Major League Baseball started regularly checking pitchers for the use of illegal foreign substances -- which have come to be known as the "sticky stuff" -- on June 21, 2021. We've seen all the ups and downs with the checks in the ensuing months. We also witnessed a huge decline in spin rate initially only to see the league-wide spin rate steadily rise since. The conclusion sure seems to be that pitchers are still finding ways to get around the spot checks while using substances that go beyond grip enhancement and bleed into "performance-enhancing" territory.
On that front, Major League Baseball is going to be a bit more aggressive in the spot checks during the 2023 season, according to The Athletic. A quick glimpse:
• Umpires' inspections of pitchers' hands and fingers, which began last season, would be more thorough than the often-perfunctory inspections that umpires performed last year.
• Those inspections would also be more random, as opposed to last season, when inspections of starting pitchers were generally performed after the same innings every game.
• Umpires also could resume checking pitchers' caps, gloves and belts — a practice they employed in 2021 but abandoned in 2022 in favor of more streamlined inspections of hands and fingers.
• Most significantly, umpires would be empowered to be more aggressive about inspecting pitchers than in the past.
As a reminder, pitchers can use rosin or other league-approved substances to help them grip the baseballs, but they cannot go beyond that to substances such as spider tack, pine tar or a now-notorious mixture of sunscreen with sweat and other readily available things during the course of a game. Padres starter Joe Musgrove was famously checked behind the ears during a 2022 postseason game against the Mets, but umpires found nothing actionable.
Offending pitchers who do get busted are immediately ejected and slapped with a 10-game suspension. In 2022, there were zero pitchers found to be violating the rule via these spot checks. In getting more aggressive this season, MLB plans to better crack down against illegal use of substances and, as a result, it's possible we'll see some ejections and suspensions.
In the meantime, MLB is also planning to be much more strict in enforcing the balk rule this season, so there might be a decent number of pitchers going through adjustments in spring training in the coming weeks.
