilities to prove it’s just not possible that’s because Cuzzi has come across the only three instances over the course of thousands of games where pitchers have abused sticky things. Maybe Cuzzi is a bully or has a personal vendetta, but I won’t blame him and you don’t have to think his fault that this is an apparent problem with MLB enforcement.
As part of this initiative, referees undertook sticking stuff practice. They practiced distinguishing between SpiderTack and rosin, rosin mixed with sunscreen and rosin mixed with water, etc. An attempt was made to standardize their subjective sensory experiences. But they obviously weren’t standardized enough.
We know pitchers used an unusual amount of anything sticky — rosin or otherwise — even in the era of on-field checks. That means umpires other than Cuzzi likely encountered a pitcher whose hands were objectively “too sticky,” but perhaps they didn’t feel confident enough in their subjective resolve to request a sack. And that’s a big problem when you consider that a culture of freedom of movement got us into this predicament in the first place.
This is especially true when rosin can be the culprit. If a pitcher is using a legal substance and is regularly screened with no problems, then a referee objecting to something that would have been legal in another game is an obvious threat to fairness.
Perhaps Scherzer had too much rosin on his hands, or had accidentally made a super rosin mix, or was intentionally and nefariously cheating. But if the monitoring of sticky things isn’t truly standardized — and this case illustrates the ways in which that might not be the case — then MLB can’t claim to level the playing field. Competitive integrity rules only work if you can demonstrate that the punishment is enforced evenly.
Comments are closed.