JUNE 10: In a follow-up tweet last night, Drellich noted it’s no longer clear whether MLB plans to carry out the second part of the testing process later in the season as they’d initially intended. He adds that the league halted the experiment in the Southern League after just two weeks for reasons unclear.
JUNE 9: Major League Baseball has been testing a pair of tacky substances in the Texas and Southern Leagues — two of the three Double-A levels — during the season, reports Evan Drellich of the Athletic. It’s the continuation of ongoing league efforts to find an improved grip substance for pitchers.
Drellich provides a breakdown of the experiment. For the first two months of the year, a substance from one of two different manufacturers has been applied to the baseballs. The league is now pivoting to treating the balls with mud, the standard process used at the MLB level, as a control group. That control testing will be with the standard Major League ball, which is different than the ball typically used up through Double-A. The second manufacturer’s substance will be tested at some point later in the year.
The testing in Double-A comes on the heels of other fairly recent experiments about applying a universal grip enhancer to the ball. Baseball America reported last September that MLB would introduce a pre-tacked prototype ball in certain Triple-A games late in the 2021 season, and Drellich writes that one of the substances currently under consideration was first introduced during last year’s Arizona Fall League. Commissioner Rob Manfred has previously expressed support for the possibility of a pre-tacked ball eventually being implemented at the major league level.
Sticky stuff hasn’t been as prevalent a topic this season as it was last year, when MLB implemented a midseason crackdown on pitcher use of foreign substances. The league had long banned the application of foreign substances — outside of the provided rosin bag — to the ball, but it had previously left ball-doctoring largely unenforced in practice. As more pitchers began to use particularly powerful grip enhancers to meaningfully improve the spin and movement on their pitches, however, the league began a sometimes controversial system of enforcement last June.
After an initial few weeks of some dispute, however, the foreign substance checks largely faded into the rearview mirror. Two pitchers — Héctor Santiago and Caleb Smith — were suspended last season for failing substance checks, but there wasn’t any overwhelming rash of discipline. Sports Illustrated reported this spring that MLB worried that pitchers might’ve found a way to skirt the enforcement later in the year and planned to conduct more rigorous screenings this season. Through the first two months of 2022, however, no pitchers have been ejected or suspended for a foreign substance violation.
Despite the crackdown, the league has looked for ways to introduce a more moderate grip enhancer that could aid pitchers’ control of the ball without dramatically improving the quality of their stuff. MLB executive vice president of baseball operations Morgan Sword tells Drellich they’re continuing to search for a viable grip enhancer but don’t consider altering the ball an absolute must.
“We have a ball that has served the sport well for decades and we have taken a number of steps to make the baseball the most consistent it has ever been,” Sword said. “While we continue to explore solutions to add tackiness without materially increasing spin rates, it’s a very hard thing to get right, and we have set a very high bar for success.”
The primary impetus for the league’s increased diligence in rooting out foreign substances has been a downturn in balls in play that MLB and many observers find alarming. The league strikeout rate has risen throughout essentially its entire history, but it’s taken a particularly sharp upward turn over the past decade or so. Improved pitch quality is no doubt a contributor to the uptick in swing-and-miss, and the league has looked for ways to push some of the balance back in hitters’ favor.
MLB has dealt with more concerns about offense this season, although swing-and-miss issues have leveled off somewhat. The league strikeout rate sits at 22.2% entering play Thursday, down a percentage point from last season and 1.2 points from 2019-20’s record high. MLB’s 76.6% contact rate — on what percentage of swings a batter makes contact — is up slightly from last season’s 76.1% and a fair bit better than the 75.3% mark of 2020.
Nevertheless, league run-scoring has fallen alongside a drop in power production. Foreign substance usage is one of a myriad of factors that affects the league offense, of course. Such things as weather, the composition/storage of the ball, the implementation of the universal designated hitter, and hitters’ approach and mechanics all have their own impact on run-scoring and style of play.
Drellich writes that the early returns on the substances currently being tested in Double-A have drawn substantial pushback from some of the league’s players and coaches. One pitcher called the first substance tested “horrible,” while another indicated he and his teammates were excited about the return of the standard mudding process for the control part of the testing. An MLB official acknowledged that the newer substances “are popular with some and not popular with others, just like our current ball is popular with some and not others.”
