More Accusations of Cheating in MLB

OurF'ingCity

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Apr 22, 2016
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I do kind of feel bad for the guy, but, on the other hand, he could have accomplished what he wanted to with a simple Tweet of "Who cares about pitchers using sticky substances? Teams have pushed the boundaries of what is legal since the dawn of time, so unless MLB is going to consistently enforce all of the rules in the rulebook this seems unnecessary" or whatever, instead of randomly airing unverified dirty laundry.
 

terrynever

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What exactly is an "MLB Insider?" Are there certain qualifications that must be met? This guy looks like a blogger to me, one who is best at crunching stats and bringing light to certain trends. But is that a MLB Insider? He's certainly not a professional journalist because if he were, he would have known his accusations were libelous before he published them on Twitter. I bet he got a phone call from MLB's legal office yesterday.
 

YTF

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Last edited:

santadevil

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Pretty close, at the very least. He and I have discussed a lot about stats, comps, and the history of baseball, like stats oddities and such, over the past year or so (‘last player to do XYZ since 123!’). We have semi-frequent Twitter correspondence, as what he traditionally tweets is very similar to what I do, much like Sarah Langs, or any of the stats companies, such as a Sports Info Solutions, Elias, StatsbyStats, etc. Part of the logical territory.

Personally, he’s helped me make a bunch of external social media connections I would have never otherwise made.
That's cool
 

geoduck no quahog

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This study from Japan, suggests that Rosin (a mixture of magnesium carbonate powder and pine resin) has little effect on dry baseballs/fingers (actually reducing the coefficient of friction) but does improve the coefficient of friction on wet baseballs/fingers versus wet conditions without rosin. BUT...apparently rosin only helps get the grip closer to what would be expected under dry (non-rosin) conditions.

Therefore, the usage of rosin powder may have an advantage here in maintaining the frictional property between finger and baseball as stable, regardless of skin surface condition such as dry and wet conditions


...under wet conditions, rosin powder application increased the friction coefficient in the large normal force condition compared with that in the non-powdered condition, indicating the efficacy of rosin powder application as a grip-enhancing agent in the normal force range when the ball and finger are wet. Rosin powder application may also be able to increase shear force applied to the ball during the ball-releasing process, which may result in an increase in the ball spin rate and fastball velocity.
I read the whole thing but can't claim to understand all the details. My take away was that rosin is a pretty minor aid to baseball grip and spin rate, helping mainly in wet conditions (including sweat) by adding a little bit of friction to the interface between finger and ball.
 

YTF

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This study from Japan, suggests that Rosin (a mixture of magnesium carbonate powder and pine resin) has little effect on dry baseballs/fingers (actually reducing the coefficient of friction) but does improve the coefficient of friction on wet baseballs/fingers versus wet conditions without rosin. BUT...apparently rosin only helps get the grip closer to what would be expected under dry (non-rosin) conditions.





I read the whole thing but can't claim to understand all the details. My take away was that rosin is a pretty minor aid to baseball grip and spin rate, helping mainly in wet conditions (including sweat) by adding a little bit of friction to the interface between finger and ball.
Red(s)Hawksfan originally posted this in the MLB to institute 8-10 random checks/game for foreign substances thread. Pretty interesting stuff from Pedro.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQesez-5J_A