Trevor Bauer doubles down on accusations of cheating but wasn’t accusing the Astros
Trevor Bauer has clarified that he did not mean to accuse the Houston Astros of cheating yesterday when he accused them of cheating.
A day after taking to Twitter to insinuate that Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole and Charlie Morton improved upon their arrivals in Houston by upping their spin rate through the use of foreign substances, Cleveland Indians starting pitcher Trevor Bauer has attempted to clarify his statements.
After accusing the Astros of cheating, Bauer wanted to make it crystal clear that he was NOT accusing the Astros of cheating. It was just an attempt to shed a light on the possibility that pitchers all over the entire league are using pine tar and resin to make themselves better. You’ll notice, as well, that he did manage to sneak a super-edgy 69 joke into his statement. #nice
Here are Trevor Bauer’s full statements on anything relating to the Astros, the bigger problem with tacky substances and how those rules are enforced and his potential solution for it all pic.twitter.com/BEc9P1CEo4
— Ryan Lewis (@ByRyanLewis) May 2, 2018
I don’t know. It definitely looked like he was making an outright accusation.
If only there was just a really quick way to increase spin rate. Like what if you could trade for a player knowing that you could bump his spin rate a couple hundred rpm overnight...imagine the steals you could get on the trade market! If only that existed...
— Trevor Bauer (トレバー・バウアー) (@BauerOutage) May 1, 2018
Bauer comes off a little like a conspiracy theorist here — more trying to figure out whether the Zodiac Killer helped kill JFK than offer anything constructive to the conversation around doctoring baseballs. That subject has come up off and on for the past several years, and it is an open secret that most pitchers use some sort of mixture to improve their grip on the baseball.
No one is disputing the claim MLB pitchers are not following the rules to a tee, via Yahoo.
"Because here is the reality: Nearly every pitcher already uses some sort of substance to get a better grip on the ball. None dare admit as much on the record, lest he expose himself to Rule 6.02(c)(7), which states: “The pitcher shall not have on his person, or in his possession, any foreign substance.” In recent years, MLB has suspended pitchers Michael Pineda, Will Smith and Brian Matusz for use of foreign substances.As for the other hundreds of pitchers who have used them and continue to more surreptitiously: They’ve skated free. For years, they have said the extra grip gives them better control and helps keep the game safer. And because players estimate 70 and 90 percent use a substance, the sense is that it doesn’t benefit any one team individually, so what’s the harm?"
There is a non-zero percent chance that the Astros are using some sort of pine-tar mixture to improve their spin rates, but they are also on the forefront of the league’s analytical movement. Find any video of their staff working during Spring Training, and each pitcher will turn and ask what the spin rate was on his previous pitch. It is a point of emphasis from the front office on down to the coaching and pitching staffs at every level of the organization. Bauer, who fancies himself MLB’s pre-eminent science mind when it comes to pitching, sounds like a Bitter Betty here. Sorry, dude, the Astros are better at spin rate than you.
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Most pitchers are smart enough to hide their substance abuse on the mound (looking at you, Michael Pineda). Drawing conclusions based on Statcast data and making baseless accusations on Twitter is not going to solve any issue the league might actually have with pitchers cheating. Trevor Bauer probably isn’t completely wrong about pine tar and spin rate, but nothing is going to happen and that’s probably for the best.