Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts expressed concern that one of his best pitchers, Trevor Bauer, has been picked in Major League Baseball’s renewed effort to limit the illegal use of foreign resources on baseballs.
Bauer’s name surfaced in a recent report from The Athletic saying that multiple baseballs from his Wednesday outing against the Oakland Athletics were collected for inspection after it was found that they had visible markings and were sticky to the touch. Bauer complained about the report via his Twitter account and criticized MLB for leaking information about “a supposedly confidential process.”
“It is my understanding that umpires collect baseballs from all pitchers and balls that were in play to collect samples,” Roberts said before his team’s home opener Friday morning. “That’s about what I get out of it. I just hope that our player is not selected. That’s the only thing I want to guard against.”
MLB, which has spent the past year trying to get a grip on pitchers using foreign resources in an effort to maximize spin speeds and generate more swings and misses, issued a memo to teams on March 21 outlining three new police methods.
It included having two employees – a Game Day Compliance Monitor and an Electronics Compliance Officer – stationed on each baseball field, partially responsible for detecting violations of foreign substances. The league also said it would review Statcast data to identify alarming increases in spin speed and instruct field personnel, including umpires and verifiers, “to send baseballs emerging from play to the commissioner’s office for further action. inspection and documentation. “
“They will prioritize baseballs that may contain evidence of a foreign substance,” the memo said, “but will also randomly select balls to ensure full coverage.”
Some of those balls will be outsourced to a lab for further inspection, but sources told ESPN that the league will spend the 2021 season primarily in gathering information and that multiple baseballs from multiple pitchers have been collected from each game this season. At that point, Bauer is currently not facing possible punishment from the competition. But findings from the baseballs being inspected can be used as supporting evidence for punishment along the way.
Bauer publicly criticized the league’s original memo, posting a 23-minute video on YouTube questioning MLB’s intent, saying foreign substances should be standardized and objecting to pitchers being penalized for substances on baseballs that collected during competitions.
“If I throw a throw and it gets thrown out and tested, and it has some strange substance on it, how do they know it came from me and not from the catcher’s glove or third baseman’s glove or from a foul ball ? ” Bauer said in his video. “What if it happens to hit the handle of a bat where a batter has pine tar, or whatever other substance he wants – which is perfectly legal, as long as it doesn’t go too far up the bat? That I was and blames me for being a used a strange substance, when it could come from a myriad of other legal places? “
For many years, Bauer has been by far the most outspoken athlete when it comes to MLB’s need to combat the issue of pitchers using substances such as pine tar and sunblock to get a better grip on baseballs and create more spin, a direct offense. of a rule – 6.02 – that has never been strictly enforced. More recently, however, there has been speculation that Bauer is a potential offender, given the increase in the spin speed of his four-seam fastball during his Cy Young Award-winning season in 2020.
MLB took the first step in controlling the matter last year by preventing coaches, trainers and clubhouse visitors from providing or administering foreign pitcher resources, a new regulation that led to the controversial dismissal of Brian Harkins, who has been a clubhouse clerk in Los Angeles Angels.
This year, MLB’s primary goal, sources said, is to gather information on the matter and punish the more blatant offenders as well. Ultimately, the league hopes to replace the traditional mud used to rub baseballs with a stickier substance that would prevent pitchers from using other means to get a better grip on a ball that often feels too chalky. If the league does that – a chase that many across the industry are asking for – it hopes to follow Rule 6.02 as it is written. Until then, however, that need not be the case.
Pitchers are technically only allowed to use the resin applied to the back of the mound, but the vast majority of pitchers are widely believed to use other substances with varying degrees of stick. In recent years, there have also been teams making their own resources to distribute to their pitchers.
However, Roberts believes that Bauer is being singled out.
Why?
“I don’t know,” said Roberts. “That’s the only name I’ve heard floating around.”