Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 245 | Does Baseball Have a Pine Tar Problem? (with Eno Sarris)

Episode Date: November 19, 2020

Jomboy, Jake, & Plouffe are joined by Eno Sarris of The Athletic to break down the current state of pine tar in baseball. Is it still just about keeping your grip or have we crossed the line? Check Out Eno Sarris at The Athletic: https://rb.gy/8k7ikg Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to talking baseball. We have a fantastic episode today all about pine tar and its usage by pitchers. Let's do it. What's going on, everybody? Thank you for joining us. Welcome to talking baseball. My name's Jimmy. Sitting next to me is Jake.

We got Trevor Plough. Coming to us from California and Bug Bug Dude behind the dish producing. We just wrapped up a great conversation with Enosaurus of the Athletic. who recently wrote an article all about pine tar usage in baseball. Trev, you wanted to do this episode pretty bad. Was that conversation, everything? Did we touch on everything you wanted to? Should people be excited about it?

Yeah, I think we did a really good job explaining everything. We didn't get too, like, pointing the fingery, which I was worried about. But also, I think it was cool to just let Eno kind of shine a little bit. He's been one of my favorites for a long time. I told you guys about him back in, you know, February or whatever. rest of we got to hang with this guy so uh he's great i think everyone's really gonna love what kind of just transpired jake you like eno as well i like eno i think me and eno have a have a have a nice on our ven diagrams i think we have a nice little overlap weird area that i i think we still need to

tap into more and i'd like to uh but no he's he's he's great man he's great explore the space on it and uh yeah I mean, Trev has been so juiced up on this that, and, you know, starting to get it more. Starting to get it more, because I do think there is a line in the sand that needs to be drawn, and we're clearly across it. No line. Lineless. There's not even sand. There's no sand or.

We're sandless. You like sand? You like hourglasses? What are your thoughts on hourglasses before I move on? I love hourglasses. Pegging, too, huh? How about that? Okay, big pegging episode.

Before we go to the interview, I got to let you know that it's brought to you by a show called Watching Baggage. It's hosted by Jake and myself. We watch this old game show that was on Game Show with Jerry Springer. It's the stupidest, most fun thing we do. It has kind of a small cult audience, and we think it needs to grow more. If you're looking for a guilty pleasure,

this is it. Also, you know who watches it the most? It's people that love baseball, and our audience is like 90% male that show their girlfriend, wife, fiance. And like, these are the idiots I like. Maybe you'll like this version of them. We get a lot of that.

Only thing my fiancee likes watching with me. So go check out watching Baggage. It's on YouTube channel. John Boy, Jake, TV comes out every Monday and Friday. We are joined by future podcast co-host with Trevor Plouf on sandwiches and suds. Eno, Saris. Eno, how you doing? Yeah, yeah.

We should do a sandwich and beer podcast, Treb. I gain a lot of weight, but I'm kind of down. Yeah, I'm running like 10 miles a day just to keep the beer pounds off. I love it. That's the part I'm missing, I guess. Thank you for joining us, man. How are you doing? We haven't seen you since spring training.

Was it Philly spring training when the world was normal? That was, I think, the last game I attended, man. That was, I saw you guys and hung out in the outfield there. Jason Stark caught me drinking a beer at the ballpark right after I saw you guys. Is that frowned upon? Well, I wasn't, I don't think I was working that game. It's definitely frowned upon if I was working the game. Spring training.

Come on. Beer's on the berm. I mean, that's what it's all about. Yeah, well, that's funny. We were working on a story at that time. And I just asked him to go interview Max Scher for my story. We did this thing on Codebreaker. Like, we made the Astros codebreaker.

And he was like, why aren't you going to interview Max? And I'm like, well, I'm drinking this beer right now. Oops. Yeah. in my best moments. That's funny. Well, that's what we're going to do. We're going to deep dive on your top five worst moments of your life.

No. We're here to talk. How are you doing, man? Are you excited for the off season? Like, how have you been? Like, what's up? Dude, this year sucks so hard. Zoom's fucking suck.

I'm sorry, man. Zooms are the worst. I tried to do like a Zoom with friends, you know? And then we were just like, we did we did that for like three weeks and we're like dude this sucks and then and then you know when I'm interviewing the one thing I don't want to do in any like setting is the scrum like I hate the scrum I don't want to be in there with a bunch of other reporters asking the same questions and then having people use answers from my questions and that's what a zoom is every time I have a

good question I'll get a good answer and it can show up in anybody else's story I didn't get any time alone with that guy. And I don't, I don't need like hours alone with a player to get something good. I need like five minutes. But I don't get that. So yeah, it's been, it's been a crappy year. We had Brian Hoke on talking Yanks and I was asking him all about scrum etiquette and like who was good, who was bad, just making jokes. But it doesn't sound fun because like a lot of what the athletic writers do is you're not the average beat reporter. Even Lindsay Adler, she has such a different tone and take for the Yankees. And I think she told us that she gets most of her questions on one-on-one session.

So, yeah, it kind of seems like a bummer. But here we are on Zoom. Some people are just watching the Zooms with their phone open or like their Twitter bot open and just like tweeting out anything that comes that's interesting in the Zooms. And you're just like, are you, are you, thanks. Could you at least, you know, some places have rules like in regular, like real-life scrums. You're not allowed to tweet from the scrum. Hmm. Interesting. And players, players have people they want to talk to, you know, and they trust. And if you're doing just the Zoom thing, when everyone's there right in front of you and they can all hear, it's, you're just going to give generic answers. You're not going to want to get tripped up at all. So I could see how that'd be super frustrating as somebody who, like, has developed their rapport with players and like all of a sudden, all of that just kind of goes by the wayside because you're all staring at the same screen. Got to be frustrating for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I wanted to like reach through the screen and hug Charlie Morton, but instead I had to ask him a question. Well, the article that. Charlie Morton podcast. Oh, yeah. He's going to the Braves. Hot take. Ooh. No,

what do you got on that? I don't. It's my prediction, but I don't really believe it. Charlie said, Charlie said razor retirement. Yeah. Well,

the Braves are going to come in and they're going to charter him to and from Atlanta. So early. At least it's not too far. He lives in Florida. Yeah, it's close. It's not crazy. All right. Yeah.

