He walked off the mound last Tuesday, after allowing a run to the Tigers. And who did Andrew Miller find waiting for him, between the mound and the dugout? None other than Joe West. Naturally.
“Come on, Joe,” the Cardinals reliever said to West, with a laugh. “I just gave up a run. You’re the last person I want to see right now.”
But this, Andrew Miller knows, is just “the new normal.” And it’s definitely stranger than the old normal. So he showed Cowboy Joe his glove, his cap and the inside of his belt. Then he went on with the rest of his evening.
Because he’s one of baseball’s most thoughtful players, Miller totally gets how we got here, to a world with more than 100 sticky-stuff friskings a day across Major League Baseball. But his hope now is similar to the hopes of so many players. The way out of this, he says, isn’t through 1,000 inspections a week. It’s through communication.
“I don’t have the answers,” Miller said, on Tuesday’s Starkville edition of The Athletic Baseball Show. “I do think that when something is dealt with on the field, usually the best results, the best solutions, come with generally heavy player involvement – and in a case like this, where you asked the umpires to deal with it, heavy umpire involvement – because you need buy-in from these two groups.
“I think that the umpires would buy in a lot more, certainly, if they had more say rather than just being sent a video or whatnot. But again, just the challenges of addressing this midseason. And MLB is within their rights to decide that this is important … So my hope is that we get through this … and we can come up with a solution that makes the most sense to everybody, maybe as the offseason winds down.”
So why did MLB drop this hammer last week without heavy involvement from players and umpires? Andrew Miller understands that, too. For years, he has been a major behind-the-scenes sounding board for the Players Association, on issues large and small. And that feel for all of those issues came through loud and clear on Starkville. So here is Miller’s calm, insightful take on Inspection Week – and where baseball goes from here.
These quotes have been edited for brevity and clarity.
On Joe West umpiring the Cardinals’ first game after the crackdown, just a few weeks after he incurred the wrath of Cardinals manager Mike Shildt for ordering reliever Giovanny Gallegos to change hats:
“I think that it kind of goes to show how difficult the communication has been in getting to this point. But I think Joe thought, and rightfully so, he was helping our pitcher out by having a conversation with him …. He and some of the other crew members saw the hat and saw something that was flagged, and the thought was, ‘If we get rid of the hat before he throws a pitch, we won’t have any controversy.’
“Well, of course, that might have been one of the sparks to why we kind of rushed into this system of foreign substance checks. But ultimately, I think, Joe is one of those guys, he’s been around forever, and he plays it by the book, and it … kind of blew up into something maybe he didn’t quite think was going to get to that point.”
On why he thinks umpires aren’t allowed to handle more situations like that – instead of ejecting players whose caps or gloves appear sticky:
“The way this thing came down the line is … the reality is, we’re midseason and MLB felt like something had to be done. And there’s a rule on the books. And changing a rule midseason, I don’t know if there’s any precedent for that. And ultimately, the easiest thing for MLB to do was just go with a rule in the books.
“And the rule about foreign substances is very clear. So the ability to be reasonable and say, ‘Oh, that’s nothing,’ or, ‘That’s a little bit of sunscreen, because it’s a day game’ … The reason that we have to go full crackdown from MLB’s perspective is, it’s just so hard to distinguish. The rule is very clear — it’s literally nothing on your hand other than rosin and sweat and something that naturally comes from your body. You can lick your fingers, and you’re supposed to wipe them off afterwards.
“So I think Joe was trying to be reasonable. And ultimately, that might be somewhere we land. For now, that’s just not reality, and not the way MLB saw fit to try to enforce this rule.”
After a week in which 888 pitchers appeared in a major-league game, just one (Seattle’s Hector Santiago) was ejected. Miller was asked what he made of that.
“I think there are certainly guys transitioning away from using something and trying to find a way to make the rosin as sticky as possible … And umpires aren’t looking for substances. They’re looking for sticky. And there’s a distinction there. They’re not trying to distinguish whether or not this is sunscreen, or we’ve all found out what Spider Tack is lately, or pine tar. To them, it doesn’t matter if it’s maple syrup. The reality is it’s just if it’s sticky or not. …
“That’s the fear of players, is that you get an ejection for not doing anything wrong. You know, (Santiago) is in the news. I doubt that he feels like being in the news or having to fight this, if this is truly just a case of just rosin and sweat. But here we are. And I think a lot of players were certainly fearful of some sort of misidentification of something that’s a foreign illegal substance. And it just puts everybody in a bind.”
Miller on whether the umpires are the right people to be making these inspections:
“The system was not designed by the players or by the umpires. I think that’s pretty clear. The system was designed by Major League Baseball. And … that’s just the reality of a midseason decision to enforce something like this or to go out and look for this. Who else is better than the umpires to do it? So I understand why you choose them.
“I don’t know that I’m a huge fan of the on-the-field spectacle type of style. I guess I need to go watch what happened out in Seattle, right? That’s where Hector is this year. And part of that makes me kind of feel like … I imagine being on road and them tossing a player, and the crowd going wild or something like that. You know, we ought to be able to do it back in a tunnel. I can’t say I have a better system. But I would like to think that we could all work together to come up with a better system.”
Miller on whether, as his own manager said, the sticky-stuff epidemic was “baseball’s dirty little secret.”
“I guess maybe it used to be a secret. (But) I think we’ve seen a trend towards, I don’t wanna call it abuse, but maybe using new substances or designing particular substances that will make your pitches do this or that. I think the reality is, the world we live in with social media, with the access to video, the access to analytics, you know, it’s no longer just the eye test.
