MLB Analyst Tweets Cause Controversy
This last 24 hours on Twitter in regards to Major League Baseball has been a little crazy. Yesterday, Ryan Spaeder, a Major League Baseball analyst who has worked for such media groups like NBC Sports and The Sporting News went off on MLB and his belief that they have blatantly turned a blind eye to cheating among hitters-- all the way back to 2015.
On Tuesday, MLB said that they would suspend any pitcher 10 games (with pay) if they were caught having any substance on their hat, glove, or uniform. Previously, on June 3rd the MLB had said that they would just confiscate any glove or hat that was under suspicion of having a substance.
The reason for these rule changes, some speculate, is that hitting is down and pitching is far to dominate this season-- making baseball boring. Pitching had been dominating, though. That part is a fact. Until June 1st, MLB pitchers were:
- on pace to break a single season "no hitter" pace... there have already been 6 no hitters on record (Madison Baumgarner's no hitter was in a 7 inning game), one shy of the season record.
- pitchers were striking out major league baseball batters at a 25% rate. So the "shift is killing hitting" theory is out the window.
- holding MLB batters to a .236 bating average. That average has jumped up to .247 since the June 3rd mandated warning.
So Ryan Spaeder went to Twitter yesterday (his tweets have been erased but H/T to Inside Hook we've got a list of his tweets) and things got a little nuts after that...
- Everything that I am about to say was verified by more than one player. I do not mean to burn anyone, and I love baseball… I’ve just had enough of this bullshit.
- The Royals were the first team with a full analytics and video department close by their dugout, doing so in 2015, their World Series Championship year. How they used it, I do not know.
- The Yankees had cameras in left, center, and right, all pointing at the pitcher’s glove, rather than the catcher, to pick up his grip.
- Aaron Judge 2017-18 home – .312/.440/.725
Aaron Judge 2017-18 road – .256/.404/.531 - The Dodgers had an employee who was caught setting up cameras at Minute Maid Park wearing an MLB Polo Shirt, when he should have been wearing a Dodgers Polo, during the 2017 World Series.
- This one hurts to say… my favorite player ever… “Chase Utley was the biggest cheater of all-time.”
- As insane as this sounds, I’ve heard this from multiple players, Adrian Beltre had a buddy with binoculars in dead center who would wave a beater (undershirt) if he was getting something off speed in 2017.
- Beltre 2017 home – .362/.440/.586
Beltre 2017 away – .271/.333/.489 - The Astros “sign stealing” method all came from Beltran, New York and Texas.
- The Dbacks used humidor balls when pitching and non-humidor balls when batting at home — I do not have a time frame on this, but I’m confident it happened.
But here is where it gets crazy. Of course, in the midst of MLB cracking down on pitching and Spaeder dropping all of these accusations-- accusations that he said had come from multiple sources, he back peddled today and apologized.
But did he???!?
His whole deleted twitter thread was about numbers and cheating them and then he tweets: "Stick to stats."
I am so confused by this dude. Did MLB give him a "cease and desist"? Did Chase Utley? I need answers.
Maybe we can figure it out tomorrow on ESPN 1170AM's "Don't Hassle Us We're Local".