Got it. Huge. The article that we want to talk to you about that just came out is definitely one that I'm guessing you could not ask questions in a scrum to get the info you wanted here. It was titled, almost everyone is using something, getting a grip on how MLB pictures are cheating. And your opening line is your favorite pitcher is probably cheating, which I love because there's still people in denial about that. and, you know, watching playoff games, I get tweets like every inning.

Do you see him touching his hat? Do you see this? Do you see this? And it's like, oh, yes. They don't even hide it anymore. I've been telling people, watch the pitcher's hand after a foul ball. As soon as the ball is hitting the play and he gets a new ball, watch the hands. And you'll know exactly what's going on because no one hides it. So Trev's hot on this issue.

You've got him all riled up. and there is a lot of data and talking points that changes the narrative, I think, from the conventional. Everyone's using it. No one cares. It's getting to a little more riskier place. But before we get there, how long has this article been in the chamber and how long did it take you to get the pieces of info and your mind wrapped around it? I think about three, four, five years ago, I had a conversation with a prominent, pitcher, I would call him an ace, who told me not to write this. And so for like three or four

years, I've been sitting on it and been writing around it. I had a thing where Trevor Bauer basically told the world that he used Pintar for one inning. And in 2018, and I was like, well, I have to write about this. He just did it and showed us what it does. So I wrote about it. Ben Lindbergh is writing about it. And so we've been kind of writing about it, writing about it. And then I was like, you know what? Somebody just needs to come out and say it because it's in front of all of us and it's happening. And I'm sorry, dude, I sat on this for four years, but it's just become so obvious that, like,

I hope this doesn't, you know, burn our friendship or whatever. But he has not actually responded to a text since I wrote the piece. So I may have burned a friendship. I hope not. but in any case, it's just, it's a thing. And the thing that bothers me is this. If it's like a gentleman's agreement, oh, it's fine. Like, everyone does it.

It's fine. It's for grip, whatever. The problem is it's still on the books. It's still a rule on the books. And so any moment, a manager could decide this moment is so big, I'm going to go and bust this pitcher. Like, game seven of the world, like, what if they had gone out and said, check, you know, Walker Bueller, check Eureas.

I want to win this game. I want that guy out of this game. And, you know, I'll use my pintar free guys after that or something. You know, like, you know, there's got to have a couple guys in there that don't use and you just use them after. I don't know. But it's selective enforcement bugs me, man. It just means that, like, the people getting in trouble might be getting in trouble for the wrong reasons. And we've seen it, you know, the Red Sox called out Pineda on the Yankees because he had it on his neck.

And they were like, well, it was just so obvious. And it's like, well, it's always obvious. You just enforced it. And there was another pitcher that was on the Nationals and went to those. It was Joe Peralta, and I think Madden went and Godd him and Davy Martinez. It was the next coach. Yeah, Dave Martinez. Frank Robinson.

Because they knew. They knew because they coached him and they did it. And that was weird. So if anyone's unsure to let you know, like it is police yourself. The umpires will never call someone out for Pine Tart. on a whim on their own. I don't know if this is official or this is unofficial the way it is handled because the rulebook just says it's illegal.

But in baseball, the ump will only act on it if the opposing manager asked the ump to check it out. Um, they rarely do it themselves. So they don't do it because their guys are using as well. There's a famous story that the, the Yankees broadcasters say every time is George Steinbrenner ran down to the dugout. to Billy Martin, I believe, and was like, they just showed it on TV.

He's got stuff on his brim, go on, and, like, screaming. And Billy Martin was like, I can't do it, George. He's like, why? And he said, because there are guys using it, too? They say that on like every Yankee broadcast, whenever it's obvious a pitcher has something on his hat. And so it's been like that forever. And when we made our laps in spring training,

after the Astros scandal, there was a buzz that they were going to change that. And spring training, the first spring training before COVID, we heard all this buzz that they were going to allow the umps and tell the ums enforce this before the other team asks. And we asked some players about it. Remember, Trev? And the players that we asked were like,

I can't even throw catch without it. And they showed us their hat. They're like, that would suck. So it's, it seems like it's kind of a budding issue. And then also like, it's also like everyone's screaming. It's not an issue. so much that it seems like it's going to bubble over.

This is the thing about like both of you have referenced now that it's this has been going on forever. Okay. And what pitchers, I've had so many talks with pitchers about this while I was playing. I call them cheaters all the time. I'm on the record of saying most starting pitchers and pitchers in general just premedonnas and like it's their way or the highway. Yeah, but you're a hitter. Yeah. Yeah, obviously I'm biased.

But the thing they would always say is, look, we're just trying to get a grip on the ball. We want to be able to locate so we don't hurt you when we throw the ball. And I'm like, yeah, that's all good. And that's fine. But it's transcended that now. It's something different now. It's not them doing sunscreen and rosin to get a little bit of attack on their fingers.

There's stuff being developed now to your specific finger pressure to increase your spin rate. And I think that's where for me, that's where. it, that's where you draw the line. Like, I get it. Like, you know, even every now and then, you go grab the bag of rosin if you're playing infield because you're sweaty and you want to be able to grip the ball. But like, and that's fine. But if you're going to be able to increase some sort of metric and make your pitches jump and have life and you're not doing anything physically to change like your mechanics, it's just all a substance. That's not okay. because that's like a hitter saying, you know, man, I can only hit a ball to the warning track.

Like if I cork my bat, I can get 10 extra feet, like, then you're going to be a home run hitter. It changes everything. And it's, it's gotten past that excuse like, hey, we just want to have a grip on the ball. It's not that anymore. It's, I want to make my pitches do something that I can't do without this. And I think that's kind of where I started to have a problem. When I read your article and you talk about, you know, Bauer and drivelin and how they've referenced many times, like there's one way to increase your spin rate, 200, 300 RPM's at game speed.

