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.”
Did Trevor Bauer try cheating?
In a follow-up tweet, Bauer claimed he could add 400 RPM to his fastball by using pine tar. He’s well known for using advanced technology to improve the effectiveness of his pitches. In the old days, pitchers would work on the side by adjusting their grips to figure out what effect it had on the ball. It was very much trial and error. Bauer goes way beyond that by using, as the linked article states, “Edgertronic high-speed video, TrackMan radars to Pitch F/X optical tracking cameras to Rapsodo, a radar-triggered camera system.”
Bauer’s comment caused a mini-stir on Twitter at the time. A few weeks later, Sawchik wrote an article about Bauer’s start on April 30. In the first inning of that start, Bauer’s four-seam fastball spin rate was 2579. For the rest of the game, his spin rate dropped back to the 2200-2300 range. His average for the season was 2322 RPM.
It very much looked like Bauer had done a little experiment with pine tar (or some other substance) to show the effect it had on his four-seam fastball. Bauer officially had “no comment” when asked about using something on the ball, but the numbers were persuasive.
During the 2018 season, the pine tar story was like a fire that simmered along with occasional flare-ups. Buster Olney wrote about it in April. In that piece, he pointed out that substances are commonly used by pitchers, whether it’s pine tar or a mixture of sunscreen and resin, or something else. Pitchers do it. Hitters know they do it. Umpires know they do it.
As long as it’s not blatantly obvious, no one does anything about it. One of the rare exceptions was the blatant use of something sticky by Michael Pineda in 2014 that Yankees announcers discussed in the following clip. In it, they say David Ortiz was asked about it after the game and said, essentially, “I don’t care. It’s not a big deal. Everybody in baseball does it.”
In a Bleacher Report article in May, a few major league hitters chimed in. Adam Jones said, “I use pine tar on my bat so the bat doesn’t slip out of my hands. So a pitcher can use pine tar on the ball so it doesn’t hit me in the face.” Bryce Harper and Mike Trout had similar views.
Changing use of foreign substances
Now that the season is over, Bauer started a conversation on Twitter recently. He started by saying he’s surprised how often people tell him to use pine tar so he’ll pitch better. He pointed out that using a foreign substance on the ball is illegal, but it does make your pitches more effective and “pitchers league wide abuse it.” This led to a poll:
“Knowing this, how do you feel about it? Would you rather your favorite pitcher use it or no?”
Im surprised how often people tell me to use pine tar so I’ll pitch better. Facts: using foreign substance is illegal, it makes your stuff much much better, pitchers league wide abuse it. Knowing this, how do you feel about it? Would you rather your favorite pitcher use it or no?
— Trevor Bauer (トレバー・バウアー) (@BauerOutage) October 30, 2018
Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) followed with the official rules of Major League Baseball regarding a foreign substance on the ball. John Thorn (@thorn_john), the Official Historian for Major League Baseball, explained why the rule was put in place to begin with.
According to Thorn, “Cut balls (Clark Griffith scraping the ball against his spikes, Russ Ford’s emery ball, etc.) were thought unfair. Balls dripping in saliva or slippery elm were thought unsavory. So few mastered such pitches, though, that effect on batters had no part in ban.”
When the rule was created 100 years ago, it wasn’t meant for pitchers getting a better grip on the ball. Bauer pointed out that there was no knowledge of spin rates back then. At the time, the spitball was the main pitch to be outlawed and throwing a spitball isn’t about increasing the spin rate. Spit, slippery elm, Vaseline, K-Y Jelly, etc. were used to reduce friction between the fingers and the ball, not enhance the pitcher’s grip on the ball.
Using something slick on the ball doesn’t magically make a pitcher better. It’s an art. Pitchers need to learn how to make the ball drop by using a slick substance. When I was a kid, famous spitballer Gaylord Perry signed with Seattle Mariners, my hometown team. In fact, he won his 300th game with the M’s.
I was a young pitcher at the time. I heard Perry used Vaseline to throw his spitter, so I tried it myself and it did nothing. I had no clue what to do with it other than sneak it onto my fingers before throwing a pitch. I got no movement, no sink, no drop, nothing because I didn’t know how to throw it.
Using pine tar is also different from scuffing or cutting the ball. When a pitcher scuffs or cuts the ball, it’s done to make the ball move differently than it would without the scuff. Former MLB pitcher Dick Hayhurst wrote about scuffing the ball late in his career as a matter of survival after his stuff was diminished. He could get the ball to move left or right or, most important for him when he needed a ground ball, drop.
Pine tar isn’t about getting the ball to drop or run or drift. It’s about getting a better grip on the ball to increase the spin rate, which, as mentioned above, makes the ball drop less than it would with a lower spin rate. It’s not about a drastic change in movement, like a scuffed ball. There could conceivably be a line drawn between using a substance to make the ball move and using a substance to allow the pitcher to get a better grip, should MLB decide to make that distinction.
Based on old documents, Friedman created a list of reasons why a foreign substance was prohibited:
- 1. It is unsanitary.
- 2. It is hard to control.
- 3. It is dangerous.
- 4. It is difficult to field.
- 5. It is hard on the pitcher’s arm.
- 6. It depresses hitting.
Fast forward 100 years and consider how many of the above reasons are still relevant when it comes to using a sticky substance on the ball to get a better grip. It’s not unsanitary, hard to control, dangerous, difficult to field or hard on a pitcher’s arm. It does depress hitting, but many hitters seem fine with pitchers using it, as can be seen by the quote from Adam Jones and other current hitters.
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In the Twitter thread, Freidman asks whether using something to get a better grip on the ball should continue to be illegal. Bauer added, “Once everyone used it the hitters in the league would adjust to a new norm and the advantage of high spin would fade.” He added: “tons of people are already using it.”
There’s also the consideration that hitters use pine tar to get a better grip on the bat, which is legal and very common, so why shouldn’t pitchers use pine tar to get a better grip on the ball? Admittedly, it’s likely more of an advantage for pitchers gripping the ball than for hitters gripping the bat, but we don’t really know if that’s the case or, if it is, how much more of an advantage.
It’s an interesting question. Should using a grip enhancer continue to be illegal in the baseball world? I believe most people would still say yes, even though the rule is rarely enforced because the people actually on the field playing the game don’t seem to want it enforced. Many baseball fans are resistant to change, so it would be hard to come around on the idea that something that’s been illegal for nearly 100 years should be made legal.
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As for Bauer’s poll question on Twitter–“Facts: using foreign substance is illegal, it makes your stuff much much better, pitchers league wide abuse it. Knowing this, how do you feel about it? Would you rather your favorite pitcher use it or no?” With nearly 24,000 votes in, 66 percent of respondents chose “No foreign substance.” What do you think?