Baseball changed in June. Just how much it has changed will play itself out in the coming weeks and months, but the enforcement of the game's foreign-substance rule already has had a massive effect on the on-field product, and the reverberations aren't likely to go away anytime soon.
To understand why, it's important to focus on the numbers across the sport present and past. Spin rates have plummeted since the league threatened suspension to those caught using sticky stuff, and history illustrates how much better hitters are against pitches that spin less. It's too early to say whether there is a direct and provable causative effect between the crackdown and the uptick in hitting numbers, but the correlation is impossible to ignore.
Let's begin with the spin rates this season for the four pitches that get the most out of enhanced spin: four-seam fastball, slider, cutter and curveball. There are two lines of demarcation: June 3, when reports surfaced that MLB would penalize those using foreign substances, and June 21, when enforcement commenced. We've separated all pitches thrown into three buckets: April 1 to June 2, June 3 to June 20 and June 21 to June 30. The first two have large enough samples to have stabilized, and the last is close, if not there already.
Four-seam fastball
April 1 to June 2: 2,319
June 3 to June 20: 2,269
June 21 to June 30: 2,226
Season total: 2,300
Slider
April 1 to June 2: 2,462
June 3 to June 20: 2,420
June 21 to June 30: 2,386
Season total: 2,446
Cutter
April 1 to June 2: 2,418
June 3 to June 20: 2,375
June 21 to June 30: 2,337
Season total: 2,401
Curveball
April 1 to June 2: 2,554
June 3 to June 20: 2,510
June 21 to June 30: 2,476
Season total: 2,537
Fastballs over the final 10 days of the month spun on average 93 rpm slower than over the season's first two months. Cutters had 81 fewer rpm, curveballs 78 and sliders 76. That is a massive change -- and almost overnight. For those curious of exactly how pervasive sticky stuff was in baseball, the answer is clear.
What does it mean? Well, batting average is up, and so is slugging percentage. That's all well and good, and it probably will remain the case, but to use these samples and draw a definitive answer may be premature. Thankfully, there is more than half a decade of data that provides a very good sample -- and a very good sense of how spin works.
On four-seam fastballs, from 2015-2020:
Spin rate BA SLG
2,800+ .215 .420
2,700-2,799 .211 .398
2,600-2,699 .223 .386
2,500-2,599 .231 .405
2,400-2,499 .246 .439
2,300-2,399 .255 .451
2,200-2,299 .266 .463
2,100-2,100 .279 .478
< 2,100 .298 .509
This makes it pretty clear that dips in spin have an inverse relationship with a hitter's effectiveness. Thus, if MLB is suddenly a sport where spin is more difficult to come by, the obvious consequence will be an increased offensive environment.
Getting a bit more granular: With the average four-seam spin rate looking like it's stabilizing in the 2,200- to 2,250-rpm range, let's compare the longitudinal numbers with the 50-rpm range from the average over the first two months.
Spin rate BA SLG
2,200-2,250 .270 .472
2,294-2,344 .263 .465
It's not a massive jump, but seven points of batting average and slugging percentage in this offensive environment constitutes something. And if the impetus behind baseball's crackdown wasn't just to look like it's taking cheating seriously all of a sudden but to help juice offense, it seems well on its way to working.
As for individuals ...
To better understand how the average four-seam fastball dipped almost 100 rpm, ESPN looked at changes in individual four-seam spin rate since June 3. Through the end of the month, 246 pitches had thrown at least 100 four-seamers prior to June 3 and at least 25 after. Of those pitchers, 188 threw with less spin after June 3. That's more than 75% of pitchers.
Eleven lost at least 200 rpm on their fastball. Fifty dropped more than 100 rpm. Here are those who dipped by at least 150 rpm.
Perhaps the most fascinating part isn't just the loss of spin, it's the usage of the diminished pitches. While the sample is unquestionably too small to suggest it's going to be a pattern, Trevor Bauer was throwing his fastball on 41.4% of pitches over the first two months but has done so just 27.1% of the time in his five starts since June 3.
