It's hard to believe how much time and energy and attention has already been devoted to Major League Baseball's stepped-up enforcement of the foreign substance rule -- a rule, by the way, already on the books, though the discipline has been greatly enhanced and the oversight intensified.
The issue has dominated media coverage for the past week or more, and the crackdown hasn't even begun. (That happens starting Monday).
It's uncertain what will unfold in the coming days and weeks. Will there be players foolish enough to continue loading up, certain that their behavior will go undetected or unpunished? Will we see a litany of suspensions that could impact pennant races? Or will all the hype surrounding the enhanced enforcement serve as a deterrent?
Who knows? But there are a handful of things I think we've already learned, with plenty of blame to be spread around:
1. MLB did a poor job with the rollout.
Despite making it clear as far back as spring training that it would be making an effort to stop the practice of using foreign substances on the baseball, the players clearly weren't prepared for this.
Already, a number of pitchers have spoken out with criticism, and one, in particular, has charged that merely the anticipation of the enforcement changed his grip and may have led to a serious elbow injury. Garrett Richards was glum in anticipating how this might impact the game going forward and, in post-game remarks to the media Wednesday night, seemed at times to be delivering a eulogy for his own career.
It's obvious from the reaction of the rank-and-file that MLB had no idea that its announcement, delivered via memo last week, would be greeted in this way.
Players feel ambushed and under attack. Few -- if any -- were consulted for their feedback or asked for their input.
The biggest complaint from the players is the timing. Yes, as noted, Major League Baseball had provided a warning that changes were in the offing. But introducing them in the middle of the season seems highly problematic. As MLB collected its data from spring training and the first two months of the season, why not take the rest of the year to further analyze the problem, attempt to reach some consensus with the Players Association and institute the new rules at the start of the 2022 season.
That would have also given MLB time to utilize technology to attack the problem. Perhaps the time could have been used to come up with a way to manufacture baseballs which aren't so slick. Or develop an agreed-upon substance -- or a change in the resin bag -- that would be agreeable to all sides and would allow pitchers to get a better grip while not impacting the movement of pitches and depressing offense.
I've been trying -- without success -- to think of a rule change (or adjustment) that another sport introduced in the middle of a season and can't come up with one.
And how's this for the ultimate irony: Baseball has been forever (and often properly) accused of being too wedded to tradition, too resistant to change. Now that its got a problem on its hands, however, it's tackling it at record-speed, without much warning, and seemingly with no regard for the huge impact it could have on the remainder of the 2021 season.
2. The players are far from blameless.
For the longest time, everyone in the game looked the other way when pitchers applied foreign substances to the ball. The reason were twofold: First, most agree that enabling pitchers to achieve a better grip (and by extension, better control) was a good thing. No one wanted pitchers losing control of the baseball and firing 95 mph fastballs without regard to where they were going. So some self-preservation played a part. Hitters were, to a point, willing to excuse some rule-bending if it ultimately meant they didn't have to fear for their lives in the batter's box.
Secondly, because everyone (or near everyone) was doing, teams were in no position to call out opponents, since doing so would have only served to put their own staff in jeopardy. That's akin to calling attention to speeding motorists while you yourself are also traveling well over the speed limit. So a gentlemen's agreement was in place: we won't call you out if you don't call us out.
But athletes being the competitors that they are, the whole thing was soon taken too far. With certain substances, pitchers discovered that the break on their breaking pitches was sharper and the ride on their fastballs more obvious. Eventually, clubhouse managers were concocting their own homemade batches and making them available throughout the game -- even to opponents, who would use the concoctions to beat their own teams.
Had pitchers been content to enjoy the better grips they were being afforded, we would not have gotten to this point. Instead, some -- and then many -- sought to take it to the limit and gain an unfair edge on the mound. And here we are.
Now that there's going to be an effort to eliminate all substances except resin, even those pitchers who used it solely for a better grip are being punished. For that, they have their peers to thank.
The sad upshot is this: despite initially being utilized with the intent of better controlling pitches, both walks, and more ominously, hit batsman are at record highs. In the first two and a half months of 2021, we've seen Kevin Pillar and Bryce Harper hit in the face with fastballs -- and live to tell about it. Just last week, Kike Hernandez was struck in the helmet by a fastball and almost casually took his base.
There's no hard evidence to support the claim that the uptick in hit batters is solely the result of Spider Tac and other goo. It may be more directly related to the industry's obsession with stuff and record-setting velocity -- without regard to control. But surely there is some connection between the increased movement/ride and the number of errant pitches we're seeing.
File all of this under unintended consequences. What were once (relatively) benign vices are now habits.
3) MLB failed to use its resources to head this off.
Major League Baseball is an $11 billion industry annually. It presumably has access to the best scientists, chemists and technicians and the wherewithal to tap into their expertise.
So, again: why not fund a study last offseason to come up with a ball that isn't as slick, and come up with a substance that MLB could provide on the mound to enhance grip on the ball?
MLB already bought Rawlings, which manufactures the official baseballs used by the sport. It commissioned a slightly deader ball to reduce the number of homers being hit. So there's certainly precedent for doctoring the ball for a desired outcome. While they were deadening the ball inside, no one thought to develop an exterior covering that afford a better grip? How hard would that have been.
