Major League Baseball informed team owners this week that they plan to enforce the rules to curb pitchers’ application of foreign substances to baseballs. The decision is motivated by rampant use in the majors, which is seen as a major reason for the struggles offenses are having this season.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts and catcher Will Smith said Friday the team has not heard from the league on the matter.
“I guess it’s something you see all over the league, where some guys blatantly wear them,” Smith said. But as for me, I don’t know. It doesn’t affect me much as a hitter. So yeah, it would be interesting to see what they do with that. “
A quick glance at the Major League Baseball leaderboards – accessible to anyone with a computer and an Internet connection – is all it takes to know that Dodgers pitchers spin baseball better than anyone. other. Proof that someone from the Dodgers uses foreign substances has not surfaced, at least publicly. Does Roberts expect a drop in performance if MLB controls sticky substances?
“I think the majors are trying to clean up some things,” Roberts said. “I just don’t know much about it. So I think that, at first glance, it will probably affect performance. “
“But it is across the board. And I think that with the players that we have in our launch staff we will be great beneficiaries. “
The Dodgers’ top four starting pitchers this season – Trevor Bauer, Walker Buehler, Clayton Kershaw and Julio Urías – are in the top nine for four-seam fastball turnover rates among qualified pitchers as of Saturday. according to Baseball Savant. Bauer is first, Buehler is second, Kershaw is eighth and Uriah is ninth.
Expand the list to pitchers who have faced at least 50 batters and the Dodgers bullpen enters the mix. Bauer continues to top the list, but Jimmy Nelson is in seventh place and Dennis Santana in 14th. When it comes to cutters, Bauer is first, Buehler is third and Kenley Jansen is fifth. Sliders? Nelson is third, Bauer fourth and Buehler sixth. Bauer also leads the pack in sliders’ average spin rate.
Sports Illustrated took it a step further in a report this week, calculating that the Dodgers have increased their turnover rate by 7.04% from last season to this season, more than any other team. The report referred to Los Angeles as “Spin City.”
Roberts said he understood “the investigation,” but defended his team. He noted that the Dodgers added pitchers with histories of high spin rates and lost pitchers with low rates (Pedro Báez, Dylan Floro and Adam Kolarek, who ranks last in the average spin rate of the four-seam fastball this season). .
Nelson, Alex Vesia and Garrett Cleavinger are among the new hires with high turnover rates. But nobody stands out more than Bauer. His presence is ubiquitous at the top of the spin rate leaderboards this season. It wasn’t two years ago.
Bauer’s four-seam fastball average spin rate of 2,410 revolutions per minute (rpm) in 2019 ranked 15th among qualified starters. The launch’s average spin rate, however, increased by nearly 400 rpm – from 2,358 to 2,755 – in September. His fastball hovered around the same number for the 2020 season, leading the league with 2,779 rpm. He finished the 60-game campaign with a 1.73 ERA and won the National League Cy Young Award.
This season, Bauer’s average spin rate was 2,835 rpm, which is 235 rpm ahead of all other qualified starters.
The drastic change is amplified by Bauer’s history as a candid MLB critic who ignores the use of foreign substances. In a tweet in 2018, Bauer hinted that the Houston Astros doctored baseballs to increase spin rates. Bauer that year also tweeted that he could increase his spin rate on his four-seam fastball by 400 rpm if he used pine tar.
In an essay published in the Players’ Tribune in 2020, he wrote that after eight years of trying to improve the spin of his fastball, he determined that it could only occur using foreign substances. On an episode of HBO’s “Real Sports,” he later estimated that 70% of major league pitchers “use some kind of technically illegal substance on the ball.” He said he was not using illegal sticky substances because he has “morals.”
In February, Bauer walked through his 2020 success to landing a three-year, $ 102 million deal with opt-outs after the first and second seasons. He received a $ 10 million signing bonus and will earn a base salary of $ 28 million this season, making him one of the highest paid players in the majors.
“I’m not trying to plead ignorance – but I haven’t seen anything,” Roberts said. “And, to be honest, I don’t get involved in those things. Trevor is a grown man who is very smart. But on that point, again, once everything is out about how they’re going to handle it, I’m not worried about everyone following the protocols. “