And that's using a foreign substance. That's really the only way. And by all accounts, so you ask anybody in the game, these are the guys that would know. They've been on the cutting edge of all the edutronic cameras and using spin rate. So when I see guys. guys doing that and it's not just a grip anymore. They can't use the argument. That's, that's where I get very, very frustrated with what's going on. And I will say, it's not just me. It's not just hitters. I've talked to probably four or five different pitchers now who echo my

sentiment as well. Like they don't particularly use the stuff we're talking about. And they're seeing guys getting jobs because of those metrics. And I think that's kind of where all my frustration. lies. Yeah, there's there's something about it. So, so using Pintar increases your spin rate. And increasing your spin rate, it creates more ride on the four seam and more drop on a breaking ball. And something about the way the league is right now has led to that being more advantageous. I think the league used to be a little bit more of like kind of a sinker curveball, like a sinker slider kind of league, you know, sinker changeups. There used to be more changeups in the game. It used to be more sinkers in the game. And Pintar is not a

amazing for sinkers and change-ups. It doesn't really change them as much as it would change a four-seam and a breaking ball. Now we're in a high four-seam, low-breaking ball league, and all of these guys are throwing in front of tech all the time. And so it's super easy to be like, oh, what if I do this? Oh, what if I spray this on? What if I try this? Dude, this guy told me that he scraped his bong and used his bong resin uh to to as his grip and you said you wanted to share that you said you want to share that i'm okay with that one fine keep that in the game because that's amazing can we uh bd bdbd can we add that to my blitzball training repertoire yeah i've heard some people try cbd oil because it's clear you know cbd oil and sprite and the broad on spright like you know

that the the the everyone does there's actually research that everyone has like a slightly different finger situation that like there's the there's a there's a there's a correct kind of grip to for for each type of finger and how wet your hands are and how like you know that sort of deal um and so these people are now throwing in front of the tech and they can just be like oh this is my it's real time this is i love i love the idea of like they're being a grip for sweaty guys Yes, there is, Jim. That's what I'm looking about. Griff for like, they're like, hey,

Sherr's a dude, you're a sweaty guy. I got the stuff for you. Like Vergelander, you're dry as hell. You need this stuff. That's pretty funny. It's exactly what's happening. And because of all the tech, you can go throw a bullpen

and have four or five different substances and say, okay, this one's a little too tacky. This one's a little too lubricated. Like, this is best for me. And that's what these guys are doing. And they're seeing, you know, that two to 300 RPM jump, which, as you've laid out in your article here that I'm looking at, like makes you go from

an average spin guy to an elite spin guy. And that happens like that. And that's, to me, that's the part I hate is that you're not working for it. Well, you're not working to get better. You're literally just cheating to get better. A lot of people are comparing it to steroids and saying, you know, blah, it's like steroids. But I like the comparison to a corked bat better. because it's instant. I can go up there and hit a ball to the warning track, and then I can next that bat and go grab a cork bat, and I didn't change anything about my swing,

anything about my physical being. All I did was up my equipment in an illegal manner, and now I can hit that ball 50 feet further. So I think it's a lot like corking a bat or if there's some new technology came out that wasn't illegal yet, but it's some new shaped bat or new weight, you know, that like crazy. I think I like that comparison more because it is, instant, Trev, like you said, like, you can have a bad first inning and be like, you know what,

fuck it, I'm using it. And then you'll re-grip. And now you're better in the second inning because it's not just location and grip anymore. Your pitches are better. And we're going to go back to the beginning. The whole, you know, the location and grip was bullshit to start, in my opinion. Because if a guy can throw 100 miles per hour, but he doesn't know where it's going. going, so he has to dial down to 96 so he can spot it.

Well, that makes him a 96 mile per hour pitcher because that's what he can throw a strike with. But now you give him pine tar. Oh, now he can spot the 100 mile per hour and he can just let loose every single time. And it's not bearing out. It's not bearing out that the grip is working because hit by pitches at an all time high. So like if pine tar and hit by pitches are at all time high, I don't see that the pine tar is working for that grip. The argument's done. You can't use that anymore. And I think even in your example,

dude, that guy at 100 doesn't actually have much more command. And that's what's happening in the league today is they put the stuff on. They think they have command. They throw the 100 instead of the 96, and they hit people. I mean, that's what you see in the game, right? Like, can you, can you talk about, so you said Bauer said, I'm going to use Pintar for one inning? And it's, what year was that? 2018. In 2018, so he said, I'm going to do it for one night. And he did, right? And you went back and he found what?

Crazy spin rate for one inning. Just one inning. All his fastballs for that one inning were like a totally different part of the graph than everything else. Okay, so I'm going to connect some dots here. And Trevor and I share a lot of similarities. Okay, his name is Trevor. Number one.

Thank you. We grew up in the same area, the Santa Crete Valley. Both our dads are named Warren. What? How about that? Whoa. So I do not have any. Is his dad a pool guy?

I should check that out. Imagine something, huh? Rival Warren pool companies in the valley. Oh, man. Well, you know, different stuff. But I don't have anything against Trevor. But I'm just connecting dots now. You said he used a grip substance.

He came out and said, I can do this. Did it for one inning. His spin was up. He's on record as saying, basically talking about Garrett Cole and the Houston Astros saying if there was only one way to up your spin overnight, like wink, wink, wink. And then he got into a Twitter feud with Lance McCuller Jr. Brentstrom just told Charlie Morton to throw harder. That's all that was. Yeah.

Okay. So he's been on record. And also you reference it in your article about how he said like, yes, we've been studying this at drive line for seven years. there's only one way to improve your spin rate, and that's using a foreign substance. Connecting dots, again, 2020. What happens to all of Trevor Bauer's pitches? They're up 200, 300 RPM's. A logical person can connect those dots and make an assumption that, hey, man, he was finally

frustrated and said, I'm going to do it. And I'm going to show you guys that I was right about it. And here's my spin rate. And he basically led the league in what, four different pitches in spin rate? I don't. I don't, yeah. And I,

the dots are connected easily. And I, I don't blame power. He, yeah, I mean, I came out, like,

publicly and tried to say, like, this isn't fair. All they're doing is this. And nobody cared at all. He even said he did it for an inning. Nobody cared. They asked him about it.