Also in the top 10 of pitchers throwing their fastball significantly less since the crackdown: New York Mets star Jacob deGrom. Though fear not. If there were any questions about deGrom using sticky stuff, perhaps this is the definitive answer: He's actually averaging 26 more rpm on his heater since June 3.
Speaking of greatness ...
Let us take a moment to appreciate what Washington Nationals slugger Kyle Schwarber did in June. Or, perhaps better put, over 19 glorious days.
Home runs from June 12-30
Arizona Diamondbacks: 9
St. Louis Cardinals: 12
Pittsburgh Pirates: 14
Chicago White Sox: 14
Kyle Schwarber: 16
Other Schwarber by the numbers during the glorious 19:
7: Leadoff home runs
8: Home runs off fastballs
15-4: Nationals' record since the binge began
25: Runs driven in on the 16 home runs -- 11 solo, one two-run and four three-run homers
112.2: Hardest-hit home run, off Taijuan Walker -- and also his shortest, at 374 feet
187: OPS points gained
410: Average distance on his home runs
1,021,505: Dollars earned by Schwarber during the time period
The best player in baseball so far
Yes, Shohei Ohtani's ERA took an ugly turn after he couldn't even get out of the first inning against the Yankees on the final day of the month. So it wasn't exactly a perfect month. The first 29 days came awfully close, though, and leave Ohtani at the halfway point of the season owning the title of the game's best in 2021.
The eye test says so, and the numbers back it up. Ohtani's 4.8 wins above replacement with Baseball-Reference and 4.6 with FanGraphs both lead baseball. Here's what he did through June 29, because it's best to pretend like giving up seven runs in two-thirds of an inning against New York didn't happen, especially since the Angels came back and actually won:
Hitting
Batting average: .313
On-base percentage: .427
Slugging percentage: .900
HR: 13
RBI: 23
SB: 4
BB: 16
K: 27
OPS+: 245
wOBA: .528
Pitching
IP: 23
H: 20
ER: 6
BB: 5
K: 32
HR: 3
ERA: 2.35
Silly. Ludicrous. Amazing. Either of those stat lines would be a great month for an individual player. He did both.
That's Shohei Ohtani, your AL MVP favorite.
The best Junes since Cleaver
1. Cedric Mullins II, CF, Baltimore: He had the second-best month by WAR of everyone in baseball, hitting .385/.455/.740. He should be starting in center for the American League All-Star team, but at very least he'll be in Denver, where he belongs.
2. Michael Brantley, DH, Houston: The definition of a professional hitter. Brantley led baseball with a .418 batting average in June. Brantley led baseball with a 7% strikeout rate in June. These two things tend to correlate strongly, yes, but both the high average and low strikeout rate in environments of low average and high strikeout rates are similarly incredible.
3. San Francisco Giants bullpen: OK, baseball fan. Name one Giants reliever. If you can do that, name two. Very attuned baseball fans may have trouble getting to three. And yet here is what the Giants' bullpen did in June. Baseball-best 1.99 ERA. Baseball-best 1.81 walks per nine. Baseball-best 0.45 home runs per nine. A 50.8% ground ball rate and .222 average on balls in play, both second best in that time. They're a big part of why the Giants have the best record in baseball. Oh, and for those who played along, the Giants' dirty dozen: Dominic Leone, Conner Menez, Tyler Rogers, Jose Alvarez, Jake McGee, Zack Littell, Jarlin Garcia, Sammy Long, Jimmie Sherfy, John Brebbia, Caleb Baragar and Matt Wisler, who has since been traded to Tampa Bay.
4. Jacob deGrom, SP, New York Mets: Over 95 plate appearances, batters hit .090/.137/.124 against deGrom in June. In 2,392 plate appearances this year, pitchers are batting .108/.149/.136. In other words, Jacob deGrom spent June making lineups full of major league hitters look like pitchers trying to hit.
5. Hits: Being threatened with extinction, the hit made a comeback in June. Whether because of better weather or the removal of grip aids, the hit showed up 6,529 times in June -- almost as many as in May and in almost 1,100 fewer at-bats. In fact, after an April in which the strikeout appeared 1,090 more times than the hit, and a May in which the difference was 836, the gap between strikeout and hit shrunk to 390 in June.
