Trevor Bauer Is Accusing The Houston Astros Of Cheating To Increase Spin Rate On Their Pitches, Lance McCullers Responds

Nice try, Molly.

Okay, so a lot to digest here. Trevor Bauer is accusing the Houston Astros of doctoring their baseballs in order to increase spin rate. In the interest of fairness, Bauer is a crazy person, but he’s more of a mad genius than a guy who’s off the reservation and shouldn’t be paid attention to.

Here are the facts — the Houston Astros have four pitchers in the top 10 in Major League Baseball in spin rate. Justin Verlander at number one, Lance McCullers at number five, Charlie Morton at number seven and Gerrit Cole at number ten. Last year with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Cole was 33rd. Hm. Okay.

HOWEVER, I’m not sure why Verlander is the main subject of Bauer’s witch hunt here. In Verlander’s last full season with the Tigers in 2016, the year that he was runner-up for the Cy Young award and should’ve won it, he was still first in the majors in spin rate. Doesn’t appear to be anything fishy there. I’m not saying that clears him of doctoring the baseball, but it clears the Astros of being the ones to guide him in that direction if that were to be the case.

The Astros, as you might’ve guessed, lead the majors in spin rate, while also leading the majors in ERA (2.54), WHIP (1.00), strikeouts (316), and average fastball velocity (94.6). I obviously don’t have a dog in the fight here, but could it just be that they’re good at pitching? I mean, I get why people are questioning how 34-year-old Charlie Morton has been enjoying the start to a career year by a wide margin, but their fuckin’ rotation has Justin Verlander, Dallas Keuchel and Gerrit Cole in it. Pretty good pitchers, in my honest opinion.

That being said, Bauer made it clear that he has the data to back up his claims and that it’ll come out in due time. It’ll be interesting to see what he’s got. Also, welcome to 2018 where major league pitchers chirp at each other on Twitter about spin rate. Huge victory for the baseball nerds today. Love to see it.