When Mets Close Edwin Diaz was ejected Sunday night before throwing a pitch, becoming the third Mets pitcher in the past year to fall victim to MLB’s arbitrary sticky stuff rules.
The reason behind the crackdown on sticky things is good. The point is to prevent pitchers from using illegal means (such as spider tack) that could give them an unfair advantage – a problem that got somewhat out of hand before these new rules went into effect.
But pitchers must have a good grip on the ball to determine where to throw a dangerous projectile. And the interpretation and enforcement of the rules is ridiculous.
Specifically, they are arbitrary, unscientific and basically unchallengeable – meaning a pitcher automatically faces a 10-game suspension because an umpire claims he did something that cannot be proven.
Any umpire can decide on any given day that a pitcher has violated the rules. But that referee does not have to provide actual justification for an expulsion.
After the game, Diaz said his right hand had the same three things it always had: rosin (a legal substance found on the mound), sweat and dirt, you know, the ballpark stuff.
“I just said I’m using the same thing I always use,” Diaz explained. “I rub resin, sweat and put my hand in the ground a little bit because I need some grip on the ball. So that’s what I was explaining to them, but they said it was too much stick. I understood .” But at the end of the day I was using resin, sweating and sticking my hand in the mud.
“I was really surprised because I didn’t have anything on my hand, my glove, my belt. They always check my hat, everything. And they felt that was very sticky. I said you could check my hand, smell my hand, and they didn’t smell anything, but they threw me out of the game.”
As Diaz noted, the officials found nothing illegal on his glove or belt. They didn’t take his glove either, but gave it back as he left the field.
Of course, they also didn’t take any evidence from his hand, which theoretically could have been checked for whatever illegal substance referee Vic Carapazza suggested Diaz was using.
Doing anything scientific that might prove their claims is not part of MLB protocol here.
“It was definitely not resin and sweat,” Carapazza told a pool reporter after the match. ‘We checked thousands of them. I know what that feeling is. This was very sticky.”
There are numerous problems with what Carapazza said.
The first is that because it was said through a pool reporter, no follow-up questions were asked.
The second is that he makes a serious claim without evidence, speaking in definitive terms about something he cannot possibly be certain of.
And therein lies the problem with MLB’s sticky stuff rules.
The same thing happened Drew Smith last year.
And Smith, who replaced Diaz on Sunday after the closer was ejected, said after the game that he never received any clarification from the league as to why he was ejected and suspended last June, and that he has done nothing since is about what he puts his hand on for every outing.
To be clear, there are no villains here.
Carapazza believes what he says.
Diaz and Smith believe what they say.
But until MLB comes up with a better way to handle these situations, ridiculous scenes like the one we witnessed on Sunday night will continue to occur – with the league punishing players without evidence and putting their teams at a significant disadvantage in the process. .