And he actually shouted Eno out and said, Eno wrote a great article. Go read it. So he's like giving, sending people. And then he's, He's like, okay, well, if no one cares, I'll do it. And that's why-

In a contract year. Yeah, smartest year to do it. Wincesa-Young. That's why, and I think the general public echoes my sentiment and this sentiment. Like, yeah, no one, everyone uses it, everyone uses it, everyone uses it. But I don't think they realize that it's not just for grip anymore. It's like really, really a different beast than just being able to locate more. and I think it's an MLB issue that they're going to need to figure out if it's illegal or legal soon

because this wishy-washy area kind of sucks. Yeah, I mean, where does this suck war for? We talked about selective enforcement. They did. They sent out a memo. You're right. They sent out a memo, and they said in the memo, oh, umpires can go check. You know, we don't have to make it the manager anymore.

The umpires can go check on their own. How many umpires went to the mound and checked anybody this year? Same amount of past interferences that got overturned. Less. The only thing that was less. There's always so much, there's always so much a memo can do, I guess. But what did happen was they fired a guy. They fired a guy who's been the clubhouse attendant in Anaheim for 38 years.

38 years. He gave Troy Percival his first, you know, pine tard. You know, like this dude has been around. forever. And what do clubbies do? They do what the player asks them to do. They go get the thing that the player has them to get, you know? And it's not that, yes, they get tips, but it's not like the player is paying them directly for this thing. I don't know. It's not like a badly for this guy. Bubba Harkins. Yes. You know, 38 year veteran. He seems like a fall guy for for something that I think in my reporting, I think we're headed towards a legal grip.

comes and you guys play a softball, they have like guerrilla glue or something. There's the gorilla golden gorilla. So some sort of gorilla grip that is allowed in like, you know, in softball. And I think they're going to just do something like that for baseball. And yet this guy will have been fired. Yeah. So, and that's kind of where I want to go. Because I'm kind of in between these two, as always, ideally, where, you know, when you say corked bad,

I mean, if there was a hitter this year who breaks his bat, Sammy Sosa style and had a corked bat, oh my God. I mean, you know, we would tar and feather that guy downtown, and is it legal tar or illegal tar? But I want to know, how does this end? Because I'm with you, the sentence you opened up with where you're wondering if the manager is going to come out and say, like, hey, we're about to lose the World Series. Like, I could get Erez out of here with one mound trip. Like, how does this end? Because it is a catch-22 because we've gone too far.

The pine tar was kind of this unwritten thing of baseball, and it's like, hey, use it fair, pitchers use the tap out of, you know, I get better control, blah, blah, blah, and it's been around the game forever. And now we're not using pine tar. Is it – and the problem that I always run into, if I have this conversation online, is it's what's the solution. Do you – you know, the one that cracks me up in my head is, like, we put a dollop of pine tar and every –

baseball when it goes out to the pitcher and that's what you get. Like, I just, I don't know how this ends and what we do because at the same time, pitchers are going to be using something. Sorry, Trev. Well, I think what Eno said is the softball league has like one tube. It's like the rosin's here. This kind of pine tars here, but that doesn't, no um's going to be like, all right, let me, let me make sure you're using the gorilla grew and like do a sniff test or something.

And it's not like the other stuff. So I don't know, but I'll tell you one thing. I know how it's going to end is it's going to get incredibly ugly and MLB is going to be forced to say something about it. And right now they're not being forced to say anything about it. So they're just going to not care about it at all, kind of like the Astros and teams complaining for three years before the MLB said anything. Can I make you guys mad just real quick?

Oh, boy. I'm going to talk about the Yankees. I got to get my Yankees hate in a little bit. one of seemingly there was a big jump for one of your best pitchers going from the Pittsburgh Pirates to the Houston Astros. I'm not going to name any names, but as soon as he gets to the Astros, obviously there was a huge increase. Talking about Garretel. Yeah, I already did Charlie Morgan. We can also do Verlander.

I mean, obviously the Astros were ahead of everything in baseball, and they were ahead of this special sauce. So what I'm saying is, what I'm saying is, you know, a guy like Garretel, look, clearly the Gers, guy is an elite pitcher. Now, is he, did he get some help from a substance? He says no. So we have to make sure we say that. He says no. He says he changed some things in his mechanics. He threw his high fastball more because suddenly got better. So if there is some sort of rule change and now we can't use this grip, somehow they're able to enforce it. And we see a guy drop to 300 RPMs. He's not the same pitcher. I mean, that's got to be the Yankees have to be like, oh, shit. Like we can't have this.

Like this guy, we paid $300-something million to be that elite pitcher. And if he goes back to being what he was in Pittsburgh, he's not worth $300 million. They're just so. I just don't, I just don't know where this. It's part of why the teams aren't rushing to enforce this. Yeah. You know, the other part is that you were talking about the sniff test, like the other part is enforcement, if they did like actually try and enforce it, it would suck.

I think it would look like, you know, the MMA check-ins? Yeah. Where he's got his fingers in your hair. That'd be awesome. Can you imagine you're at a ball game? You're at a ball game and you watch the umpire go up to the pitcher on the mound and it's just like got his fingers in the back of his hair and it's just going down his shirt. Kind of love it.

Jake's going to sign up for that. I hope Cole Tucker starts pitching. Oh, my God. If you're a pitcher, it's not a lot. I don't think of why all the pitchers have long hair. Yeah. They're, cover the back of their neck.

Yeah. If you're, if you're, that's what Penaena did. Yeah. He needed a main. Yeah. If you're a pitcher in the next year or two,

and you're not testing it out and trying to find your formula, you're like kind of silly because no one's, no one cares, the league doesn't care, and there's not going to be an instant like this. So it's, it's kind of wild. And to go back to Bubba,

the guy in L.A. in Anaheim, for anyone that doesn't fully know that they scapegoated him, they fired him and said he was providing players with an illegal substance. Like he was some mad scientist who came out of his chemistry lab and was like, I'm going to go work as an everyday clubby for the angels now. Like that's not. Like he didn't, you know what I mean? Like he didn't, that wasn't his path to delivering that. He was a guy who the pitchers probably said,

can you try and mix some of these things up? And, you know, he rolled the best joint of pine tar. And then every opposing pitcher that came through said, can you roll me one? You know what I mean? Like, he wasn't some devil. And he's not at all. He's suing. I'm glad you touched.

