Gerrit Cole is Cheating and MLB Wants To Stop Him

according to an ongoing lawsuit and mlb investigation an ex-mlb employee who was fired for allegedly cheating and selling a foreign substance to players across the league derrick cole and several other mlb stars including max scherzer justin verlander felix hernandez cory kluber adam wainwright and more have been utilizing a foreign substance to get a competitive advantage that according to some is more effective than steroids and this substance isn't the sunscreen rosin or pine tar pitchers have been illegally using for years it is more complex and effective according to a lawsuit with the mlb teams across the league have gone as far as hiring chemists and commissioning scientific studies to figure out the best way to cheat with foreign substances and due to recent trends there is a very good chance that mlb will soon create more rules and regulation to police foreign substance but what are garrett cole and others doing to create such an effective way to cheat and what is the mlb planning to do to stop it [Music] ever since bazel was invented people have cheated at it and pitchers make some of the best cheaters the game has ever seen whitey ford would cut the ball with his wedding ring and put mud in it during games he even admitted to it but he's still in the hall of fame gaylord perry named his autobiography me and the spitter because he threw a bunch of spitballs the entire league knew about it but he's also in the hall of fame rich honeycutt taped a thumbtack to his finger to scuff the baseball he came into a game gave up two hits on two pitches with a thumbtack accidentally cut himself on the forehead he was immediately ejected fined and suspended he may be the worst cheater of all time perhaps the best shooter of all time was mike scott who was mediocre his whole career until 1986 when he basically led the league in every pitching category threw a no-hitter and won the cy young he was also constantly accused of scuffing the baseball the entire time including during game one of the 1986 nlcs when he struck out 14 batters and then there's garrett cole in 2018 garrett cole set the league on fire in multiple ways after he was traded to the astros he made the all-star team finish the season fourth in the al and era and had the highest strikeout rate in the league the next year he was arguably the best pitcher in baseball he finished first in era had more strikeouts that season than any other pitcher since randy johnson in 2002 and more importantly that offseason he signed a contract worth 324 million dollars but just two years earlier in pittsburgh garrett cole had the worst year of his career so how did a guy with a 4.8 era end up being the highest paid pitcher in baseball history just two years later well according to some cheating because although the numbers i just mentioned are impressive the most unlikely statistical improvement that garrett cole made was his spin rate spin rate is the rate in which the ball spins it is measured by rpms the more the ball spins the more rpms the more rpms the harder the ball is to hit it is widely believed that it is basically impossible to dramatically increase spin rate on a fastball without cheating so when coal spin rate went from 2164 rpm in 2017 to 2379 rpm in 2018 and then 2530 rpm in 2019 people began asking questions and by people i mean basically just trevor bauer and most people just ignored him but they probably should have listened because in february 2020 the mlb quietly acknowledged they may have a cheating problem they conducted a lead-wide investigation on the problem and issued a memo to all 30 teams saying that umpires had the right to search and eject any player they felt was using a foreign substance and by foreign substance they meant anything sticky like pine tar stick'm or grip enhancers used by a pitcher during this ligue 1 investigation the mlb notified the los angeles angels that one of their clubhouse managers was selling his own homemade foreign substance to pitchers across the league the angels immediately fired the man and what followed has been a full-blown legal lawsuit which may result in mlb's next big cheating scandal the man who was fired was clubhouse manager brian bubba harkins he had worked with the angels for 40 years first as a batboy and eventually as a clubhouse manager which basically means he gave out equipment to players cleaned out clubhouses managed batboys and other employees and helped players if they needed anything even if anything meant illegal substances that could get him fired bubble would hook it up he was so good at it that in 2005 he was named visiting clubhouse manager of the year by the mlb yes that is a real award that bubba won however the mlb will not be giving bubba any awards anytime soon he is currently attempting to sue the mlb for 4 million dollars saying that the league basically used him as a scapegoat and he may have a point the mob said that they would begin enforcing their rule against foreign substances a lot more thoroughly yet after a league-wide investigation the only person to face any consequences was bubba harkins despite the fact that it is likely over 70 percent of the league's pitchers is using a foreign substance and a lot of them are pretty obvious about it i mean does it really take a league-wide investigation to know that garrett cole is obviously cheating here bubbles and his lawyers have submitted evidence to the court that foreign substances are used by front offices teams and players across the league and he was not shy about naming names bubba was apparently taught how to make a mixture of pine tar and rosin by ex-angel's closer troy percival and soon the substance