League officials are informing teams this spring that umpires are being encouraged to more diligently monitor pitchers for foreign substances, reports Jayson Stark of the Athletic. It’ll involve more thorough checks on pitchers as part of MLB’s quest to enforce the ban on sticky stuff.
That crackdown came in response to concern among league officials (and some players) that pitchers were using increasingly complex substances to enhance their grip on the baseball. The league’s rationale was that many pitchers had gone beyond the long accepted practice of using substances like rosin to maintain control of the ball and were instead using sticky stuff as a means of artificially enhancing the quality of their arsenals by increasing spin and movement. The crackdown came in response to league concerns about the ever-increasing rise of strikeouts in the sport.
The substance checks led to some controversy early on, with pitchers like Tyler Glasnow and Garrett Richards blasting MLB’s decision to implement it midway through the 2021 season. Within a few weeks, however, the focus on those checks generally faded into the background. Umpires continued to inspect every pitcher (some hurlers multiple times within a game) but there were only two ejections for pitchers whom umpires determined violated the foreign substance rule during the 2021 season. There wasn’t a single ejection related to a failed foreign substance check last year, although D-Backs southpaw Madison Bumgarner was thrown out for insulting umpire Dan Bellino during an inspection (an ejection for which Bellino later apologized).
The process came back to the forefront on the national stage last fall when Mets manager Buck Showalter requested umpires examine Padres starter Joe Musgrove during the deciding game of the clubs’ Wild Card Series. Musgrove passed the inspection, remained in the game, and finished with seven scoreless innings to lead San Diego to a clinching win.
While the Musgrove incident ultimately turned out to be inconsequential, the league apparently has concerns that pitchers have found ways around the substance checks in general. Eno Sarris of the Athletic noted last September that league spin rates on four-seam fastballs had risen throughout the 2022 campaign after an initial precipitous decline upon the start of inspections in mid-summer 2021. According to Stark, the league has token note of that trend. MLB had expressed similar concerns about a rise in spin rate last Spring Training, but league officials’ plans to enhance enforcement last season evidently didn’t have the desired effect.
Stark writes that umpires are expected to again examine pitcher equipment like hats and belts, a process they used in 2021 but shied away from last season as they focused more attention on players’ hands. Stark adds that checks of pitchers’ hands — which obviously will also continue — are expected to be more thorough than they had been and that umpires could potentially conduct mid-inning checks if they identify a reason to believe the pitcher could be using a foreign substance.
Whether the tighter enforcement will have any tangible effects on gameplay in 2023 remains to be seen. It comes as part of the league’s ongoing efforts to increase the number of balls in play. MLB is implementing various rule changes (i.e. infield shift limitations, larger bases, a pitch clock) with an eye towards decreasing whiffs and/or accelerating pace of play.
