"sticky substances"

[chw42]

1 minute ago, Balta1701 said:

FWIW, there was nothing unusual about the spin on on Rodon's pitches in his recent starts compared to the rest of the year.

Yeah Rodon is clean. His fastball is as straight as an arrow. He's throwing 98+ and getting 2100 RPM. It's probably why his exit velo and hard hit data doesn't look good this year. Velocity alone is getting him by right now. 

[Balta1701]

8 minutes ago, chw42 said:

I remember Bauer was slightly above average in spin rate before 2018. He was hovering around 2400. Then he jumped to 2700-2800. He's now at 2600 RPMs. Maybe he's found a way to increase his spin rate by 200 RPMs naturally, but he literally said that was impossible before without foreign substances. Lynn's spin rates were never elite. He was at 2400, which is just above average. 

He's actually never been at 2400 before this year, on average, because that's right in the middle of what he has come out as. He was at 2300 in 2017-2018, 2450 to 2500 in 2019-2020, and was at 2500 earlier this season before dropping down now. There's a now reasonably supported hypothesis that 2300 is his "clean grip spin rate on his fastball" and 2500 is whatever he was using, and for him that's the difference between an ERA of ~4 and an ERA of 3.25.

He has a good arm, he's probably not going to fall completely off the face of the earth without the stuff, but this is the first solid explanation I've gotten for how he cut his walk rate 20% and raised his K rate 20% starting in 2019 compared to his career numbers. In the offseason we were just saying some vague version of "he changed what he's doing".

[almagest]

5 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

He's actually never been at 2400 before this year, on average, because that's right in the middle of what he has come out as. He was at 2300 in 2017-2018, 2450 to 2500 in 2019-2020, and was at 2500 earlier this season before dropping down now. There's a now reasonably supported hypothesis that 2300 is his "clean grip spin rate on his fastball" and 2500 is whatever he was using, and for him that's the difference between an ERA of ~4 and an ERA of 3.25.

He has a good arm, he's probably not going to fall completely off the face of the earth without the stuff, but this is the first solid explanation I've gotten for how he cut his walk rate 20% and raised his K rate 20% starting in 2019 compared to his career numbers. In the offseason we were just saying some vague version of "he changed what he's doing".

If this is the case I would expect him to pitch more like a #3-#4 for the rest of the year, and I doubt the Sox will try to resign him.

[chw42]

6 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

He's actually never been at 2400 before this year, on average, because that's right in the middle of what he has come out as. He was at 2300 in 2017-2018, 2450 to 2500 in 2019-2020, and was at 2500 earlier this season before dropping down now. There's a now reasonably supported hypothesis that 2300 is his "clean grip spin rate on his fastball" and 2500 is whatever he was using, and for him that's the difference between an ERA of ~4 and an ERA of 3.25.

He has a good arm, he's probably not going to fall completely off the face of the earth without the stuff, but this is the first solid explanation I've gotten for how he cut his walk rate 20% and raised his K rate 20% starting in 2019 compared to his career numbers. In the offseason we were just saying some vague version of "he changed what he's doing".

It'll be interesting to see how much of an effect this crackdown has. Will a 4 ERA be considered good again? How much higher will the league average wOBA be? Either way, I still think this change does not favor us. Yeah our hitters might produce more, but that's really not the strength of the team. 

[Balta1701]

1 minute ago, chw42 said:

It'll be interesting to see how much of an effect this crackdown has. Will a 4 ERA be considered good again? How much higher will the league average wOBA be? Either way, I still think this change does not favor us. Yeah our hitters might produce more, but that's really not the strength of the team. 

With Lynn in particular, he had never gotten Cy Young votes until 2019 when he suddenly finished 5th in the AL. He had previously been an all star once, in 2012, and he was particularly bad with the Twins in 2018. So while I can't verify that this was the cause...whatever he did in 2019 took him from being a good pitcher with an injury in 2016 and a really bad first run in the AL in 2018 to a clearly elite pitcher in 2019. 

Also, FWIW, his K/BB rate did its first spike when he was traded to the Yankees in mid-2018, so decent chance that's where this started for him, whatever it was.

[southsider2k5]

 

[Chicago White Sox]

2 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

With Lynn in particular, he had never gotten Cy Young votes until 2019 when he suddenly finished 5th in the AL. He had previously been an all star once, in 2012, and he was particularly bad with the Twins in 2018. So while I can't verify that this was the cause...whatever he did in 2019 took him from being a good pitcher with an injury in 2016 and a really bad first run in the AL in 2018 to a clearly elite pitcher in 2019. 

