For the last year, Major League Baseball has aggressively tried to cut down on pitchers using illegal substances to improve their grip on baseballs. New York Mets manager Buck Showalter seems to believe those efforts may have gone a step too far.
Showalter called for MLB to provide some sort of option to allow pitchers to grip the ball better after 11 Mets players were hit by pitches in the team’s first seven games.
“Let’s be frank about it,” Showalter told WFAN’s “Carton & Roberts” Thursday, via Scott Thompson of SNY. “Gripping a baseball, the pitchers took it too far with the Spider Tack and made it a pitching advantage with spin rate and everything and now I’m not so sure we haven’t gone too far the other way. Trying to grip a baseball that’s been rubbed with mud in April and early May and October is real slick. The rosin just doesn’t do as much as you think. Somehow I think we’ve gone too far.
“I’ve always pushed for a universal pitching rag behind the mound where guys can tap their fingers and you won’t have guys getting hit nearly as much. I think a lot of hit-by-pitches are guys can’t grip the baseball.”
Showalter likened the situation to batters being unable to use pine tar and batting gloves to improve their grip, and he questioned why pitchers cannot be allowed to do something similar as long as it is regulated by the league.
MLB actually strengthened foreign substance checks on pitchers for the 2022 season, so things are not going in the direction Showalter wants them to. A number of players would likely agree with his stance, though.
