MLB needs standard “foreign substance” policy for pitchers
By Tim Haberin
Milwaukee Brewers reliever Will Smith earned an ejection during the seventh inning of Thursday night’s game against the Braves for applying an unapproved substance to his forearm. Atlanta manager Fredi Gonzalez noticed the irregularity and reported it to the umpiring crew. After inspection, Smith was promptly tossed. He would later claim the substance to be a mixture of rosin and sunscreen that he had forgotten to remove before entering the game.
Major League Baseball wasted little time in handing down a sentence, announcing an eight-game suspension for Smith on Friday morning, which he will appeal. It is the second notable incident of this nature in the past two seasons. Yankees starter Michael Pineda was ejected from a game against the Red Sox in 2014 for using pine tar and received a ten-game ban.
This latest disciplinary measure highlights MLB’s need to establish a standardized policy concerning the use of foreign substances by pitchers. According to the official rules, the ejections and fines are not unwarranted. But this is one case in which the letter of the law does not exactly align with the reality of the game.
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Many pitchers will admit to using some kind of material to improve their grip on the ball from time to time, particularly in less-than-ideal weather conditions. Subtlety is the name of the game. If offenders like Smith and Pineda were guilty of anything, it was indiscretion. Chalk it up as one of the famous “unwritten rules” of baseball.
It’s hard to fault a manager for taking issue with an opposing pitcher who’s being a little too sloppy, or with the league for meeting infractions with punishment. But the Smith suspension makes this as good a time as any to reevaluate the situation as a whole. It’s time for Major League Baseball to officially standardize and regulate the use of supplementary substances by pitchers.
There would likely be ample support for this sort of measure throughout the game. Pitchers want to maintain a solid grip on the ball, and hitters want them to be able to adequately control those orbs of cowhide they send hurtling their way at 90+ mph speeds. In the aftermath of the Will Smith ejection, Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman was understanding of his opponent’s actions. “Every pitcher does it,” he said. “As a hitter you want them to do it so they have a better grip, so we don’t get hit in the head.”
ESPN’s Buster Olney expressed his feelings on the matter in no uncertain terms once news of the suspension broke:
MLB suspends Will Smith for 8 games. Should've deferred discipline 'til they had a common-sense conversation about foreign-substance rule.
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) May 22, 2015
Common sense is the approach this situation needs, and logic dictates that the league finally make a formal decision on what is and is not allowed. MLB possesses a significant degree of flexibility in any policy it potentially implements. It can declare which substances are permissible, and where pitchers can apply them when they’re on the mound. Perhaps on cool evenings when pitchers might be more tempted to give themselves a little help, umpires may determine before a game whether they will allow them to do so.
In any case, the league should take this opportunity to provide clarity to an aspect of the game that could really use it. Some like to cling to baseball’s informal laws for the sake of tradition or nostalgia. But why not remove all the ambiguity and guesswork from this type of circumstance, if you have the power to do so rather easily? Surely it would be infinitely better to have everyone – pitchers, batters, managers and umpires – on the same page instead of wondering what may or may not pass on a given night.
Progress can be quite slow in Major League Baseball (see: instant replay, pace-of-place rules, etc.) but the league would be remiss to keep ignoring this issue.