The varied at best feedback illustrates the challenges MLB continues to face in potentially introducing a tackier ball to the highest level. One league official tells Drellich that while the league isn’t ruling out the possibility of introducing a pre-tacked ball to MLB by 2023, it doesn’t seem likely to be viable by that point. The league and MLB Players Association have remained in contact about the experiment, Drellich writes, and the league presumably would prefer to have the union’s cooperation in any efforts to implement it in the majors. (Minor league players are not unionized and have little recourse to push back against any of the rule experiments being conducted at affiliates).
The Athletic’s post is well worth a read in full for those interested in the topic. Drellich speaks with various players, league officials, player development personnel and others about the challenges and complications of the testing.
Do it. We need some uniformity.
And when everyone’s cheating, no one will be.
Everyone gets one complimentary sticky ball and one cycle of Deca Durabolin.
Finally some logic!
Do tacked balls travel further off the bat than non-tacked balls?
They stick to the bat like fly paper.
Probably not enough to matter. Which would be offset by better pitchers grip. Tack up the bat barrel to make it harder? Absolutely! I’ve seen that test done, and it’s incredible..hardened pine tar makes a bat almost metal in quality. We’d layer them for BP.
Did one of those BP bats get handed to Brett one time?
Haha…no. this was much later. But there’s so much can be done with a bat. It’s part of the game. I’d chalk my arm. Talk about helping hide a ball. The game at some level has always been about edges. It gets to where do we want MLB to step in and change rules. We’ll probably see that with the shift soon. There’s been no rule for the seven guys in the field. That’s probably coming….then someone will exploit that. Wonderful game…human element.
Great post.
Just leave the ball alone.
Amen.
Not to mention every single time they change it they have to change it again because of its unintended consequences.
If they’re going to change the baseball, I’m okay with that, with a ton of advanced testing and a plan to get *the baseball* they want. Stop the guesswork. It changes too many things in the game, affects players on both sides of the ball too much, affects the manner in which teams construct rosters….
Just, have some big-business sense: R & D the heck out of the baseball until it’s fine-tuned to specifications (tacky, medium travel, etc). They do it with other sports & and millions of products. These stories, reflect an ineptitude that’s pervasive in MLB. It certainly doesn’t help the sport. Take the time to get it right the first time instead of changing baseballs three times in almost as many years, with discernible (arguably negative) impacts on the game.
Who is the designated ball tacker?
The same person who is the designated ball mudder.
His mudder was a mudder?
The guy who gets the mud from the river is a mudder forker.
He loves the slop.
Trevor Bauer could use a job
He has experience with sticky situations of all kinds.
And we have a winner!
Let me see if I understand this. The answer to an increased strikeout rate and a decline in run scoring is to make the ball harder to hit and not travel as far when it is hit.
Who’s saying that? The idea of a pretacked ball is it’s easier for pitchers to control without improving stuff. Both are things hitters like. And the league hates walks just as much as K’s.
For the record, balls have been pretacked forever. It’s called mud.
Nobody except Captain Obvious I guess. Stickier ball, more spin rate. More spin rate, more movement, more movement, harder to hit. And since Captain Obvious is still on duty, they’re talking about far more here than mud. If mud got whatever results they were after they wouldn’t be experimenting with stickier materials.
They’re probably heading for pre-tack and eliminating the shift. Multiple things to balance. Pitchers have been tacking forever. Regardless of offensive year to years. It’ll put more balls in play. Having a lousy curve doesn’t improve much by being able to hold it better.
Batters also pine tar and epoxy bats up the barrel but that doesn’t get any play.
Just keep two infielders left of 2nd before pitch is thrown and we’ll get a long way.
We’ll see where they go with the shift rules. If shifting is eliminated entirely it would definitely be to the advantage of batters, at least the lefties. Otherwise it seems MLB is making changes that mainly benefit pitching. I’m feeling like they are tinkering with too many rules at once to be able to predict the results.
The shift used to put a middle infielder up the middle, basically. Those stats probably come back. It’s an aesthetic issue as much as a real statistical thing.
