Think back to two years ago, when you first snickered at the idea of a Major League Baseball sticky ball controversy. Without going into detail and without making any assumptions about intent, the broad outline of the issue was as follows: the application of foreign substances to baseballs has always been prohibited; However, launchers usually require some sort of extra stickiness to get a good grip. Sticky object rules had not been enforced for decades, allowing a rampant increase in usage that became tactically beneficial with a better understanding of the impact of spin rates on throws.
In a way, there were two problems: a culture of permissiveness that had created an aesthetic concern in the game (pitchers dominating hitters) and some pitchers going to extremes to give themselves a competitive advantage (e.g. SpiderTack ).
The crackdown – which had more to do with the lack of offense in recent years than anything else – was intended to eradicate what MLB considers “performance-enhancing” levels of grip achieved through illegal substances without compromising ability pitchers to reliably grip baseballs. This is why rosin is legal, why the mud process was thoroughly standardized last season, and why MLB continues to experiment in the minors with a pre-tackle ball.
Trends in rotational speed and recurrence of memos reminding teams of the repression have since indicated that the pitcher verification process is working – but imperfectly.
Wednesday in Los Angeles, the New York Mets ace Max Scherzer was sent off, with a 10-game suspension to follow, to have “too sticky” hands, according to the referees’ post-match interview with a pool reporter. Referees have been asked to carry out more, deeper and more random checks this season.
After the second round, the referee who checked Scherzer determined that his hand was “slightly sticky”, but Scherzer offered to wash it. When Scherzer returned for the third round, he was checked again. This time his hand was clean, but the referee expressed concern about the stickiness of the glove, so Scherzer changed his glove. When he returned for the fourth round, the referee checked Scherzer again, and this time his hand was “way stickier than anything we’ve felt today and anything this year”, causing expulsion.
Scherzer insisted – on the field and after the game to reporters – that it was just rosin and sweat. Umpires explained that the checks they perform regularly provide a basic understanding of how rosin feels — last year, MLB standardized rosin bags, which are inspected before each game — on pitchers’ hands.
But that wouldn’t really matter.
The original rules regarding ball treatment include rosin in the list of ways a player can “intentionally discolor or damage” the ball. More importantly, on March 16 of this year, the league sent a memo to teams clarifying that the use of rosin could rise to the level of illegality:
“Please keep in mind that the use of rosin by players must always comply with the requirements and expectations of the Official Baseball Rules. When used excessively or improperly applied (i.e. on gloves or other parts of the uniform), rosin may be determined by referees to be a prohibited foreign substance, of which l Use may subject a player to expulsion and discipline. See OBR 3.01 and OBR 6.02(d). Additionally, players cannot intentionally combine rosin with other substances (e.g. sunscreen) to create additional stickiness.
The crucial question is therefore not the merits; It’s the stickiness.
Frankly, it seems pretty murky. Adhesiveness is not objective and cannot be measured. Knowledge of stickiness is not transferable; it cannot be described in a way that necessarily creates a uniform understanding. In the moment, it may be easy to tell if one thing is stickier than another, but viscosity level isn’t a memory that can be rechecked after the fact.
This subjectivity is embedded in this entire endeavor to control pitchers’ use of grip enhancements. Much of the officiating is flawed, but it inherently seems a bit absurd, in that it only becomes relevant when a pitcher is knocked down. I think frequent and concerted checking does something to discourage this behavior, but when a pitcher is ejected there seems to be no way to delve into satisfactory details.
(As the issue involved Scherzer’s hand, not the ball or glove, no physical evidence will be sent to the commissioner’s office for further review.)
This absurdity is rarely pointed out, however, as only three pitchers have been ejected for having sticky hands since the crackdown was announced. With curiosity, all three cases happened After referee Phil Cuzzi made a check.
I’m not going to do any math on the odds to prove that it simply isn’t possible that this is because in thousands of games Cuzzi encountered the only three instances where pitchers overused stuff tights. Maybe Cuzzi is a bully or has a personal vendetta, but I’m not going to accuse him of that, and you don’t have to think he’s at fault for this to be an obvious problem with the MLB app.
As part of this initiative, referees have undergone sensitive training. They practiced distinguishing between SpiderTack and rosin, rosin mixed with sunscreen and rosin mixed with water, etc. Efforts have been made to normalize their subjective sensory experiences. But they were obviously not standardized enough.
We know that launchers use a abnormal amount of something sticky — rosin or otherwise — even in the age of field controls. This means that umpires other than Cuzzi likely encountered a pitcher with hands that were, objectively speaking, “too sticky,” but perhaps they did not feel confident enough in their subjective determination to call for an ejection. And that’s a big problem considering that a culture of permissiveness is why we found ourselves in this predicament in the first place.
This is especially true if rosin may be the cause. If a pitcher uses a legal substance and is tested regularly without issue, then an umpire objecting to something that might have been allowed in another game poses a clear threat to fairness.
Perhaps Scherzer had too much rosin on his hands or had inadvertently created a super-rosin concoction or was intentionally and nefariously cheating. But if controlling sticky things isn’t actually standardized – and this example highlights why it might not be – then MLB can’t claim to level the playing field. Competitive integrity only works if you can prove that sanctions are applied uniformly.
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