Examining Saturday's Sticky Situation in the Twins-Yankees Game

[Cody Christie]

Rocco Baldelli was ejected from Saturday's game for arguing with umpires for their handling of a perceived rules violation by Yankees starting pitcher Domingo German. So, what led to this on-field incident?

Image courtesy of Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports

 

Major League Baseball entered the 2023 season attempting to refocus on pitchers' usage of sticky stuff. MLB held meetings during spring training, and sources told The Athletic "that message emerged loud and clear." According to the report, this would include more thorough inspections by umpires, more random inspections, and checking players' caps, gloves, and belts. Overall, MLB is responding to an uptick in spin rates since the initial crackdown in 2021. 

On Saturday, the umpire crew in the Twins-Yankees contest had an opportunity to enforce those rules, but it could have gone better for Minnesota. Domingo German had just completed three perfect innings when he was asked to undergo a routine check. Many Yankees players and coaches crowded around the umpire crew during the check that went on for an extended time. Eventually, the crew chief James Hoye was seen on camera saying, "You have to wash your hands." 

That could have ended the situation, but it continued from there. German came back out for the fourth inning, and the umpires weren't satisfied with how well he had cleaned his hands. Twins radio announcer Cory Provus pointed out that the umpire clearly said, "I told you to wipe it off." German was allowed to stay in the game, which upset the Twins' dugout. 

Rocco Baldelli approached the umpires following the second check and told reporters he had no plans to return to the dugout. He didn't accuse German of using an illegal substance but said that the pitcher should have been ejected for returning to the game with a substance still on his hand. 

"He was warned. He didn't fully comply, I would say, with the warning, from what I was told, and was still allowed to keep pitching. That's it. I just don't agree with that in principle..." Baldelli said after the game. "When he comes back, doesn't comply with what he was asked to do, has something on his hand that he shouldn't. . . and then he casually can just walk to the mound and keep pitching, it kind of goes against a lot of the things that we've talked about this year and some of the adjustments we're making in baseball. I was upset at it, and that's it."

After the game, the umpiring crew told reporters that they believed the substance was rosin, which isn't illegal. That is why German was not ejected from the game. German's performance was arguably the best of his career. He struck out a career-high 11 batters in 6 1/3 innings while retiring the first 16 batters he faced. That stretch of batters lined up when his hands likely had the sticky substance on them. After being told to wash, his spin rates dropped on all his pitches while also seeing an increase in velocity. 

Hoye is scheduled to be behind the plate for Sunday's contest, which features Pablo Lopez going against Gerrit Cole. Cole has been accused of using sticky substances in the past, so it will be intriguing to see how closely both starters are watched in Sunday's series finale. German's sticky hands were the talk of baseball on Saturday, and fans can wait to see if MLB has a more significant response to the sticky situation. 

Will MLB have any response? Will there be any fallout in Sunday's game? Leave a COMMENT and start the discussion.

 

View full article

[ashbury]

Quote

After the game, the umpiring crew told reporters that they believed the substance was rosin, which isn't illegal.

Then why ask him to wash it off?

[Dantes929]

8 minutes ago, ashbury said:

Then why ask him to wash it off?

Exactly.   It's either not illegal and he shouldn't have been warned or he didn't comply with warning so he should have been tossed.     Really lame and Rocco did the right thing.

[joemama]

Could rosin have been masking something else? Seems the umps either suspected it wasn't rosin or they were concerned the rosin was masking something.  I imagine German will be watched very closely next time out.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

"After being told to wash his hands, his spin rates dropped." 

So, he complied and washed his hands? 🙂

I think the Tweet with the pitch types and spin rates is also a little misleading. Identifying what comes out of a pitcher's hand and labeling it something without knowing the actual intent of the pitcher. Can be an imperfect science.

For German today, I think the variation in his fastball spin, before and after the ump thing, could be chalked up to normal variation. Only 32rpm difference (according to the Tweet). The changeup is not a rpm pitch, so scratch that one off. Then you have the sinker, which according to the Baseball savant game page, German only threw two sinkers in the first 3 innings, both in the 2nd inning, one at 2505 and the other at 2552 rpm. The average of 2505 and 2552 is not 2608. So the Tweet is for sure wrong on that. That leaves the curve ball.

