After 10 consecutive weeks when MLB average four-seam spin rate hovered between 2,306 rpms to 2,329 rpms, last week it suddenly dropped 45 rpms to a season-low 2,269.
Among pitchers who hit two-year lows in fastball or cutter spin rate last week were Trevor Bauer of the Dodgers, Gerrit Cole and Aroldis Chapman of the Yankees, Freddy Peralta and Corbin Burnes of the Brewers, and Lucas Sims of the Reds.
Rule 6.02 expands on the rule to bar having any such substance “on his person, or in possession.” In recent years umpires operated under general instructions only to intervene when prompted by opposing managers, which has not happened in the past six years because every manager has pitchers on his team who are cheating.
This spring officials repeated those warnings and announced three measures designed to discourage the practice: game-day compliance officers near the field, the random removal of baseballs for inspection and the monitoring of individual fastball spin rates to flag suspicious increases.
The publicity already has had a desired effect: getting pitchers to clean up their act and to restore some offense to a sport with fewer hits per game than all but one season in baseball history, 1908, smack in the Deadball Era.
The trope for pitch doctoring is “the baseballs are slick and hitters want us to have a good grip.” That may have been true when pitchers used a dab of pine tar.
But a super-spinning fastball—say, 2,700 rpms and above—fools the hitter because it doesn’t sink as much as those thousands of fastballs he has cataloged in his head.
Since the 1950s MLB has used Lena Blackbourne’s Rubbing Mud to take the sheen off baseballs, but officials want a substance that will impart the tackier feel.
But getting caught doctoring a baseball—also like PEDs—comes with a worse penalty: a reputation tarnished forever.
But look at it this way: Four-seamers thrown with an average spin rate of 2,269, which we saw last week, resemble four-seamers from 2017 , before cheating exploded.