Also, FWIW, his K/BB rate did its first spike when he was traded to the Yankees in mid-2018, so decent chance that's where this started for him, whatever it was.

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

2 hours ago, chw42 said:

It'll be interesting to see how much of an effect this crackdown has. Will a 4 ERA be considered good again? How much higher will the league average wOBA be? Either way, I still think this change does not favor us. Yeah our hitters might produce more, but that's really not the strength of the team. 

The growth of offensive production is barely greater than it is in a normal season as the weather warms. It is slightly above the average rate of growth over the past ten years, but it's not something that may not just be noise or related to the fact that offenses started slower than before as well.

A couple points.

1. Pitchers were going to hit dead arm periods earlier this year than in your typical season as they are reaching innings totals that are above last year already - which means pitcher fatigue was likely to set in sooner this year than your typical mid-July fatigue.

2. Offense has been trending downward for multiple years and that trend merely continued this year. There's no way that has been directly caused by more pitchers using sticky substances. The offensive decline this year is very likely tied to the fact that MLb changed the baseball when offenses were already trending down.

3. Spin rates have ALWAYS had variances start to start, the same way velocity does. Have substances effected spin, sure. Have they caused this entire offensive decline? Absolutely not.

4. Lance Lynn may have benefited from some increased spin - obviously he did to an extent - but did he benefit the way people in this thread believe? Absolutely not.

The misuse of data and statistics around this issue has driven me crazy. Data was never meant to paint a picture AFTER you wrote your theory. It was meant to be analyzed versus a vast amount of information and then analyzed. As of now, all people are doing is confirmation bias where they ignore past years offenses changes as the year goes on, ignore the baseball change, ignore the offensive decline in general, and ignore the fact that as the season goes on pitchers tie, injuries pile up and offensive production grows.

Lance Lynn and Dylan Cease aren't now bad pitchers because they can't put as much grip on a baseball. Is it entirely meaningless? No, but does it impact the game to the point that is being inferred by many here? Absolutely not. This is another example of baseball not getting out of its own way and "analytical" people distorting data to confirm their preconceived conclusions.

Edited June 21, 2021 by Look at Ray Ray Run

[Chicago White Sox]

Lance Lynn’s spin rate on his 4 seamer by year:

• 2015: 2,418
• 2017: 2,375 (98.2%)
• 2018: 2,385 (98.6%)
• 2019: 2,482 (102.6%)
• 2020: 2,492 (103.1%)
• 2021: 2,425 (100.2%)

Spin rate dropped slightly alongside his velocity while returning from TJS and then increased slightly alongside a velocity increase once healthy.  I believe he also lost some weight and made some mechanical adjustments after joining the Yankees.  Not sure I see enough there to claim a “gotcha” like Balta is trying to do, especially when the reason for massive improvement is primarily driven by arsenal changes / addition of a cutter.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

13 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

He's actually never been at 2400 before this year, on average, because that's right in the middle of what he has come out as. He was at 2300 in 2017-2018, 2450 to 2500 in 2019-2020, and was at 2500 earlier this season before dropping down now. There's a now reasonably supported hypothesis that 2300 is his "clean grip spin rate on his fastball" and 2500 is whatever he was using, and for him that's the difference between an ERA of ~4 and an ERA of 3.25.

He has a good arm, he's probably not going to fall completely off the face of the earth without the stuff, but this is the first solid explanation I've gotten for how he cut his walk rate 20% and raised his K rate 20% starting in 2019 compared to his career numbers. In the offseason we were just saying some vague version of "he changed what he's doing".

I think it's really hard to compare spin rate for previous years. MLB has messed with the baseball also in other years . If the seams are higher pitchers can get a better grip. If the seams are lower they start using more sticky stuff. Also if the ball is slightly lighter or heavier or the core is changed that affects pitchers too. Pitcher's return from injuries , change mechanics ,move from starter to reliever . One size does not fit all. The picture is to big to paint with a broad brush.

Let's face it baseball always wants more offense and the latest crackdown on sticky substances and ball changes plus all the studies on moving the mound back are all designed for the benefit of the offense. Supposedly they made the ball lighter this year because of the inordinate number of HR's last year so that combined with the sticky stuff has led to offenses being down this year. It's just hard to pinpoint when and how prevalent the sticky stuff became a big thing. Did it really gain momentum last year throughout the league when everyone was smashing the ball or were the new and improve substances mostly unavailable until last year ? Some have been around a while but perhaps closely guarded secrets . Things like that don't stay secrets long and once guys started ratting it was already at epidemic proportions.

So somewhere between the secret getting out and the manufacturing of the substances in abundance the ball got changed and then it became the next steroids type performance enhancing issue which the league wants to put down as fast as they can.

