The Major League Baseball crackdown on foreign substances has arrived.
ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports on Monday night that MLB will suspend players caught using any foreign substances — “from sunscreen mixed with rosin to Spider Tack” — for 10 days with pay (so, two times through the rotation for a starting pitcher).
According to Passan, MLB is expected to send out a memo to teams on Tuesday that “that outlines its plans to penalize all players caught by umpires with any foreign substance on their person.”
The memo outlining the plan for foreign substances is coming tomorrow, sources tell ESPN, and it includes a 10-day suspension with pay for anyone caught with any sort of substance, from sunscreen mixed with rosin to Spider Tack. News story is free at ESPN: https://t.co/9rsIVnRhTK
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) June 15, 2021
Major League Baseball is expected to announce Tuesday that it will suspend players caught with any foreign substance for 10 days with pay to help curtail the widespread use of grip enhancers by pitchers around the league, sources familiar with the plans told ESPN.
The league is expected to distribute a memo to teams — which have been briefed on the broad strokes of the policy change — that outlines its plans to penalize all players caught by umpires with any foreign substance on their person, from the widely used sunscreen-and-rosin combination to Spider Tack, an industrial glue that has become a favorite among pitchers who want to generate more spin on the ball.
The Players Association issued a statement, while MLB declined comment.
“The Players Association is aware that Major League Baseball plans to issue guidance shortly regarding the enforcement of existing rules governing foreign substances. We will communicate with Players accordingly once that guidance has been issued. We anticipate future discussions with the League regarding on-field issues, including the foreign substance rules and the baseballs themselves, as part of ongoing collective bargaining. Our continued focus will remain on fundamental fairness and player health and safety.”
Passan adds that two general managers told ESPN that “teams recently received reports from the league of pitchers on their team that had been caught using substances.”
There have already been some eye-opening pitcher spin rate RPM declines over the last several days (as Passan notes, the league batting average has also been 11 points higher since reports of a crackdown emerged on June 3), and it will be interesting to see which pitchers show a decline in effectiveness in the coming weeks.
