Major League Baseball is cracking down on foreign substance use on the mound. Baseball's 'dirty little secret' has been exposed, and now the league is taking action.
In a statement released Tuesday afternoon, MLB laid out its plan to combat foreign substance use.
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Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi joined MLB Network, where he put his full support behind the league's plan.
“I think as a group, the GMs were all on a call this morning, and the group is all united," Zaidi said Tuesday. "This is a really good thing that everyone wants to feel like we’re competing on a level playing field, and everyone's on board with moving ahead.
"I’m looking forward to this plan being put in place and any suspicions and concerns which obviously aren’t good for the game kind of being taken off the table. Everybody is really on board and looking forward to this plan being put in motion.”
One common critique amongst players is that these sudden changes don't allow much time for pitchers to adjust, and would have been better implemented in the offseason.
Zaidi does not believe that to be the case, claiming that the league has discussed combating this issue since last season.
“I would give the commissioner’s office a lot of credit on this one," Zaidi said, "because in 2020 during spring training they actually made the rounds to different camps around spring training and talked to GMs and managers and coaches about the fact that this was one of the things they wanted to be stricter at enforcing."
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After watching substances such as Spider Tack make its impact on the game throughout the first couple of months, Zaidi agrees with the league's decision to enforce these rules mid-season.
"I think the fact that this plan is going into place during the season was probably good for the commissioner’s office in terms of being able to observe the first couple of months, what they were seeing in terms of potential foreign substance usage and therefore being able to give specific feedback to teams and players."
These rules will be enforced starting on June 21, giving pitchers around the league six days to adjust to the new norm.