However, the curve is also the pitch you want that good grip and those numbers appear high with a big difference before and after. So someone who really wanted to do a deeper dive on this would want to first recheck all that data in the Tweet, look at German's history, and look at individual curves thrown in the game today, and so on. The curve with the highest spin rate was in the first inning to Buxton, and the pitch plotting shows it was a wildly thrown pitch way in the dirt out in the left hand batter's box. I didn't see it. Then I wonder if there are some data capturing issues on those outlier pitches?

Fun story for sure!

[sun]

I didn't know what was going on but I suspected that it had to do with rosin. Rocco should have let it go like he did with the bad call in game 2 when CC was tagged out at 2nd base and he didn't appeal. It  makes Rocco look bad when he gets ejected for protesting an umpire's decision that he can't change. He was trying to act like a lawyer but in this case he looked more like an ambulance chaser.

[jmlease1]

MLB will do nothing. Rocco probably gets no more than a token fine for the ejection, since he didn't cross any lines or get abusive.

I expect the umpiring crew to do nothing about Cole today. Will Cole try to get a little advantage with extra rosin or whatever rosin compound NY may or may not be using? Dunno, but nothing would shock me. But I would be watching his spin rates pretty closely if I were the Twins...

[HrbieFan]

Hope the Twins brass has Rocco's back and pushes this up the line. You don't get a warning when you have an illegal substance and rosin  isn't illegal.  So what gives? I say someone is lying on the ump crew to CTA 

[Whitey333]

To me the baseball umpires are, and always have been the most arrogant of all the pro sports.  They love to put on a show for the fans and tv.  It was a bad look for MLB as normal.  And as normal MLB will fully back the umps.  Too bad they had to have a meeting with those Yankee players and coaches and then allow him to stay in the game.  It lent to a whole look of favoritism, although it probably wasn't.  Aaron Boone continually gets favorable treatment from umpires.  It's unfortunate that incident took so much away from the game.  Let's go Twins.  Win Sunday.

[Squirrel]

9 hours ago, ashbury said:

Then why ask him to wash it off?

Twice

[Squirrel]

9 hours ago, joemama said:

Could rosin have been masking something else? Seems the umps either suspected it wasn't rosin or they were concerned the rosin was masking something.  I imagine German will be watched very closely next time out.

I was reading elsewhere and wish I had the link, but the theory was the build up of rosin and sweat and rosin and sweat can create a ‘sticky substance’ situation. I think that’s why the umpires had him wash his hands, because a legal substance, overused, was having an affect of an illegal substance. But after being questioned a second time about it, and then letting him continue to pitch, without washing his hands again, I do question that.

[theBOMisthebomb]

39 minutes ago, HrbieFan said:

Hope the Twins brass has Rocco's back and pushes this up the line. You don't get a warning when you have an illegal substance and rosin  isn't illegal.  So what gives? I say someone is lying on the ump crew to CTA 

Is CTA the plural version of CYA? That's hilarious, I've never seen that before. 

[Chris Spencer]

Its flattering that the Yankees feel the need for an advantage against our guys. Maybe the tide's have changed.

[Aerodeliria]

I agree that the umps will be disinterested in Cole tomorrow, but Baldelli should ask for a hand check after the first out he records. They won't do anything probably, but it will tweak the Yankee fans and maybe upset Cole and Boone.

[jrod23]

Umps made a decision.  Deal with Rocco or Boone?  We know how it ended.

[JD-TWINS]

1 hour ago, theBOMisthebomb said:

Is CTA the plural version of CYA? That's hilarious, I've never seen that before. 

Chicago Transit Authority…..great Album!!

[weitz41]

 

WHAT sticky stuff?? 

Oh I forgot to wash my hands. I'll do better next inning...

[Fatbat]

1 hour ago, Chris Spencer said:

Its flattering that the Yankees feel the need for an advantage against our guys. Maybe the tide's have changed.

Maybe the Yankees have always tried to cheat and are finally getting caught. 