Yeah, I'm glad you went back because like I know Bubba went there every single year. Like one of the better places to travel to as a visiting player was an I. He took, he took care of you. Spread was good, all that stuff. And yeah, he just so happened to. I don't know how he developed the recipe, but if you were a player, you know there's a few places that have these recipes,

okay? Anaheim was one of them, and he was, you know, according to, I think, I don't know if he said it or what, but he wasn't just opposing players. Like he was giving it to,

what you said, Percival, right? So he was giving it to the Angels players as well. He messed up if he wasn't. Just don't. And it's like he said, it's like you said,

Jen. It's not like he was like in some lab. That was a hypothetical. Yeah. We're not throwing Troy personal. There's a hypothetical. I only brought up Troy Purcell's name is a hypothetical. He was a great angel's reference. Let's not throw Troy Percival under the bus. I read some more Troy Percival might have been in some personal text. Jared Washper. Not from Eno, though. I've been talking to a lot of people about this.

It was in the article and it said like a guy that went from the angels to this team and by you could deduce that maybe it was a guy. that's why you know the name trip my point is he wasn't like he didn't have a bunch of chemical solvents going in his lab with his gloves and i mean it was pine tar coca cola you know some other crap you boiled down and like he like they figured it out and his stuff just so happened to be the best and yes this guy is getting scapegoated fired from a job that he held for you said 30 plus years 38 and this is like you you hit it on the head man clubby he's just do what players ask them. That's it. That's what they want to do.

They want to make you feel comfortable. They want to help you out in any way. He wasn't going to the guys being like, here, put this on your finger. Trust me, dude. They would come in and say, Bubba, like, do you got, I need more. Right. Me more. And the tip system.

And like all of a sudden, he's out of a job. The tip system makes it seem like baseball can say, oh, they were paying for it. Well, you know, I don't know how. Maybe you give him. him an extra tip because he gave you the good pine tar or maybe you gave him an extra tip because, you know, the spread was good. Or maybe he knew exactly what cleaners to take your coat to or, you know, he knew how to keep your girlfriend separate from your wife. Yeah. Trevor. I'm the cleanest guy in baseball. You guys know that.

I don't know. And then the other thing for it for listeners, like, people are trying to replicate Bubba's formula and they can't do it. It's like hard. Like there was like a mixture and a, you know, a witch's brew to it that like this is better than this and all that. So it's wild. I mean, I don't think that lawsuit's getting any attention or because I think like me until I

really saw the RPM, the numbers, I didn't care. I was like if the players and the managers and no one on the field cares. Then I guess I shouldn't. And I don't actually. You know, until we get more people, like, Bauer needs to come out in like a week. Or no. I used Pytton.

I won the Cy Young in your face. Let's stop with the pitchers. They're all chumps. Trevor said that. Why aren't we hearing more hitters freak out like Trevor is? Well, they interviewed a bunch of hitters like five years ago. You know, I don't know if that was your piece. I don't know whose piece it was, but a bunch of hitters came on their.

record. I think it was big names like Harper and said, you know, the, the grip thing. Like, hey, I'd rather than nowhere. But it's got incrementally worse since. Yeah. I want them to know where it's going. So that was kind of just like the status quo. Yeah. You don't want to get hit in the head. Do you're like, oh, I don't want to get hit in the head. So yeah. That's right. But that, that might have been like what it was back when, when before people called it a live fastball, not high spin rate. You know, like they didn't have the technology to measure like they do now. And I think that's the biggest thing here is we're talking real time improvements in a bullpen

testing five substances to see which one works for you and you can just get automatic feedback. That didn't exist 10 years ago. So now they can't use that argument. Like everyone's got their own stuff and the guys that don't have their own stuff. They want their own stuff because they're seeing guys jump in this category that a lot of front offices are looking. front offices now can just go and say, let me read his trackman stats or whatever the thing is called. I'll take that guy.

I don't even need to see him. I want that guy because of what his numbers say. And like if you're doing that, like, and you're a pitcher, you're like, I better get on board or else I'm going to fall behind. And I think that's a bad place for baseball to be in.

I think it's interesting to compare it to the Astros situation. And there's a couple things that are missing. For one, we don't have somebody on the record. I mean, that seems to be something, you know, you guys are talking about. You know, it does matter that Mike Fires went on the record because he put his name to it, you know. But the problem here is that there's so, it's so pervasive that anybody who said, yeah, everyone's doing it would probably include themselves in it. And, you know, it's not, it's not an easy, like, they did it and I didn't.

So there's not like, we can't all be like, oh, the Dodgers just won the championship because they all used Pine Tar because it'd be like, well, the race probably did too and so did you know all the other teams so it's not easy to kind of to we scapegoated this guy bubba but we we can't scapego to team or scapegoed like a certain class of players even though we've danced around a couple names those names only fit within the larger thing which is that almost every really great pitcher that you can think of has like their own personal substance okay how about cut to this it's the super bowl the commercials are on all of a sudden Trevor bowers on the screen and he says, hi, my name's Trevor Bauer. I just won the Cy Young.

And I couldn't have done it without Bubba Harkins Pyington. Oh, my God. And now Bubba's in the money. He's getting paid huge. Bowers made a mockery of the entire process. He's holding MLB's feet to the flames. And then they'd be like, oh, my God. No, but I think that's genius, man.

He's got to wait until he signs his deal, then he'll come to it. Yeah, he's got to sign the deal first. That's why I waited all the way to February, Triff. Yeah, but this is, that's why this is so weird. it's a potential big deal. Yeah. You know? It's a potential big deal.