“And … fans and reporters like yourself can go look up what somebody’s spin rate was last night. You can get a video clip and post it on Twitter of a guy touching the brim of his hat. And maybe it’s a tic. Or maybe it’s where he’s got something, to help him with his grip. So I think the reality is, we used to maybe talk about it as players; it might have been more of a secret. But it became public. And I think that was why (MLB) felt this was so urgent, and I don’t necessarily disagree with that.
“Once it becomes something that’s a distraction from us putting the best game on the field, the best product on the field … that’s not good for any of us. It’s not good for the players. It’s not good for the owners. It’s not good for the teams. The fans feel like maybe the playing field is uneven.
“And then where I’m at on why it’s necessary to address it is, we just want a level playing field. We don’t want players to feel like they have to make some sort of decision that’s a moral, ethical dilemma. To compete at this level, I want everybody to go out and feel like your ability to pitch at this level is what’s going to keep you here and get you paid, and get you to have a chance to compete in the playoffs and potentially win a World Series, as opposed to maybe having to worry about what the rulebook interpretation is of something that you’re doing.
“So a level playing field, I think, for everybody… is incredibly important.”
On whether MLB needed to level the playing field by banning every kind of substance – or whether there could have been some middle ground, to at least allow pitchers to use some approved substance for grip.
“I’m confident that a baseball can be thrown, can be thrown hard, can be thrown with spin, with absolutely nothing on your hand, without even rosin. You know, I am also confident that the baseballs seem to change on a regular basis and that they are hard to grip….
“It used to be when you got called up, the baseball that you saw in the major leagues was so different than anything you’ve ever held, it’s no wonder guys went looking for something just to hold onto it, because it is slippery. And it can vary from stadium to stadium, depending on how they’re rubbed up, and year to year. Or even inning to inning on the way that the seams feel or the leather feels in your hand. So I can appreciate all those variables and why guys go looking for something.”
On Gerrit Cole’s suggestion that much of this was handed down from previous generations of pitchers to this generation:
“There’s no doubt of that. When you come to the major leagues, it used to be you’d see what maybe some of the tricks that the older veterans were using, or your eyes were kind of opened to it, on how to use that rosin and maybe that sunscreen or something like that. But I think that’s in that gray area. We can all accept that where Spider Tack is, or whatever some of these other substances are, (is over the line).
“But … how do you police it? And I think that’s where MLB just decided to kind of go with the hard and clear line. Again, I think we should be able to communicate on this and deal with it. But the fact they thought it was so urgent, it just wasn’t going to happen midseason, that we’re going to decide this is OK. So instead, they just went with the cold turkey approach and nothing’s OK.”
On whether it’s still possible for MLB and the players to communicate in the middle of this season and find a better solution to this problem:
“I hope so. … I do think we need to communicate on this, and that includes the umpires.
“I’d like to think that maybe the spectacle of the patdown on the field is a little unnecessary. You know, that’s not anything that we had input on, and I think that’s a little bit frustrating, because (with) players, it is emotional. You have a shot of adrenaline when you’re out there on the mound and to deal with that, whether it’s coming off a high or a low, could be a challenge, and I can sympathize with that.
“I think the umpires would probably have much greater buy-in and … maybe be more successful and more efficient at it if they help design the system. They know what it’s like to be on the field. They know what players are like. Who better to ask, `What’s the best way to go about this?’ than the umpires? And I think when you don’t have that communication, it allows everybody to be frustrated with a situation they’ve been thrust into.”
On MLB’s suggestion that players weren’t more involved because the union didn’t respond to requests for more input:
“I mean, I can’t say that it would be easy for us to come to some sort of agreement, that yeah, we can give you 24 hours and we can tell you, ‘OK, we think is the way it should go.’ But I think that’s also a mischaracterization of what happened, as well.
“The reality is, in season, we weren’t going to be able to work on anything with the league offices to get anything done. But I think to characterize that as ‘the union didn’t work with MLB’ is just false, in my opinion.
“And I understand why things happened the way they did. But also, we didn’t have really any input … the reality is, basically, our input was that you’re not going to be able to change anything. There’s a rule on the books. That’s what we’re going to enforce. So where do we step in? Well, you know, we’d like to maybe address that rule. Well, that’s not possible midseason. So now you’re at a roadblock.
“I think we’ve been in a reactionary mode the whole time, which has been challenging in the sense of, we’re all awaiting memos to come out. The umpires and the players are checking Twitter to see what the latest breaking news is, on what the memo is going to say, that we don’t have in our hands yet. And that’s frustrating, but it is what it is. And I think, so far we’ve done a good job of handling it.
“I do think that it could be handled a little bit more discreetly. It’s not good for us to have this be the discussion, rather than be talking about the amazing feats of the players on the field, or the races that are going on, or whatever it is, as opposed to foreign-substance checks and spin rates. But here we are. And I think that hopefully, this is something that we get more efficient, and maybe we can kind of ease off of the players, as we get through a couple weeks of this, hopefully.”
For more of Miller’s thoughts on sticky stuff, on the Cardinals’ playoff hopes, on his unhittability in the 2016 postseason and on how he changed relief pitching, check out this week’s Starkville, available free wherever you find your podcasts.
(Photo: Keith Gillett / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
“Come on, Joe,” the Cardinals reliever said to West, with a laugh. “I just gave up a run. You’re the last person I want to see right now.”
But this, Andrew Miller knows, is just “the new normal.” And it’s definitely stranger than the old normal. So he showed Cowboy Joe his glove, his cap and the inside of his belt. Then he went on with the rest of his evening.
Because he’s one of baseball’s most thoughtful players, Miller totally gets how we got here, to a world with more than 100 sticky-stuff friskings a day across Major League Baseball. But his hope now is similar to the hopes of so many players. The way out of this, he says, isn’t through 1,000 inspections a week.
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Andrew Miller on the sticky stuff crackdown: 'We should be able to communicate' - The Athletic
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