became popular around the league bubba seems to be widely beloved by everyone and this could be because he had access to a substance that could potentially add years to a pitcher's career but nonetheless several mlb players have come to bubba's defense since being fired major league players wally joyner and mike sweeney both said that what bubba was doing was accepted and encouraged a former batboy stated that the whole clubhouse including coaches knew bubba was distributing his substance and didn't have a problem with it angel's first base coach mike gallego sent harkins a text saying the league was using him as a scapegoat and that he was a pro that belonged in the baseball fraternity and even justin verlander reached out to harkins after he heard the news telling him he was sorry and asking him to call him right away bubba claims that he has evidence that verlander max scherzer felix hernandez edwin jackson adam wainwright cory kluber and more are all using foreign substances and that the mlb has found direct evidence of them using these substances yet have done nothing to punish them bubba also released a text from garrett cole that basically asked bubba to send him some of his secret recipe for games that weren't even in anaheim telling him that he had a quote unquote sticky situation but wasn't playing the angels until may and let's be honest if you're garrett cole and bubba is giving you a recipe that is helping you get a 300 million dollar contract you better be giving him at least a few bucks but bubba claims he didn't charge players and perhaps the most shocking and damaging accusation made in bubba's court document is that according to him he and the mlb have direct knowledge of teams paying professional chemists and commissioning scientific studies to create the best formula possible for increasing spin rate and he even said that teams use their formulas to convince free agents to sign with them well bubba is subscribing here is pretty crazy he's basically saying that teams across the league have their own scientists that come up with their own unique secret formula that is exclusive to their team so whatever team has the best formula can not only make their pictures substantially more effective but also make their team more enticing for free agent pitchers because they know they will have better stats on the team that has the better foreign substance now this has not been proven in court and it let's be honest it seems that if a team was really able to create a substance that was head and shoulders better than what everyone else had the secret would probably get out but what bubba is subscribing sounds pretty similar to what occurred in houston in 2018 and if any team is going to commission scientists to cheat it would be the houston astros garrett cole's career changed when he got to houston and he was not the only one his teammates justin verlander and charlie borton dramatically revitalized their careers on the astros here's a graph of houston pitchers one year before they arrived in houston and one year after between 2017 and 2018 they had the highest spin rate in the league these statistics caused people around the league to wonder if the astros were using something illegal because like i said earlier it is basically impossible to dramatically increase spin rate on a fastball without a foreign substance and this was mainly led by trevor bauer who through tweets spanning several years has accused the astros and garrett cole of using a substance to get these results and to be honest when it comes to spin rate trevor bauer knows what he's talking about bauer and cole have beef and it all started during their college days at ucla and bauer himself is probably the most blatant example of a player using foreign substance to dramatically increase spin rate but bauer's beef and foreign substance use is a whole another story which i cover in another video the link will be in the description but long story short bauer publicly called out the astros for cheating after he saw their spin rates were rapidly increasing tons of articles were written about it and most of them have come to the conclusion that the astros were increasing their player's spin rate but there is a total lack of evidence to say they were cheating for sure but there is one thing we can say for sure garrett cole dramatically increased his spin rate since leaving pittsburgh he became a dramatically better pitcher after increasing his spin rate there is a public text of him asking a clubhouse manager for a foreign substance and there is a pretty clear straightforward video of him using a foreign substance during a game does this mean garrett cole is technically cheating yes does this mean garrett cole should stop absolutely not because it is pretty clear at this point around 90 of pitchers are using it and they're using it for a very good reason according to this graph if you throw a fastball 90 miles per hour with a spin rate of 2600 rpms mlb hitters will miss the pitch 10.3 percent of the time but if you throw a pitch 100 miles per hour with a lower spin rate of 2 300 rpms hitters will only miss 9.1 percent of the time that means that it is more effective to add 300 rpms to your fastball than 10 miles per hour of velocity and according to trevor bauer certain foreign substances can instantly add up to 400 rpms to a fastball instantly so if using a foreign substance is more effective than adding 10 miles per hour to a fastball everyone in the league is doing it umpires don't check for it and managers aren't calling you out because their own players are doing it let's be honest you'd be a complete idiot not to use it and that's why pretty much every player does and they have