Replace whining cheaters with pitching machines.

New York Yankees' Gerrit Cole struggles with grip, tells MLB 'just talk to us' Marly Rivera, ESPN Writer

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Gerrit Cole called out Major League Baseball in its attempt to regulate foreign substances after struggling to keep a firm hold of the baseball during his start against the Toronto Blue Jays on a cold, windy Wednesday night at Sahlen Field.

"It's so hard to grip the ball," a frustrated Cole said after the New York Yankees' 3-2 win...

This was Cole's first start since Major League Baseball sent a memorandum detailing enhanced enforcement of Official Baseball Rules 3.01 and 6.02(c) and (d), which prohibit applying foreign substances to baseballs. Those foreign substances are frequently used to doctor baseballs for increased spin rates...

Cole, who struck out a season-low four batters, threw 104 pitches, 47 of them fastballs. According to ESPN Stats & Information research, Cole's fastballs averaged a spin rate 2,303 revolutions per minute (RPM), down 210 RPM from his season average coming into the game. In his start in Minnesota last Wednesday, Cole's fastballs averaged a spin rate of 2,515 revolutions per minute...

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred ... was at the game ...

Abiding by the new rules, Cole struggled with his grip during the contest near Lake Erie, with temperatures hovering in the high 40's with the wind chill.

"I was messing with [my grip] all night," he said.

___________________________

The commissioner was in Buffalo last night?

I know this will sound naive but we've all thrown baseballs and softballs, although probably not at great velocity ... Have any of us had difficulty gripping the ball?

Gerrit Cole improved a lot after five years in Pittsburgh. Innings and ERA+

Pirates: 782; 112

Astros: 412; 164

Yankees: 162; 164

If the Yankees are getting more of the Pittsburgh version of Cole, do they get a rebate on his $36,000,000 annual salary?

2021 Contract Status: Signed thru 2028, 9 yrs/$324M (20-28)

I wonder what, if anything, sainted Mariano Rivera used? He often pitched in cold, windy conditions.

It's pretty much understood that the practice of the plate umpire rubbing each ball with that special Delaware River mud has been farmed out by the umps to the clubhouse guys, who have sometimes been influenced by the home team pitchers to make slight alterations.

Maybe the solution is to have that mud applied systematically in the factory. Don't Japanese baseball leagues do something like that?

Or maybe in 2021 have the umpires do there jobs BEFORE the game and rub up the baseballs properly.

In the NFL, each team controls the footballs. When Eli Manning took the field, the Giants supplied the ball from their supply bag; those footballs had been changed in practice to have a grip to Eli's liking. When the opposing team took possession, say the Patriots in the Super Bowl, Tom Brady got a ball to his liking from the Patriots supply bag. This made inflategate even more moronic and ironic because the media hatred of the Patriots had them ignore and/or remain ignorant of this incredibly amateurish practice, which I thought was the real story.

In MLB, the pitchers in plain sight are throwing downhill! What the heck? Get rid of the damn mound! What's that about? And move the pitching distance back about three feet to the middle of the diamond. And make that the release point, not the launch point. The quarterback must release from no further than the line of scrimmage. The pitcher gets to start his motion from the designated distance and leap downhill at ever increasing distances towards the plate. I think that's why Yankee starter Luis Severino, recovering from major surgery, injured his groin recently in practice. His body wasn't quite ready for the hurtling action.

For a pitcher to add six inches to his fastball, all he has to do is land six inches closer to the front of the plate, which is where the pitching distance is measured, not the back of the plate. MLB distances tend to be backwards of common sense. 90 feet to first base is to the outfield side of the base, so the distance is 90 feet minus the size of first base.

And these prima donnas are whinnying that they can't continue to cheat? They're so locked into their bowling activity that they become injured from any simple variation, like running the bases. Replace them with pitching machines! They're not baseball players! They can't hit or field. If they could, they would play every day but they can't, not at the MLB level.