It is a big deal, but like you said, like in the mainstream media, the public eye, it's not a big deal until something happens. Whether that someone puts a name to it or MLB just gets fed up and says, okay, this is what we're doing. But until then, it's just going to be like, when I read your freaking article and started going back and like, dude, I've had conversations about this. Like, I told, I called Jimmy right away. I was like, Jim, like, this is fucking nuts, dude. got to talk about this. I talked to you. I said, you know, we got to come on. We got to talk about this because to me, it's a, it's a, it's a big story. And, um, you know, in your article, you reference a one guy saying, uh, quote of the saying 99.9% of guys use some sort of substance.

And I would, I would say that's, I don't know, 99.9.9 is right. But everyone is using something to get a grip on the ball. But not everyone is using this. I'm going to call performance enhancing grips. I just coined that term. P.E.Gs. Pegs. Pags. I was first. Not everyone's using pegs, okay,

because I've talked to guys who are prominent pitchers in the big leagues and they're not happy about it and you start to send them numbers. You can... Talking baseball fans, you're a smart bunch.

You helped Jimmy uncover the Astros thing. Go ahead and just go and look up spin rate numbers from 2018, 1920C. Who's making a 200 to 300 RPM jump? You're going to find the guys that are using us a PEG. I think performance-enhancing goo is more fun.

Okay. Performance-nancing-g. And honestly, we should have some minor league numbers because a lot of times the major league, I had one hitter tell me, you'll see a guy come up and he'll struggle for one outing, and then the bullpen coach pulls him aside, and then they've got the right goo.

That's true. And they have trackmen in all those minor league stadiums. I don't know if that's available on a baseball, Savon. But you go to spring, you go to spring, you're throwing in front of the Rapsoto, you know? I don't know, we don't have that. The teams have that.

You know, did any player, like, offer you some? Like, have you had the goo on your hands? You gooed. Have you good? I may or may not have smoked some of the, the bomb resin that got onto a ball. I want to go, I want to go throw in front of a Rhapsodo and see if my 65. I don't think you do.

I'm 67 with no, look, dark. I doesn't do much for a lot. Can you see reference your article, you know, obviously, That's what we're talking about here. Go click the link. You have a code, a promo code for people? If you click the link, it goes, I get credit for it. It's a buck a week right now.

But if you go through my story when you subscribe, I get credit for it. You get that deal. Tell me about the guy that you guys, you said you had an independent pitching development lab, was kind enough to do some applied research for the purposes article. Tell us about what you found there. Yeah, they just threw without anything. They had a guy throw without anything, guy throw with pine tar, and then throw it with pelican grip. It's like it starts with pine tar, but it's like some sort of brand that you can get that's like another step above.

And between the nothing and the pelican grip, which was the best, dude got like 350 RPM actually. And it showed in the movement numbers, like he got an inch more of ride. He got like three inches more horizontal movement. and just generally the pitch was better. And I took that to a guy who works for a team. I said, if you had this guy and you had this guy, like, what would the difference be? Like, what would the difference be in terms of swinging strikes?

And it basically was the difference between Michael Pineda's fastball last year and Trevor Bauer's fastball last year. And that's a big friggin difference, dude. We're talking about you just put pine tar on your finger and you went from Michael Pineda to Trevor Bauer. like whew, that's pretty exciting. And then the Pelican grip elevates it even more. Right.

And so then there's people, and he didn't even do any of what we're talking about here where you like take the Pepsi and you take the Sprite or you take the whatever, the CBD oil and you throw it in the kettle and you boil it all down. So, you know, I'm assuming that there's even a couple, maybe 50 more RPM that you could get by getting the exact right stuff for your finger. I mean, this is just a guy who was there on Saturday and threw for us.

and put some goop on his fingers. And people are like pissed, like hitters. You're striking out so much. I hate the three true outcomes. Why don't you put the ball in play anymore? Well, look, this is what's going on. You train your whole life and you're hitting baseballs and pitches that have X RPM. And then all of a sudden, in a couple years, you're seeing those RPM's jump.

It's a whole different ballgame for you. So you have to make an adjustment. Hitters are going to be behind because they're having to play catch. up to what pitchers have been able to do. And I've referenced this many times on our show. The technology that is being used in baseball is predominantly effective for pitchers. It helps pitchers out much more than it does hitters because they're able to do stuff like we're talking about now. A hitter, what are you going to do? They have some stuff where they track your biomechanics. So you can, if your swing is a little off, they can say, look, this is what

you were doing when you were good. See if you can do that again. We have these data points. but by and large, the technology has helped pitchers much more than hitters. And I think that's what we're seeing here. I mean, you're seeing guys having to try to adjust the pitches they really haven't seen a lot of. And that's just like that doesn't make any sense to me. Yeah, I would point at breaking balls, man. I think, yeah, the live fastball is one thing. But like, if you look at the breaking balls that we're seeing in the league right now versus even 10 years ago, it's nuts, dude.

did you ever hear of a 93 mile an hour slider? And I'm not even talking about a cutter. It's a friggin slider. There are people throwing 93 mile an hour sliders. Like, like, I feel bad for hitters, man. It gives me freaking goosebumps when you say shit like that. Because, you know, thinking of getting in the fucking box against something like that, you are defeated, man.

You really are. Because you don't see that ever. Then all of a sudden, like, this guy is doing a what? Yeah. And we saw, you know, Diego Castillo, his breaking ball in the, in the postseason. We saw a lot of crazy ass breaking balls this postseason. And I would say that, you know, the two teams that got to the end probably had the best breaking balls. And what does Pintar do? Like, it helps you spin that ball, spin the breaking ball better. And, you know,

it used to be that Sergio Romo is the only guy that would throw, you know, 50% breaking balls. Now there's a ton of people who do it. And when I asked his pitching coach, Rags, I asked him once about Romo. I said, you know, it seems like he gives up homers every once in a while. on the slider. He said, yeah, if you just throw that many sliders are going to hang some, you know? And I kind of, I thought of that just now because I'm like, well, maybe you won't hang as many if you've got, you know, pint tar on your finger. Yeah. Now we have all these guys throwing 50% sliders. Romo's not alone now.

