In its first full season back since the start of the pandemic, Major League Baseball finds itself mired in another cheating scandal, this one centered around pitchers using foreign substances to enhance their grip on the ball.
Pitchers around the league, including Yankees ace Gerrit Cole and Mets' two-time Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom, have been accused of using an aid to enhance their grip. Those accusations, which have come from inside the league and out, remain unfounded.
But the accusations speak to a growing concern in baseball about how prevalent the issue has become. To the extent that MLB is cracking down, agreeing to have umpires check pitchers repeatedly and randomly for foreign substances, including twice per game for starting pitchers.
Ryan Zimmerman, a 17-year MLB veteran who's seen it all, from the outer edge of the steroid scandal to clubs using video equipment to steal signs, agrees: It's time baseball does something about it.
"I've had many different stances over the last couple of months," Zimmerman told The Sports Junkies during his weekly appearance, presented by MainStreet Bank. "I mean it's been known that a lot of pitchers use stuff, not so much to really I guess enhance what they're good at, but to be able to control the ball. Because a lot of the times the balls are fairly slippery, they're not rubbed up that well, so a lot of guys use just a little bit just to have I would say control. At least that's what I've been told."
Zimmerman echoes thoughts from hitters around the league, that game balls are slicker this year, which both drives the desire for pitchers to want to reach for a little extra command and also increases the rate of wild pitches. As spin rates and velocity spike upward across baseball, it's never been more dangerous to be a hitter.
Just last week, Nationals starter Austin Voth suffered a broken nose after taking a 90-mph Vince Velasquez fastball to the face while attempting to lay down a bunt, making for a grisly scene in Philadelphia.
"I've got to think you're okay with [pitchers having more control]," Junkies host Jason Bishop noted.
"Yeah, but I mean the only problem with that is like the hit-by-pitches has gone up every year, so the control's not working that well," Zimmerman said. "But then you also have, just like in anything, you're gonna have the people that take it to another level and try and push to the limits. And then when you get the guys that use the crazy stuff, the Spider Tack or whatever the hell it's called — I don't know, I don't even know what half the stuff is called. Or they make their own stuff or they combine a couple things. And then all of a sudden, those guys are for sure getting a competitive advantage."
This is the rub — a foreign substance may help pitchers gain control, but it also increases their velocity and thus the chances of an out-of-control pitcher inflicting dangerous bodily harm on a hitter. This at a time when there are more pitchers throwing harder than ever before, and just as many GMs unfazed by their lack of command or the damage they might inflict on opposing hitters. As long as it's unhittable, what's it to them if someone else's player takes a ball to the face?
"I'm not huge on analytics and spin rate and all that stuff," he continued, "but these guys are getting an extra 400, 500 RPMs on their spin rate, which is basically taking a very mediocre pitcher that could be in the big leagues, but might not be in the big leagues, and propelling them to a level that is elite. Whether that's all their pitches or one pitch or whatever it is, but to me that's cheating. I can't do that with anything in the batter's box. I think that's where the problem lies."
As strikeout rates reach all-time highs and batting averages plummet to all-time lows, the competitive balance has shifted undeniably in 2021.
"The easy fix is to take everything away," Zimmerman said. "But I think there's always been this type of thing in the game. It's not an easy situation. I don't think there's one answer to cure everything. But there's definitely been stuff over the last two or three years I think that has gone to a different level that has brought about this conversation, I guess is the best way to put it."
Prior to this season, Zimmerman says it was never really necessary to take into account during game preparation which pitchers might be using foreign substances.
"I mean, honestly, we've never really talked about, like, 'this guy's probably using this, this guy's probably using that,' until like these past couple weeks when it's really, I mean everything has been about this for the last couple weeks," he said. "I mean there's front-page newspaper headlines. There's obviously that interview with Gerrit Cole the other day. It's now becoming kind of front and center in baseball.
"And honestly, before this, I don't think — at least I didn't, I'm sure some of the other hitters or the younger guys that are more I guess in touch with this kind of analytics, spin rate world that these guys have been... I almost said 'these kids' like I'm an old man. This is what they've been immersed in in baseball their entire life and career."
"I barely know anything about this stuff, so I don't worry about it I think as much as other people," he said. "But I'm learning more about it as all this starts to come out kind of as everyone else. It's definitely something that needs to be handled. I don't know how to handle it, but I think it's definitely making guys better, I guess is the best way to put it."
Zimmerman was asked about the possibility of electronic buzzers being used, with a device of some sort concealed by a bandage to signal the incoming pitch to the hitter, which was an unproven allegation against the Astros as their cheating scandal unfolded in 2019.
"Are these even real things?" Eric Bickel asked. "Honestly. Have you ever seen or heard — like do you think this is legit? Somebody, somewhere is wearing a wire or a vibrating band-aid to tip him pitches, for example?"
"I find it hard to believe," Zimmerman said. "But, I mean, the more I've lived and the more I've met people and the more I've not believed things, the more there's always someone that's willing to take it to that level, I think. To me, that's not even playing a game anymore. I don't know. I would feel so morally wrong doing something like that."
"I mean, I guess some people, it is what it is," he said. "They're just trying to do whatever they can to make a career and to stay in the big leagues, or to get to the big leagues. But to me, you're compromising the game and just the integrity of obviously the game, but I think yourself. Maybe I'm too optimistic, that I think people would never do things like that. Which, obviously, I guess there has been accusations. I think it's sad for the state of baseball and sports and things like that."
"My whole thing behind all of this is the fans come to the game to watch people compete and do things that they can't do," Zimmerman continued. "I'm not saying you guys could hit a big-league fastball, but you'd have a hell of a lot better chance to hit a big-league fastball if you had something vibrating in your back pocket and you knew they were gonna throw you a fastball. So it kind of undercuts the experience for you guys, the fans, to come watch and to come pay for a ticket to watch me do something that you guys can't do."
"If they know now that people are cheating, then the talent isn't as appealing I guess to the fans," he continued. "And I think that's the biggest problem and that's what all sports deal with. They want fair playing fields. They want their fans to realize that these guys or girls can do something that they can't. That's why you pay to come watch.
"So to me that's the biggest problem, and hopefully we clean all this stuff up like we have in the past, like all sports have in the past, and kind of move forward. I'm glad I don't have to make those decisions because I don't know what the heck they're gonna do, but it's definitely something that needs to get taken care of."