been basically since baseball was invented there are countless controversies of players being busted doing it during games throughout the years but there is real reason to believe that the foreign substance used now is nothing like what was used before and this is all thanks to the evolution of spin rate before 2015 spin rate wasn't even tracked during major league baseball games and a few years before that it was a term most baseball players hadn't even heard of before spin rate was constantly obsessed over by players coaches scouts and front offices foreign substances were used by pitchers mostly just to get a better grip pitchers felt like they had better control of their pitches when using it and since most batters would rather not constantly fear getting hit in the face they mostly had no problem with it but thanks to high speed cameras sabermetrics and a bunch of other nerdy gadgets baseball players are using foreign substances for completely different reasons the longer the ball sticks to the finger during release the more the ball will spin a fastball with a higher spin rate will make the ball appear to rise if it is a breaking ball with a higher spin rate the ball will drop and cut in a sharper more deceptive fashion so basically foreign substances today have very little to do with control and a lot more to do with making the ball move as much as possible in an unpredictable way in a way foreign substances are used for the complete opposite reason of control in fact hit by pitches are at an all-time high and walk rate continues to rise every single year and is also almost at an all-time high so yeah the old notion that pitchers using pine tar actually helps batters because pitchers have more control makes even less sense now but just to prove how recently the use of foreign substances has changed here is an article written in 2018 where both adam jones and bryce harper are quoted saying that they have no problem with pitchers using it because they feel that it prevents them from getting hit in the face but as the popularity of spin rate continues to rise and players begin to understand how useful they can be for pitchers hitters are starting to change their tone in this tweet former third baseman trevor plouffe basically says that the stuff pitchers are using today is nothing like the stuff traditionally used like pine tar or sunscreen and rosin they are products specifically designed for increasing spin rate i mean just look at this stuff it is sticky as hell so it's pretty clear after this recent situation with garrett cole this is becoming an increasingly bigger issue people are making videos about it they're writing articles about it the mlb has even investigated it but will they do anything to stop it well the answer is they might have to not only do lawsuits like the one led by bubba harkins make the mlb look bad foreign substances could be directly affecting the way the game is played in a way that fans and the league doesn't really want one of the biggest growing concerns for the mlb is the league wide strikeout rate that has gone up every year for 14 years straight this is an insane trend that the mlb would like to change the league is also experiencing an increase in walk rate and home runs with more walks and more home runs the amount of balls in play is extremely low the mlb has been trying to alter this trend for the last couple years and this may be the reason mlb finally enforces their rule against foreign substance although it would be ridiculous to say that foreign substance is solely to blame for more walks less hits and more home runs mlb knows that by eliminating or lessening the ability for pitchers to increase spin rate batting average would likely go up giving them a massive incentive to finally police it and this would definitely not be the first time mlb changes rules to tinker with the game's offensive presence before 1920 spitballs were completely legal and not just spit balls pretty much anything you could think to change a baseball to make it harder to hit was legal pitchers would cover the ball in saliva mud and tobacco juice not only to make the ball move in unpredictable ways but also to discolor the ball making it harder for hitters to see it and they would basically use the same ball the entire game so by the end of the game the pitchers were pretty much throwing each other's saliva at batters and striking them out every time until one day in 1920 a player named ray chapman was hit in the head by a pitch he couldn't see and died the league thought maybe if we make this illegal our hitters will hit more often and will die less so they banned spit balls except for 17 select pitchers who were grandfathered in the next year babe ruth hit 54 home runs and changed the game forever in 1968 the league had an all-time low league wide batting average the next year they lowered the mound by 10 inches and shrunk the strike zone to its modern size those were major changes to the game and the batting average in 1968 was only eight points higher than it is today so if they're going to start enforcing this rule now would be as good as a time than ever what will the mob do to enforce this rule i don't know but i can definitely see it happening thanks for watching like and subscribe and kids if you want to make it to the mlb start cheating trust me who cares just cheat this live abs is sponsored by pelican grip dip when you want to cheat like the pros pelican grip dip

Channel: Baseball Doesn't Exist

Views: 2,868,879

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Id: -SDIb2rf9EA

Length: 15min 12sec (912 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 17 2021

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