You're hanging, your hanging slider isn't as bad as it used to be. It goes back to the average slider. Yeah. And man, that, that 93, I know it means more from Trevor Plouffe, stood in the box and saw them, but, and referencing some more old West Coast baseball players, as you mentioned, Troy Percival, like, I remember, you know, turn on an Aaron Seeley start, like 20 years ago, and it's like, okay, 88 heater. And it's just crazy, the developments that they've made to the game. And I don't know, man, I, like, they have to do something.

And like we've all alluded to, it feels like there's going to be this push, come to shove moment that's probably not going to be good for baseball and we'll all be sitting here saying like, well, is the PR actually pretty good? And I don't know. I hate that. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention ways that hitters could cheat the system. Is that what we're going to call these PEGs, is cheating the system? Pegs. I mean, hitters, yeah, we talked about cork bats. I never saw one in my time. I don't think nobody ever used them because of the potential to get your doors blown off and cork being all over the place. It breaks a lot, right?

It would be super obvious. Another one would be like an ash bat and taking and digging in some grooves in the, what are those called? The grains. I have tried that. And I'm going to look, I have nothing to hide here. I have tried that. Does it work? No.

It doesn't do anything. And you're scared. I mean, like, maybe some physicists can help me out there. The physicist or physics, whatever physics. Physics professor.

That person. I'm a high school grad. Also, you know, if you do that, like the umpire touches your bat all the time. The catcher touches your bat all the time to get it out of the way. Like they can feel it.

Like this is something that. What about something like an axe handle? See, I don't, I don't know. I don't know about that. What does, what do physics say about that?

I've tried it. myself, it didn't feel right to me. But some guys swear about it. Kurt Suzuki got in his hand and loved it. Mookie Betts obviously used it and he used Mookie Betts. The Axe guys told me that they had an axe handle they thought was a 13 degree launch angle axe handle and they gave it to Mookie Betts and he had a 13 degree launch angle that year. No.

Hey, I'd love to hear some. I'd love to hear about that because I'm really interested in all this. I've got a phone call. I've got a phone call with somebody who says he claims that he can do something within the rules that'll help batters and it's and it's just a change and so I'll report back but you know so eventually they'll do VR and can you imagine stepping in against a fake Chrisale against actually instead of before you step in against Chrisale like that that they have that they have it now it's pretty bad though it's pretty bad it's not fun to use they even uh my last spring training

they were coming around doing that with guys but like that's still not going to make you better right away. It's still like a process training. Yeah. It's more like, yeah. It's not instant. The, the, the, the, you know, I don't know what I've always said. It's weird to me that hitters don't get their bats like tailored to their body type. You just kind of pick one up. They're starting to do more about now. Yeah. They start to know like, oh, this feels good. But like, what, like maybe that's in the future for hitters. Like, hey, like, this is my swing. Can you get me a bat that's going to increase my bat speed and maybe my launch angle, like put it in that honey hole. Maybe that's what they do, but that's not out yet. I just, there's some, there's a

big disadvantage with what's going on right now. That's basically my point. Just trying to be some pushback. I agree with you generally. Yeah. I mean, like, you know, there's nothing like a pitcher can, you know, stay in front of Rapsoto and the pitching coach can say like, you need to have like 10 inches a break on your curveball for it to be best and then you can just sort of do that like there's it's not as easy even to train as a hitter you know yes they've got they've got some vests and some stuff where they can you know and they can maybe say hit it harder but like thanks dude i'm still working on that swing the last thing i'll say about um baba the angels clubby he was fired interesting caveat in the whole story is the angels new gm

was a former clubby am i right that's right so are we going to call him out and say take care of your own here hire bubba back because he didn't do anything wrong clubbies can't stand up for other clubbies then what are we doing you know i'm being serious i think it's absolutely bullshit that bubba's out of the game and now you got a guy that started there hey hire him back and i said something before the show that i'm not going to say on the air but you guys also know what I'm thinking. Well, what I think we do is we get, you know, some inside access. When we find out that they're going to not change the Pintar rules for another decade,

we'll get in touch with Bubba and we'll start Bubba's goo. And it'll be a John Boy Media vertical company. Bubba's goo. We'll also do Jake's goo as well. And you don't want to buy that. Yeah, no, I've suggested. I've suggested a couple different goos, so I'm glad we're finally getting in that market.

You know, I don't want to say more importantly than all of this, but the last time you and I fully interacted, was it the worst tweet you saw this year when I said that Dustin May's two Seamer moves too much? No, we talked about that. No, no, I think Dustin Mace Two-Samer is fascinating, and there's something about two-scene movement that baseball is going away from two-scene movement. They don't like it.

I think it's a little bit because the strike zone is smaller horizontally than it is vertically. So if you have a lot of horizontal movement, it's A, hard to throw strikes, which we saw from Dustin May. And then B, I guess, moves along the barrel instead of moving off the barrel. So, I mean, I think you're... It's, I'd say, savantish, you know. Thank you. I don't know that you're necessarily exactly right in the way you put it. No, definitely not.

Definitely not. That's a great point, though, about the strike zone being higher than it is wide. And it also helps catchers in their ability to frame pitches. They can go up and down much better than go side to side. They get those pitches more often than they would going side to side. So, I mean, it all adds up to, like, pitchers really, this is what's happened. Look, they got the numbers. They really dug deep into the numbers.

What works? What doesn't? That's my guys are at the top of the zone right now. If you go look at a hitter's heat map, most of them are blue at the top of the zone. Yeah. There's not many guys that can hit that pitch. Brian Dozier was one of them. And I don't even know if, like, his were that good.

He had a lot of homers up there, but he might also made a lot of outs. But that's what they're doing. They're reading the numbers and they're making a justice. Some of them legal, some of them. You want who showed me that? The first time I ever saw that? Chris Young. Oh.

He pulled me aside and he said, he said, look at these heat maps. And he showed me all the heat maps for the team he was facing. And he said, Mookie's the only one who can hit high fastballs on this team. Oh, so you're talking tall pitcher Chris Young. Yeah. Okay. Wow. Okay.