Edited June 22, 2021 by CaliSoxFanViaSWside

[southsider2k5]

 

[South Side Hit Men]

What are the odds the White Sox are one of these teams sourced for Buster's article?

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/31674416/some-mlb-teams-plan-ask-umpires-check-pitchers-foreign-substances-sources-say

Quote

 

Baseball's rule against the use of foreign substances has been buried for decades underneath a gentlemen's agreement held among managers, who almost uniformly refused to ask umpires to check opposing pitchers because they knew that their own pitchers would not be checked.

But with Major League Baseball set to order umpires to enforce the foreign substance rules starting Monday, at least three teams intend to set aside that old agreement, according to sources. If the managers of those teams receive information that seems suspicious -- video capturing an opposing pitcher perhaps using foreign substances, or data about an unusual spike in spin rate -- they will ask umpires to check opposing pitchers.

 

 

[southsider2k5]

Just now, South Side Hit Men said:

What are the odds the White Sox are one of these teams sourced for Buster's article?

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/31674416/some-mlb-teams-plan-ask-umpires-check-pitchers-foreign-substances-sources-say

 

Zero.  We are all about unwritten rules.

[Tnetennba]

 

[StrangeSox]

 

 

 

[BigHurt3515]

58 minutes ago, StrangeSox said:

 

 

 

Absolutely insane that this is allowed in the middle of an inning. Pathetic from the MLB 

[Nokona]

1 hour ago, BigHurt3515 said:

Absolutely insane that this is allowed in the middle of an inning. Pathetic from the MLB 

It's not insane at all.  

What is insane is Girardi being a prick.

[BigHurt3515]

1 minute ago, Nokona said:

It's not insane at all.  

What is insane is Girardi being a prick.

Why should it be ok to stop a pitcher in the middle of the inning and do this charade?

[ron883]

51 minutes ago, Nokona said:

It's not insane at all.  

What is insane is Girardi being a prick.

As a manager, you'd be dumb not to abuse this in a key situation. Might as well try and throw off a pitcher's mojo.

Edited June 23, 2021 by ron883

[South Side Hit Men]

47 minutes ago, Nokona said:

It's not insane at all.  

What is insane is Girardi being a prick.

Philadelphia grows on one over time.

A manager should have to point to something specific if they are calling for an additional inspection beyond the already scheduled inspections of each separate pitcher when they leave the field.

[Nokona]

1 hour ago, BigHurt3515 said:

Why should it be ok to stop a pitcher in the middle of the inning and do this charade?

Because balls in play could be heavily pine tarred, wiped discreetly and then used by the pitcher.

[South Side Hit Men]

That's not even the most embarrassing video. All four videos are linked in this SCORE article.

https://www.audacy.com/sports/mlb/max-scherzer-clearly-frustrated-after-third-substance-check

I'm embedding the fourth tweet, where Max stares down Girardi while leaving the mound after the inning, and Joe Girardi leaves the dugout and challenges Max to an argument and or physical confrontation. Joe was immediately ejected, and I hope he gets suspended for his actions.

If you see something and are near or at 100% certainty, call an appeal. If you are "taking a shot" with minimal / no evidence, you don't think the opposition is going to stare you down, possibly put a ball upside your hitter, for calling an appeal with no basis? Perhaps your team loses an inning at bat, or the manager gets a 10 game suspension if they falsely accuse a pitcher. 

 

This is even more wack. Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Freddy Peralta had his glove confiscated for having spider tack being too light in color, in the estimation of the umpire.

 

 

Edited June 23, 2021 by South Side Hit Men

[Dominikk85]

On 6/21/2021 at 6:10 PM, chw42 said:

It'll be interesting to see how much of an effect this crackdown has. Will a 4 ERA be considered good again? How much higher will the league average wOBA be? Either way, I still think this change does not favor us. Yeah our hitters might produce more, but that's really not the strength of the team. 

I think generally it will hurt 4sfb pitchers who throw up in the zone. High spin breaking balls also affected, change ups and sinkers not so much. 

[StrangeSox]

MLB is handling this in the dumbest and most alienating way possible, which should surprise absolutely no one.

[Balta1701]

Giolito last night 

On his 4 seam fastball and curveball that is his lowest spin game since April of 2019. On the slider he had one game in 2020 below that, but that is his second lowest spin game for the slider since April 2019.

Earlier this year he had 2 games with a high spin rate on his changeup, including that marvelous start against the Angels opening day, as seen on this chart. But, starting in April of 2019, the spin rate on his change started dropping, so overall this looks like his 3rd highest changeup spin rate in a game since April, 2019.