Trevor Bauer opens discussion on cheating in MLB
With the widespread use of sticky substances by pitchers to get a better grip on the ball, should baseball just make it legal? Trevor Bauer raises the question.
The most famous pine tar moment in baseball history is the George Brett home run against the New York Yankees in 1983, but pine tar regained prominence in Major League Baseball in 2018. These days, it’s not about hitters using too much pine tar; it’s about pitchers using it to get a better grip on the ball. We don’t officially know how many pitchers are using pine tar and other grip-enhancing substances, but many in baseball believe it’s very common. One of the best pitchers in baseball is willing to say it out loud.
That pitcher is Trevor Bauer, who finished third in the AL in Fangraphs WAR despite pitching at least 25 fewer innings than the two guys ahead of him (Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole). Bauer missed nearly six weeks because of a stress fracture in his fibula after getting hit by a comebacker in August. He should get plenty of AL Cy Young votes anyway, but had the injury not happened he might be the front-runner.
Bauer’s a great pitcher who doesn’t shy away from expressing his thoughts. He’s active on Twitter, which led to an early-season thread on the prevalence of pine tar in recent years. It started with an article at Fangraphs about Gerrit Cole that was written by Travis Sawchik. In the article, Sawchik showed that the revolutions per minute of Cole’s fastball had increased quite a bit from where it was the previous three seasons. Cole was traded from the Pirates to the Astros before the 2018 season.
From 2015 to 2017, Cole had below-average spin on his fastball: 2157, 2178 and 2163 RPM, respectively. His fastball velocity was elite, but his spin rate wasn’t. Sawchik wrote the article about Cole after his first two starts this season. In those starts, his fastball spin rate averaged 2331 RPM. He finished the season with an average spin rate of 2378, more than 200 RPM higher than last year.
A higher spin rate creates a “rise” effect. The ball doesn’t actually rise; it just drops less than it would otherwise. The result is more swing-and-miss. Velocity and spin generally go together. A higher velocity fastball generally has a higher spin rate. Another way to create spin is by improving the grip on the ball. Pine tar is a common way to improve the grip. It’s common, but against the rules of baseball that govern pitchers using a foreign substance on the ball.
Sawchik tweeted a link to his April article. Kyle Boddy (@drivelinebases) chimed in by saying what many people in baseball know but won’t say out loud, that the increase in spin rate is due to pine tar or another substance that helps a pitcher grip the ball. Bauer contributed to the conversation by tweeting, “The rules should be enforced as they’re written. Pine tar is more of a competitive advantage in a given game than steroids are.”