Sticky Fingers: MLB Pitchers’ Dirty Little Secret

In 2014, New York Yankees’ right-handed pitcher Michael Pineda was ejected from a cold April game at Fenway Park for “possession of a foreign substance” on his neck. The “foreign substance” was pine tar, a product traditionally used by hitters to improve their grip on the bat. Pineda served a ten game suspension but no further investigation was conducted by Major League Baseball.

After that 2014 game, former Red Sox catcher, AJ Pierzynski stated:

“I don't have a problem with guys that do it," he said. "I know as a hitter, I want to get in there and know the guy has a grip. Put it on your hat, put it on your pants, your belt, put it on your glove, whatever you have to do. You just can't do it that blatantly. That was what the biggest issue was. No one has an issue with him doing it. It's just more of the fact that it's so blatant."

Okay, Pierzynski did have a point. April weather in Boston isn’t exactly what you call ‘ideal’ baseball weather and traditionally, Major League baseballs have been known to be slicker in cold weather. Therefore, ‘doctoring’ a baseball with a stickier substance than a plain rosin bag in cold weather might actually be safer for hitters— lest they want to risk being pelted with ninety-five mile-per-hour heaters.

But wait, here’s the issue. By essentially giving Pineda a ‘slap on the wrist,’ MLB set a precedent for the rest of the league— no harsh penalty will come if pitchers apply foreign substances to a ball. So, as the adage goes, “you give a guy an inch and he’ll take a mile.”

Fast forward to 2021 and now the MLB has a potential major scandal on their hands— similar to that of the Steroid Era in the 90s and early 2000s. Except now, the script has flipped and the pitchers are the culprits.

According to Sports Illustrated, roughly “80 to 90%” of pitchers are using ‘sticky stuff’ in some capacity. But honestly, who could blame them? In a cut-throat environment of that of professional baseball, players already are or at least should be looking for extra advantages over their opponents. Just ask the 2017 Houston Astros for example. Regardless, at that level, baseball isn’t a game anymore— it’s a livelihood.

To address the elephant in the room, this ‘sticky stuff’ that pitchers are using is a concoction whose ingredients vary by team and individual. Traditionally, baseball pitchers have been known to use hair gel, vaseline or sunscreen— particularly BullFrog sunscreen—combined with rosin. However, with time, more elaborate and stickier mixtures have now emerged into the game.

According to Sports Illustrated, pitchers have begun to experiment with surfboard wax and Spider Tack, a glue used during World’s Strongest Man competitions. One reliever anonymously told Sports Illustrated that he has used Pelican Grip Dip, a pine tar/rosin blend typically used by hitters to help grip their bats. That same pitcher confessed that he had played for a team who had hired a chemist to develop a unique version of ‘sticky stuff’ for their pitching staff. Former Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim visiting clubhouse manager, Brian “Bubba” Harkins, allegedly distributed a mixture of pine tar and rosin to players such as Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole and Max Scherzer, per USA Today.

So, is this sticky stuff effective?

Alan Nathan, Professor of Physics Emeritus at the University of Illinois, believes so.

“Taken to an extreme, putting a foreign substance like pine tar on the ball can do more,” Nathan told NPR. “It can affect the trajectory. It can give the ball unexpected movement. A real glob of pine tar could make the ball move a lot. In the hands of a reasonably skilled pitcher, a lot can be done when the ball is loaded up."

Enter 2021 pitching scene.

In this Analytics Era, professional organizations have realized that pitchers with high spin rates tend to be more effective than pitchers with lower spin rates. For example, in the 2021 season, hitters are batting .330 off of fastballs thrown down the middle at 2,499 revolutions per minute or fewer. On the other hand, hitters are batting .285 off of fastballs down the middle thrown at 2,500 rpms or more, per Sports Illustrated.

Yes, more spin can equal more movement, and with movement comes deception.

The higher spin rate can create the illusion that a pitcher’s fastball is defying the laws of gravity as the ball appears to rise as it reaches home plate. Thus, causing hitters to swing underneath the pitch, per Sports Illustrated.

Think about it. An MLB mound is ten inches tall. Therefore, a pitcher is standing on a ten-inch hill while the batter is standing on ‘ground level’. So, just out of pure optics, if a pitcher wishes to throw a ball within the strike zone, his ball must drop into the strike zone. It’s simple physics. Granted other factors can indeed affect the trajectory of the ball such as the pitch thrown, pitcher’s release point, pitcher’s height and even the batter’s height. But we’ll save that conversation for a different time.

Needless to say, the proof is in the pudding. Major League hitters are hitting a mere .236 batting average this year, per Sports Illustrated. At that rate, the league is on track to hit for record low batting average, per Mercury News.

As for those that may believe that the ‘Launch Angle’ epidemic is to blame for such scanty offense, you might need to have a little chat with Colorado Rockies’ outfielder, Charlie Blackmon. Blackmon, who is an eleven-year veteran and a career .303 hitter, shared his thoughts on the lack of offense with Sports Illustrated:

“I’m tired of hearing people say that players only want to hit home runs,” he said.“That’s not why people are striking out. They’re striking out because guys are throwing 97 mile-an-hour super sinkers, or balls that just go straight up with all this sticky stuff and the new-baseball spin rate. That’s why guys are striking out, because it’s really hard not to strike out.”

Sure, an argument can be presented that maybe the ‘sticky stuff’ is or was the pitchers’ attempt into leveling out the competition level, as the MLB has continuously made efforts to try an implement new and different ways to generate more offense. But if you come to think of it, the pitcher virtually has the advantage every at-bat. A great hitter only succeeds three times out ten. Therefore, if a pitcher has roughly a seventy percent chance of succeeding, why is he resorting to illegal substances?

Unfortunately, doctoring a baseball has become the new norm in baseball. Similarly to what happened in the Steroid Era, the pitcher who refuses to partake in doctoring the baseball will be left without a job. For example, the Dodgers traded away Dylan Floro and Adam Kolarek and did not re-sign Pedro Baéz, all low-spin pitchers. Instead, they signed Bauer and Jimmy Nelson and traded for Garrett Cleavinger and Alex Vesia, who all have high spin rates, per Sports Illustrated.

No longer is doctoring the baseball a matter of improving grip on a slick baseball in order to avoid batters from being drilled with ninety-five-mile-per hour heaters. It’s a matter of thriving and surviving in a competitive field that isn’t level anymore.

The Sticky Stuff scandal is just like the Steroid Era, except with a hefty dose of strikeouts and no health side effects. As one MLB executive told Sports Illustrated, “We’re just doing the same thing we did during the steroid era,” he said. “We were oohing and ahhing at 500-plus-foot home runs. A 101-mile-an-hour, 3,000-rpm cutter, isn’t that the same thing as a 500-foot home run? It’s unnatural.”