[Doctor Gast]

The NYY were supposed to win this series. German was supposed to be the one NYY SP the Twins could win off of. Since the  series situation changed so did the situation with German change to a must win no matter what. NYY, HOU, LAD, BOS & CHI are the teams that can cheat & get away with it. The umps told Baldelli not to discuss what was told him. Sounds fishy.

[TopGunn#22]

I think Squirrel nailed it.  On another topic, I'm frustrated that 15 games into the season we have ONE stolen base!!!!  There are teams with more SB's (significantly) than we have even attempted.  29 Major League managers have determined they are going to take advantage of the new rules.  I would like someone in the media to ask Rocco if he's just waiting for the "perfect" situation to steal a base or if he just doesn't believe in the SB as a part of the game at all.  

O.K. Thanks for letting me vent.  

[Boswell]

Tip your cap to the mega millionaire Gerrit Cole today.  He shut us out, no question.  We can deal with being beaten by a superior performance.  
 

I refuse to recognize the loss on Saturday as a valid baseball game.  Let it be understood that the Twins took the series, two games to one.  
 

May the Rays, Blue Jays and Orioles overcome this false “victor-hoy”.  And may the Twins not need it against the Clevelanders.  
 

 

[Nine of twelve]

The premise of banning grip-enhancing substances is that they give pitchers an unfair advantage. Accepting that, why should the use of rosin be allowed when the use of all other substances is banned? 

Why is it the policy for umpires to inspect pitchers for grip-enhancers at the end of the half-inning? It would make much more sense to me to do so at the beginning of the half-inning or, in the case of a reliever entering during the game, before he throws his first pitch. 

[Johnny Ringo]

It was rosin because the Yankees said it was? 

"No officer, that isn't liquor on my breath. I had some peppermint ice cream!"

Officer, "OK. Proceed."

Tackiness is tackiness. It's been a long time since I held a rosin bag but its use is to dry your hands. The Yankees' (unverified) explanation makes no sense.

I am rarely 100% guy in baseball. But Rocco was 100% right. The umps were 100% wrong. The guy was warned. He didn't comply. Sometimes I think MLB umpires' ignorance is only trumped by their arrogance. Manfred Mann and the Earth Band will back the umps however. 

[Doctor Gast]

18 hours ago, Doctor Gast said:

The NYY were supposed to win this series. German was supposed to be the one NYY SP the Twins could win off of. Since the  series situation changed so did the situation with German change to a must win no matter what. NYY, HOU, LAD, BOS & CHI are the teams that can cheat & get away with it. The umps told Baldelli not to discuss what was told him. Sounds fishy.

I just wanted to quote a NYY fan that sums up what MLB thinks of MN and the rules.        

S· 4h 16m ago

 As a lifelong Yankees fan I’m happy to hear the umpires are intimidated by the team, that Yanks players do not have to comply to umpire requests. Sure makes winning that much easier. Fans of the Twinks need to understand these new unwritten rules. After all, the Yankees have beaten the Twinkies 150 times while losing something like seven games over the last twenty years. One would think those in Minnesota have come to terms with the fact the Yankees are their Daddy’s.

It’s that simple.

Seriously, the New York Powers That Be allowed the Twinks to win TWICE in this series. Be satisfied, otherwise your team won’t win here again for another sixteen years. Now get out of New York and go back to all your little houses on the prairie—PLEASE.

[HrbieFan]

On 4/16/2023 at 9:54 AM, theBOMisthebomb said:

Is CTA the plural version of CYA? That's hilarious, I've never seen that before. 

Yes it is, though I don't think I've ever used it before. LOL 

[sun]

Rosin gets sticky when it's mixed with sweat or simply rubbed between the fingers & clothing using friction. According to Pedro Martinez, it gets sticky when it's burned or heated by rubbing it. This is intended by the rules so that pitchers can increase spin rates. 

According to this article, a lot of pitches mix it with sunscreen which is illegal but can't really be controlled. It's claimed that many pitchers do it.

https://baseballtrainingworld.com/baseball-rosin-bags-what-are-they-and-how-do-they-help/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TCSquad]

If the Twins' groundcrew could get away with it, they should hang this sign up all over the visitors' clubhouse and dugout next week when the Yankees are at Target Field.