Astros scandal dwarfed by MLB-wide sticky substance use

The Houston Astros are branded as cheaters, yet most MLB pitchers are themselves cheating.

Over the past year and a half, Houston Astros players have been incessantly referred to as dirty cheaters. Opposing fans, particularly those from New York and Los Angeles, act as though Jose Altuve singlehandedly destroyed the game of baseball. Not only is that completely false, but it also glosses over what is quickly becoming MLB’s next Steroid Era.

Sports Illustrated’s latest in-depth reporting shines a light on what most people around the game already know is happening. Pitchers are illegally doctoring baseballs, using “sticky stuff” to aid their grip and increase spin on the ball. Some estimates say 80 to 90 percent of pitchers are using some illegal substance in some capacity.

Pitchers have always been permitted to use rosin so they can at least get some grip on the ball, but what’s happening today goes far beyond that. Many pitchers, teams and coaches have their own special concoctions that include things from sunscreen to pine tar. Some of these substances are approved for hitters so they don’t lose their bats during a swing, but pitchers are using them now too.

MLB is just now beginning to crack down on it, which is par for the course for this league. How the sudden enforcement of these longstanding rules prohibiting foreign substances affects the game will be interesting to watch. With offensive numbers cratering across the league, the proliferation of sticky stuff is undoubtedly the biggest cause of the lack of hitting.

The Hypocrisy

Bauer tried to blow the whistle on foreign substance use in 2018 but that resulted in the league, once again, doing nothing. This is how it always works — some form of cheating picks up steam, and because MLB looks the other way, other teams and players adopt the practice so they don’t fall behind. Regardless of what some will say, it was the same way with illegal sign stealing.

The Astros were far from the only team to use electronic means to steal signs and relay them to hitters — the article exposing the scheme even explicitly said it was a league-wide issue. The Astros’ method might have been a bit more brazen than others, but opposing fans who claim what the Astros did was different and far beyond what anyone else was doing are simply wrong.

And believe it or not, the reasoning behind the sign stealing scheme was much the same as pitchers’ reasoning for using sticky stuff. Carlos Beltran came to Houston and told his new teammates they were “behind the times,” and he’d just spent most of the past three seasons with the Yankees.

So the same logic applies here. If you believe other teams are cheating and thus have an advantage, and you also know MLB is doing nothing to stop it, you almost feel like you have to play along. The main difference is that, unlike pitchers using sticky stuff, the Astros sign stealing scheme didn’t actually help them, which is why they stopped it on their own.

Yet for some reason, fans across the league have adopted the belief that the Astros were the only ones stealing signs to that extent, and that somehow it was the reason they won the 2017 World Series. Despite the fact that it’s demonstrably false, it’s also highly hypocritical considering the Yankees and Red Sox have also been busted for sign stealing and the Dodgers entire pitching staff can pick up a baseball with their palms.

The Real Culprit

If you’re looking for someone to blame in all this, you should be looking beyond individual players or teams. As has been the case throughout history, especially in the past 30 years, the league itself is to blame for any cheating scandal that comes along. In this case, we should all be looking directly at Commissioner Rob Manfred.

Foreign substance use has been going on for a century or more, most notably by Hall of Famer Gaylord Perry using Vaseline, K-Y Jelly and even his own saliva. The league has, in almost all cases, looked the other way. But now that the use of sticky stuff has become so pervasive, it’s fair to wonder why Manfred hasn’t done anything about it.

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He freely admits that MLB’s declining offensive numbers are a concern. But instead of addressing what is clearly the biggest factor behind it, he instead focuses on ridiculous, gimmicky rule changes like larger bases and banning the shift, which are being tested in the minor leagues. Instead of actually enforcing the rules already on the books, he’s looking at making new ones.

But again, this is par for the course. MLB mostly ignores cheating until it gets to the point that it can no longer avoid confronting it. Once steroids came onto the scene, they gradually took hold to the point that countless players were using them — more than we’ll probably ever know. Bud Selig looked the other way while Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa shattered home run records, largely because it increased fan turnout after the 1994 strike.

Once the league could no longer pretend it wasn’t happening, it finally cracked down. But in the process, guys like McGwire, Sosa, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Jose Canseco and a few others ended up taking the fall. Their reputations and Hall of Fame candidacies were completely destroyed, all the while Selig made it into Cooperstown anyway.

The same happened to the Astros. Their sign stealing scheme became public knowledge because Mike Fiers ratted them out, so Manfred had no choice but to confirm it and to punish the franchise. But we know very little about what other teams were doing, even though all but the willfully ignorant know it was going on in clubhouses across the league. Manfred wanted it that way, and the Astros were a convenient patsy.

No One Is Immune

Who will take the fall for foreign substance use? Considering his outspoken nature and the obvious sudden increase in his spin rate, Bauer seems like a prime candidate. But honestly it could be anyone, and this looming scandal isn’t limited to the Dodgers. It all depends on how MLB engineers things, but every team is in a position to get caught up in this.

The Astros are no exception. SI noted that Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander, along with Nationals ace Max Scherzer, were named in a now-dismissed lawsuit by an Angels clubhouse employee who alleged they used a particular sticky substance. Both Cole and Verlander put up career-best numbers after arriving in Houston, and Cole has continued to do so with the Yankees.

Besides, if it’s true that 80 to 90 percent of pitchers are using something, this really will affect every single team. In all honesty, Zack Greinke is the only current Astros pitcher who I would guess does not use foreign substances. I don’t know for sure that anyone else does, but at this point nothing would surprise me.

But as is the case with the steroid and sign stealing scandals, we are unlikely to ever know the full story. If there’s anything we do know, it’s that MLB will acknowledge it only to the extent that it has to. It will start cracking down simply because the practice has become so widespread that it cannot be ignored. And Manfred will find a select few people or teams to blame, cover up the rest, and expect fans to accept that and move on.