Every so often a manager will try a four-man outfield. Rare enough that probably nobody really cares to regulate it, but this all points to the lack of official positioning rules. For a reason. Once MLB starts making those rules, where do they stop? Where do they even start?
Baseball is all about rules, and shifting things over time. The mound…whatever. I’m not too worried. I’d love to see the entire field used…just good Baseball. It’s always about rules and finding gray areas.
Sure, but the big difference today is the role of metrics in the game. Whatever MLB does, every team is going to crunch the numbers and try to figure out how to work around whatever rule is created. Solving the shift problem is harder than it looks.
This will make evaluating pitching performances at the AA level a lot of fun for front offices this year.
Three different balls in the same season
Genius.
Should they be testing them at the major leaguer level?
No but I thought the entire point of the independent league MLB has an affiliation with was to use them as the testing ground.
No, but don’t use AA as the experimental testing ground. Use the independent league or the lower minors for testing. AA has been the proving (separation) ground for prospects for years.
Can they use Spider Tack?
Logan and Cal don’t care. Sticky, rough, smooth it’s all good.
GO MS!!!!!!
Lol have they even reached .500 this season? Or decade?
….and for some pitchers the tackiness will be a cause of blisters. Just make a ball, and leave it alone.
That’s never been true in the history of the game and may be impossible due to manufacturing processes.
@seamaholic 2 Friction between the ball and the fingers causes blisters. Tackiness will add to the friction. Pitchers prone to blisters will not like the added friction.
Maybe the pitcher could choose a pre-tacked ball or a no-tack ball since some will like the tack and some won’t.
Here’s an idea to speed up the game. Use Krazy Glue and the pitcher will have milliseconds to pick a pitch type and throw it. It’d be hilarious if the batter put a home run swing on it and it just stuck to the bat like Velcro.
Are we sure that they haven’t already changed the surfaces of the MLB balls? They are a lot less dark this year. Have they already stopped or changed the Delaware River mud that’s applied to the balls?
Adjust the contrast on your TV screen.
Maybe there is more….,stuff in the river these days. The amount of ……stuff in the river can affect the color of the mud.
What’s the purpose of using different baseballs in the lower levels of the minor leagues? Is it a cost saving issue? Isn’t keeping the equipment consistent throughout the minors better for evaluating the players?
MLB tests potential future changes in the minors…game clock, automatic umpire, etc.
@Dock_Elvis That’s different. I’m referring to the statement “That control testing will be with the standard Major League ball, which is different than the ball typically used up through Double-A.” Either I’m reading it wrong, or it implies that the ball that is used as the control, the Major League ball, is different that what they normally use. My question is why don’t they normally use a Major League ball?
I’m not sure what they are referring to either. I’ll speculate and say they aren’t referring to another technical ball…just want to ensure reaction with what’s being used now in MLB this season. I really don’t know if AA balls come from a different facility. I know there were TONS of balls leftover from 2020 that had to work their way out if the system. Probably made sure those got out. AA had an entire seasons worth of balls in 2020 sitting there. Maybe they sent those somewhere else or they got used. Sending the fresh balls is how to ensure there’s not mixed batching. MLB has dealt with this..and they played in 2020. That has to be a serious number of unused balls leftover.
about 90% of pitchers still use some sticky stuff and wipe it off before going to umps for a hand check. or eye ball check in one occasion.
And you know this how?
Increase the barrel diameter of the bats.
. . . making the bats heavier.
“We have a ball that has served the sport well for decades…”
——-
Really? Then why do you keep changing it every year?
And as @jonbluvin pointed out, they are apparently using a different ball in AA which I had never heard before now, wth
So if the league wanted to push thr balance back toward thr hitters, why did they introduce humidors in every ballpark?
Another question: why can’t I type “the”???
Should try experimenting Angel Hernandez in AA as an umpire. If it sticks keep him there.
Or perhaps little league.
Let’s keep the kids safe and let them play ball.
The Japanese league adopted a standardized Mizuno baseball that the pitchers loved back in 2011. Darvish was using it before he signed in the states.
