I should have done that, sorry if I am re-treading old ground.
According to this Times’ analysis, that’s not true. Or rather, people may have been saying/believing it, but they say the data does not bear it out:
When asked about the effects of the rule changes, Rob Manfred, the commissioner of Major League Baseball, focused on the positive effects it has had on the game’s offense. “Enforcing our rules is really important — they’re on the books, they should be enforced,” he said, calling the changes in play “very promising.” He was particularly pleased there had been no increases in batters hit by pitches — a point that he has made before and that has been backed by data showing batters have been less safe in this recent era of sticky substances.
Accidentally posted in June thread. I’ll be darned. Baby Bombers take 2 of 3 from Boston. Call guys up from AAA and they play like they want to stick around. Spraying the ball around, taking extra bases, who knew there was more to the game than homers and strikeouts?
Your link is paywalled. I wonder if the “current era” Manfred is referring to is the last 3-4 years or so where pitchers are using SpiderTak and other Uber-substances, and not just the regular rosin+sunscreen+sweat that they’ve insisted for a couple decades improves command/control.
It gets even uglier in the Ben Zobrist divorce. Now his Christian singer wife wants an extra 4 million from the time Zobrist took off during that leave of absence in 2019.
Yeah, I wish I had a different source I could link to. But the Times analysis is definitely talking about 2017 to the present only. And here’s a quote from Manfred regarding safety of sticky substances that talks about an even shorter timeframe:
“There’s a lot of things that get said that are counterfactual, that it’s more dangerous,” Manfred said. “The data doesn’t support that. The fact of the matter is that we had more use of more effective sticky substances early this year than at any time in the history of baseball, and we had more people hit by pitches than at any point in the history of baseball. Those are the facts.”
ETA: I guess I am surprised to learn that, in one of the major sports leagues in this country, players had been cheating for years and years and years and it was just tacitly accepted. That seems bonkers to me, no matter the justification.
As terrible of a person as he apparently is, Trevor Bauer spent years starting around then telling MLB to fix this issue, it was going to be bad, yadda yadda yadda. When they refused, he decided to essentially break the system, and started telling everyone how to do it, and now it’s rampant (or, was).
8-0 and they’re still hitting. I wouldn’t be too worried.
Jarren Duran hit his first major league homer when he batted; he’s up again now. I have a feeling were he to hit another dinger he’d be the first guy to hit is first TWO career MLB homers in the same inning.
Getting back to the sticky stuff: presumably it’s okay to have rosin powder on your hands, glove, arms etc… How do the umps distinguish between that and other substances?
Tonight with Lindor on the IL, his replacement Guillorme at SS, normally a very good fielder, makes 2 bad errors and the Mets fall behind 7-3. It is 7-7 after 7, 9-9 after 9, 10-10 after 10 before Mets win 15-11
Nats are definitely not the worst, they’re suffering with injuries now. Both catchers, Strasburg, and Schwarber jump to mind, plus Starlin Castro on the administrative list.
The Diamondbacks are truly awful, the Orioles aren’t much better, but they do have some nice young players.
It wasn’t a home run ball. Verdugo tried to toss the ball he was using between innings to a Sox fan and some goomba stole it. That guy threw it at Verdugo.
As for throwing home run balls back onto the field, that potentially could endanger outfielders as well. If you don’t want the damn ball, give it to a child and make them happy.