I was now in charge of enforcement. on Pintar. Replaced Jotor. I don't know what it means, but it's come a whole circle. What it means to me is if I'm a GM now, I'm signing all the short guys. Brian Dozier, Mookie, Bess, they can hit that high fastball.

Let's go. Dustin Pejoria could do it. I bet you if you look at Dustin Pejoria's heat map, he hits that high pitch too. Oh, I wonder. That's interesting. Yes. We all have kind of flatter swings,

but they're also short. I don't know. Do you want me to bring it up? Short guy analytics. It's happening. Oh my God. Chris Young was the strangest at bat. You guys know I don't like tall pitchers.

He was not an average white ridey, really weird stuff coming out of his hand. Just slow, gross wind-up. It just something was different about him. And through to different parts of the zone that you're used to. She's your damn smart. Damn him. I did break up a no-hit.

of his, no big deal. Rude. He was trying to have a moment there. You just pissed off his entire relatives. This is an incredibly rude, Dreb.

What did it get you? I can't wait to, what did it get you? I can't wait for the Jimmy Liddix on the, on the short guys. Oh, he's lost. He's on Padreus savant right now.

We'll have an update in a little bit. Yeah, I was trying to find his heat maps, but. Trevor, you can do it with a bun, did you? What's that? You didn't do it with a bunt, did you? No, I didn't. And I'm okay with it.

If that was in my game, it's okay to bunt and take a no hitter away. There we go. Don't tell hitters, pitchers, don't tell hitters what they can and what they can't do. You throw your freaking pitch. We'll do what we do. Don't tell me I can't bunt because you're too freaking fat to get off the mound. Sorry. No.

That's like me saying, hey, 2O, pay up, buddy. Pay up. You have to throw me a fastball now. What, you didn't throw me a fastball? We always end up there. I'll hunt you down. I, you know, I will argue with any pitcher about all these dumb things that they want hitters to do and to not do. I'll argue all day long with them because they're wrong and they know. Like Tatis, take 3-0 if you're up by 6.

Can you take 3-0 if you're up by 4 or 7? Never. 3-0 is the new 2-0, baby. You swore. wing. Pejorio was pretty good up in the zone. Yeah. We're on to something, Jim.

Al Tuva, yeah. Yeah. All right. Altuva can get a guy. Yeah. Yeah. Every lineup needs a short guy. Well, life happens at eye level for us.

So we're just living there. Oh. What a slogan right there. Meta. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Thank you very much for joining us.

Eno. I think this was awesome conversation. Treves fired up. I think, Is Trev annoying you too much? Do you want us to tell Trev to chill out a little bit? Like, is he hitting you up too much? Okay.

No, no. All right. He only gets annoyed with me when I send him the same sandwich I make every time. He's like, dude, switch it up a little bit. This is annoying me. I just have noticed that, like, the last three times, it's the full pork, Sammy. All of our listeners here, if you make a sandwich. Yeah.

Before you eat it, take a pick, send it to Eno. At Inoceros, he will rate your sandwich. He's the sandwich king. It's very hard to rate sandwiches. He'd never eat, but I'll do it on site. What's the best sandwich you've ever had before we wrap up? I don't know. Like, I really love bacon, lettuce, tomato, dude.

I love BLTs. I know that's not the answer where I was like, oh, I had this one. I did have a really cool roast beef sandwich at this one cafe called Darwin Cafe that's now shut down. But what does that do for you? Yeah. I'll just tell you my favorite sandwich across the ball. That does something for me. Yes.

All right. Thank you, man. We appreciate it. Everyone, go follow Eno. Go read the article. Go subscribe to the athletic. And go make up your mind if you're four against pegs. Pags.

Thanks. Thanks. Don't look that up on Urban Dictionary. We actually, that was the last episode. We did the other. That was the last episode. Yeah. Yeah.

to baseball. All right, that was Eno Saris. A lot of fun. Let us know your new thoughts on pine tar usage in baseball. Jake, I think, you know, I have a wishy-washy stance. Trev has pretty firm stance, but you said you're starting to flower a little bit or see or really think on it more.

Well, I mean, you know, I think when you use that, I mean, a corked bat, like picture, if a hitter uses a cork bat, it's with them for life. Like the reference I use, Sammy Sosa, like any baseball fan still has that image in their head. And, you know, the pine tar is pine tar is pine tar. Like, you know, guys were using it in different ways. It was pine tar.

The problem is we're not using pine tar. We're using pegs. So, yeah, I mean, I'm not excited about it. I mean, I see, I now more clearly see kind of the difference between you and Trevor because it's, you have the, where baseball's mind. is that is just like, well, every pitcher's using this stuff. It's happening, whatever. And Trevor's kind of coming in at the SNL, Derek Jeter, Seth Myers, are going to be like, no, this sucks. And if you're a hitter, like, that's why I'm saying, if I'm all the hitters, I'm like, screw these

guys. Unionize. I don't care about the pitchers on our team. Like, figure it out. That's your problem. I need to hit. Yeah, look, you guys know how I feel about it. Hopefully I expressed it well in the episode. It just, I think when you get technology and analytically driven front offices trying to find advantages in the margins and using this data trying to find advantages, you're going to get stuff like this to pop up. And the one thing we continuously talked about in the episode was like the Edgatronic cameras, super slowmo with the rap Soto. Like every pitch, you can see what the numbers are. And you can make it just. adjustments. That's that's what's accelerated this whole process. Now guys can go and say,

shit, that was only 2,200 RPM. I need 2,500 RPMs. How do I get there? And they can do it within one bullpen. So you're taking guys overnight, turning it from average, below average guys to elite, you know, if they figure it out. And I think that most guys will just tend to agree with if your player makes an improvement because he worked hard and figured something out mechanically, that's obviously amazing. But like if you're putting a foreign substance and it just automatically increases something, that ain't right, man.

Ain't right. All right. Thank you guys very much for listening. Leave a five-star review and let us know your thoughts on Pinedtard. No, just treat it us or do whatever you want. Right, pegs. Pags.

I think five-star review is good. We'll take the review. Five-star review. It's not asking, but we'll take it. Write something about pecking. Chick-sucks. How about the bomb reference? Are you kidding me?

That's cool.