as someone whose baseball career never got out of the neighborhood and have already shown woeful ignorance on matters of baseball (and all things other than breakfast foods) i have what might be two very stupid questions.
bauer shows in his little performance piece how much grip one can achieve simply with rosin and sweat and i watched the piece with pedro martinez where he said basically said the same thing.
first, is it possible to get such grip simply from rosin without a great deal of sweat (i.e. early season cold weather and post season)
second, would the amount of grip that pedro and bauer showed not be enough to get the high spin rates?
i hear these complaints, but i am confused as it seems mlb is still allowing an option
From what I can gather ... rosin + moisture (like sweat/sunscreen) can help with grip, and may add some spin.
But that substances like Spider Tack are like rosin/moisture on steroids.
It’s interesting ... I saw Al Leiter on MLB Network earlier yesterday, prior to Pedro’s demonstration, and he said rosin didn’t help much.
But he wasn’t rubbing it and “burning” it the way Pedro was.
Maybe it’s just one of those tricks of the trade ... that certain pitchers pick up and others don’t ... either from experimentation or learned from teammates, coaches, whoever.
Pitchers have been able to push the envelope with way better options than rosin until now ... they probably didn’t need to learn/be taught how to use rosin to its fullest.
Pedro is an encyclopedia on how to work a baseball.
He addressed Glasnow again tonight ... particularly Glasnow’s comments on grip ... Pedro was showing how he picked the seams of a ball with his fingernails to get better grip.
Bauer seems like an inquisitive guy ... he might seek out more of this type of info than others ... and perhaps there’s fewer pitchers around these days who know the ins and outs of “legally” doctoring a baseball.
It seems like a lost art.
The way Glasnow and some others tell it ... many of the “illegal” ways have basically been understood and allowed to go on until now ... but MLB has panicked with the historically low batting averages in recent years.
One thing seems clear ... in recent years, MLB teams have access to an increasing amount of technology to analyze/scout pitchers ... especially with spin rates.
Players go where the value is ... just like hitters gravitated towards power during the steroid era, pitchers have gone to spin rates during this era ... and in both cases, they just keep pushing the envelope until there’s a breaking point.