“It breaks better, moves more advantageously for the pitcher,” Hisashi Iwakuma of the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, speaking in Japanese, said of the new ball. “Whether you throw a fork or a curve or a slider, the break is bigger. Even your fastball doesn’t have to be perfectly straight; you can make it miss the sweet spot of the bat.”
nytimes.com/2011/10/23/sports/baseball/japans-stan…
But MLB uses Rawlings baseballs, and MLB is part-owner of the company. If Rawlings tried to reverse-engineer their baseballs to replicate the Mizuno baseballs, allowing for the larger size of U.S. baseballs, I suppose Mizuno might sue them for patent infringement. I expect they would.
@fink unless miznou has a patent in the us on the same ball used in jpn could there even be a case. international litigation can get real messy, but given that both rawlings and mizuno are international companies i’m sure they have there stuff patented in every country they sell
You’d think they could replicate basic physical parameters without breaching a material law.
There’s this on the site of the US Patent and Trademark Office:
Patent Cooperation Treaty
‘The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) is an international treaty with more than 150 Contracting States. The PCT makes it possible to seek patent protection for an invention simultaneously in a large number of countries by filing a single “international” patent application instead of filing several separate national or regional patent applications. The granting of patents remains under the control of the national or regional patent offices in what is called the “national phase”.’
thanks fink that cleared a lot of things up, like i said things get a bit cloudy when you talk international law suits. i’m sure if rawlings wanted to they could make there ball like mizuno and just change one little thing i.e. the material that makes up the core then claim in court it’s not the same see this is different.
I’m curious who owns the patent on the physical baseball itself. It’s changed from the very beginning, but looked very similar to the naked eye since the deadball era. Various league rules state the specifications of the ball. But they generally are very similar. Unless you’re using proprietary material or design it’s be hard pressing to NOT have them similar. The “optimal” ball will always be subjective. But they’re all very similar. Cork..yarn..leather…stitching.
Some simple research revealed that the baseball is patented in PARTS. wow. The two piece stitch design looks to date from 1923.
@dock thanks for that bit it was pretty informative
I didn’t go too deep. I’m not sure who owns the various patents now. It’d be wise if some business had snapped them up at some point. I’m trying to imagine Joe Blow’s estate receiving a penny each time a baseball is sold now.
I’m curious what constitutes breaching a patent. It’s a ball meant to meet specifications by size and weight. Prone to be a little off. Always been that way. I can remember getting a case of balls with high tight seams…next would be flatter. Our day and age we expect uniformity and I’m not sure that’s possible. Covid issues really brought that back in play. Also…it’s not like MLB has earned much trust. They could not being trying to mess with the ball, and still be fairly accused of it.
Using a humidor on sea level baseballs AND at high-altitude locales shows the lack of forethought that MLB makes its decisions by and stumbles through…
Maybe, like so many things in this age, the leadership of MLB is trying to destroy the from within. The decisions are that short-sighted.
The point of the humidors is to make the balls the same everywhere. It will add moisture in Denver and Phoenix and maybe dry it a little in Miami.
MLB gets a lot of things wrong, but that’s not one of them.
The name “humidor” might sound like it’s something that adds humidity, but like ahh said, it just maintains a stable level of humidity.
Speaking of Spider Tack . . .
Cole gives up five — count them, five — home runs and seven runs in 2.2 innings . . . and Urshela’s on base with one out as Luetge comes on in relief. The “ace” — outpitched by Dylan Bundy.
Brought me back to the Houston Astros days (the last five years) when they would capitalize on pitches insanely well…. Like, too well.
I’m not implying the Twins cheated here either – Cole missed location on several pitches and left them in the middle of the zone. Correa? Yeah, probably cheating still. If he’s hitting, he’s cheating….lol.
It did invite suspicions, but I think it would’ve had to have been Cole tipping pitches if there’d been anything happening besides just bad pitching. It was concerning though, that all three of the Yankee starters struggled there.
With PitchCom, the only way they’d know how to read what pitch was coming would be to hack into the system; and then they’d have to relay it somehow without getting caught. I think Cole just soiled the bed.