Pitchers have been unanimous in dismissing the positive effect of resin. Richards was among the many pitchers claiming that the current resin bags are virtually worthless when it comes to getting a better grip on the ball.
Why not consult pitchers on this and arrive at a consensus? What could we offer you as a standard aid on the mound that would enable you to better grip the ball, both in the cold and in the heat? Then, baseball could approach the experts with instructions to develop something that enhances tack without providing an unfair competitive advantage to pitchers.
You're telling me that we can come up a vaccine to a worldwide pandemic, but no one could, in relatively short order, develop something to be logically and legally applied to a baseball?
4. An integrity issue once again negatively impacts the sport.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, MLB has the PED scandal, with many players either injecting themselves with anabolic steroids and/or human growth hormones. Initially, this led to the great Home Run Race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, which, for a time, helped popularize the game and brought back fans who had been disillusioned by the labor mess that had forced the cancellation of the 1994 postseason.
Soon, however, the PED era made a mockery of the game, resulting in cartoonish physiques and a rewriting of the record books. It took public shaming of the Players Association to finally bring about penalties and policing, but the damage done was extensive to the point where casual fans couldn't determine if what they were watching was the result of athletic skill or some chemist's intervention.
More recently, the game had myriad sign-stealing scandals, led by -- but hardly limited to -- the 2017 Houston Astros. Four years later, fans of both the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers believe -- not without reason -- that their teams were literally cheated out of a championship. The ill will continues toward the present-day Astros, as well as those who have since moved on to other organizations, including Alex Cora.
The last thing any professional sport needs is to have it fan base doubting the authenticity of its outcomes. When fans can't be sure that they're watching is an actual athletic competition at the highest level, they begin to wonder: why am I investing time and money into something that may not be on the level?
It's unlikely that those questions are being applied to the foreign substance scandal. For one thing, at least anecdotally, it appears as this rule-bending was widespread and not the exclusive domain of just a handful of teams -- as happened with sign-stealing.
In fact, it was so widespread among those at one particular position (pitchers) that the argument could be made that the net effect was negligible. In other words, if most pitchers are doctoring the ball, then most hitters are going to be equally (if negatively) impacted.
Still, at what point do fans throw their hands up in disgust and come to the conclusion that baseball is too often associated with cheating?
5. The likelihood is that the second half of the 2021 season will be vastly different from the first half.
We've already seen a significant rise in offense over the last two weeks, and that's only in anticipation of the crackdown, as pitchers began weaning themselves off whatever they had been using.
When the consequences are a 10-game suspension and your team forced to play a man short during that period, expect the compliance to be even stronger and the contrast to be even more drastic.
So, will 2021 be like the 1981 season, when another work stoppage resulted in season being cut in half -- before and after -- with wildly different results? Will we go from a pitching dominated April and May to a hitter-friendly July, August and September?
A side note: executives are already discussing how this is going to complicate the trade deadline. Will teams be reluctant to trade for a pitcher who was dominant when loading up the ball was tacitly accepted, but one who is now "mysteriously'' unable to achieve the same results now that enforcement has been greatly increased? Likewise, will this change result in hitters who were slumping in the first two months suddenly catching fire now that movement is being curtailed and high fastballs are not quite as explosive at the top of the zone?
Surely this is a relatively minor matter in comparison to all the aspects of the game being impacted, but how will a sport so closely associated with statistics explain away the huge discrepancy that is sure to result from the "before-and-after'' season of 2021?
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The 2021 draft is just over three weeks away. There's a lot that's different about this one. For starters, it's not being held in June, as MLB is, for the first time pairing it with the All-Star weekend festivities.
Having the draft almost a month later than usual will mean some changes. It means teams will be able to watch the top college players all the way through to the completion of the College World Series. Ordinarily, the World Series is just getting underway as the draft does.
Also, with the Cape Cod League up and running, it will provide additional time for teams to watch some prospects complete in a wooden bat league, and against some of the top talent in the country. Again, the timeline usually doesn't allow for that.
For Paul Toboni, the Red Sox director of amateur scouting, it means adapting some.
"There are advantages to the draft being later,'' Toboni acknowledged, "but it also comes with additional burdens. For those that are still playing, we are able to continue to log at bats, innings, etc, which is obviously a great thing. But for those that are no longer playing — and haven’t played for months — we’re tasked with keeping tabs on them, ensuring that they’re still in good shape, monitoring both positive and negative changes to their strength/athleticism.. For many of these players that have been shut down, there will also be a build-up on the back-end (after they sign), which we haven’t been accustomed to in past years.''
And, Toboni noted, the extra few looks will have to be put in perspective. The Red Sox -- and other organizations -- can't allow a hot (or cold) week or two to distort years of previous scouting work.
"We’re mostly comfortable with our process to this point. We’ll mostly use this time to monitor players’ health, but we will also keep our eye out for both positive/negative changes in player performance. Velocity fluctuations, breaking ball quality, etc. Of course, any changes in performance can move the needle some, but likely not too much given the relatively large sample of performance data we have to this point.''