He sure got picked up by his teammates, and I think that comeback was a big deal for the team going forward. It kept other teams from saying “These guys aren’t so good.” Confidence is high.
Yeah, true on all accounts. I went back and watched Cole because my thought was the same – somehow, he’s tipping his pitches, and couple that with poor location. I wonder if Sanchez knew or noticed something when catching Cole and relayed it.
Trevino? Insanely awesome. Hicks finally hit & made an outstanding catch in LF. Gallo must’ve visited Bonds. But, the comeback was the overarching story. The ace got slammed. They were tied again, then more runs given up.
Still, that resilient team came back again. They remind me more and more of those late-90s teams like that. They are doing really well exploiting mistakes too, like the errors made on defense by MN.
I did notice another trend: if you look at starters historically, so many suffer after no-hit performances or perfect games. Their next start(s) are just lackluster. Cole was pretty close, so was Nestor, & Tallion. None of them were anywhere near that in their Yankees tenure to that point. I wonder if that pressure mounted as they approached their 7th & 8th innings, and these lackluster starts are just lag from those high-stress performances, perhaps.
Overall, really fun to watch games, man. My confidence is probably more inspired by this game than most for the aforementioned reasons. Nevertheless, I can’t help but think about their team. The chemistry is different this year. I’m not sold on Cashman’s offseason job yet; but, I’m impressed, really impressed thus far.
As I said in the beginning: Cashman will prove through this that he’s a genius, or inept. So far, he looks like he’s in his prime.
@yc or cole was just due for a bad start it happens, i’ve seen both wanio and carp get shelled after having a great start my question is was cole’s demeanor that despite not having his best stuff he was going to try and get to the 6th or was he looking in the dugout with the look of get me out of here. tbh i hope it was i’m going 6 and pry this ball from my cold dead body, i only ask because i didn’t see the game
@ yankeeclipper
What they did against Detroit was nothing special. Detroit doesn’t hit against anyone.
The ball was absolutely flying last night. I felt like I saw more HRs in last night’s game than I did in the month of April. They all were crushed on both sides.
It’s games like that which makes me wonder if a different batch of baseballs were used. MLB last year absolutely used different batches, which produced differing results. Speculation was they used the more jacked baseball in the Field of Dreams game last year to ensure higher scoring for the showcase event. Most likely, though, it was a combination of weather and the humidor, and the Yankees starters due for a bad stretch and the Twins hitters putting up good ABs. Last night, Cole didn’t have command of his fastball, so he tried to use a slider and a cutter to get ahead, and they all hung right in the cripple zone, allowing MLB hitters to do major league things. There was no pitch tipping. Just bad pitches.
We’re leaning on power pitching and launch angle…anything off and we’ll have power displays. Reminds me a little of what college baseball was like in the 80s.
Yankees have so much depth.
How can you use the regular league baseball with a tacky substance, change to the MLB baseball when using mud and be able to tell what part of the difference is due to the tacky stuff/mud or to the baseball that its being applied to? If you’re not using the same baseball for all three substances, the test results will be meaningless. May as well use an aluminum bat for part of the test as well.
Pedro gave a very informative dissertation and demonstration on why these extra substances are in no way necessary to be an effective pitcher. Those who insist otherwise are simply looking for a crutch.
Need to use an all natural sticky substance. Something that’s not too noticeable maybe clear-ish in color, sometimes white to off-white. Elmers Naturals obviously.
i say let them use sub-floor glue or white quad /s
Am I the only one who finds this a bit tacky?
Why not wait to introduce it in 2023
Leave the game alone.
leave the ball alone. make pitchers adjust. quit giving in to the cry babies.
We were allowing pitchers to cheat forever as part of the game. We don’t socially allow cheating anymore. So we have to compensate for what was natural before.
like steroids? pitchers must be cheating all the way down to the league after t-ball then
Eastern League is also implementing no shifting other than normal shifting, i.e. all infielders have to start on the dirt and only 2 infielders on either side of 2nd base. Hoping they bring this to MLB next season.
I’d welcome some restrictions, but I’d be fine if they restricted shifting to no 4th OFers and infielders have to be on the dirt. They can still shift around the infield as they like, as long as they start on the dirt.