June superlatives
Best moment: Major League Baseball's first Lou Gehrig Day was years in the making, and watching it unfold across baseball left the organizers and stewards in tears. ALS is an unrelenting disease, and not only does it rob people of their movement and ultimately their lives, it takes days that would otherwise be bright and casts over them a dark cloud. Nothing about June 2 was dark. It was a celebration of those who lost their lives, those still fighting and those who may be diagnosed with ALS but will have a better chance than ever of defeating it because awareness leads to money, money leads to research and research leads to cures.
Best defensive play: Giants outfielder Mike Tauchman robbed Albert Pujols of a home run at the end of May and didn't get the nod last month. Clearly he was so angered by his "This Month in Baseball" slight that he went out and did it again, this time to Juan Soto. At TMIB headquarters, we almost didn't give it to him again, just to offer motivation to keep yanking home runs from over the fence, but it's fair at this point to think he doesn't need it.
Best striptease: Sergio Romo, RP/burgeoning nudist, Oakland: The foreign-substance-check meltdowns have abated for now, but we'll always have Romo tossing his glove and hat to the ground, unbuckling his belt and pulling down his pants. No flesh was bared. This was simply a man who'd reached his breaking point, and if feigned nudity was the worst thing that came of it, no harm, mildly foul.
Best bat girl: In 1961, a 10-year-old girl named Gwen Goldman wrote the New York Yankees and asked if she could serve as a bat girl. She received a reply from the Yankees' GM at the time, Roy Hamey, who wrote: "I am sure you can understand that in a game dominated by men a young lady such as yourself would feel out of place in the dugout." On Monday, 60 years after she wrote her letter, Gwen Goldman, wearing a bat girl uniform, spent the night playing the role for the Yankees -- and she neither looked nor felt out of place. She was exactly where she belonged.
Five minor leaguers you should know about
1. Anthony Volpe, SS, New York Yankees: For all the love Jasson Dominguez is getting upon his debut and the buzz 21-year-old Oswald Peraza is creating at Double-A, evaluators are raving about the 20-year-old Volpe, who's hitting .310/.439/.620 with nine home runs, 19 stolen bases and more walks than strikeouts in low-A. The high school teammate of Vanderbilt star Jack Leiter is more than making a name for himself after being taken 30th in the 2019 draft, and he could move through the system quickly.
2. Tyler Soderstrom, C, Oakland: Evaluators around baseball agree that Soderstrom was the steal of the 2020 draft, dropping Oakland at 26th. At 19, he's destroying low-A to the tune of .315/.399/.575. The only question at this point is whether his left-handed swing is going to necessitate him moving so quickly he has move off the catching position, where he's a work in progress. Even if that's the case, scouts think Soderstrom's bat is good enough to work at any position.
3. Shane Baz, SP, Tampa Bay: Trigger warning for Pirates fans. As if the Tyler Glasnow/Austin Meadows portion of the Chris Archer deal weren't bad enough, Baz has been among the best pitchers in the minor leagues this year. In 46 2/3 innings, he has struck out 69, walked five and allowed just three home runs. He has looked every bit as comfortable at Triple-A as he did at Double-A. Best of all, he's only 22. And as seems to be perpetually the case with the Rays, the rich are about to get richer.
4. Roansy Contreras, SP, Pittsburgh: Not all is lost, Pirates fans! While Contreras wasn't the most hyped of the prospects coming back from the Yankees in the Jameson Taillon deal, he's looking like the best. Only 21, the right-handed Contreras doesn't possess great size, but he throws hard, commands the ball well and spins it exceptionally. His strikeout-to-walk ratio is better than 7-to-1, his ERA is 2.00 and as Pittsburgh lines up its next generation of players, Contreras will be at the forefront.
5. Gabriel Moreno, C, Toronto: A broken thumb isn't going to boot Moreno from this list. He earned his way on with a clear breakout as a 21-year-old in Double-A. He hits for average (.373), power (.651 slugging percentage), walks (nearly 10% of the time), doesn't strike out much (around 15%) and, best of all, plays a position where the threshold for hitters isn't very high. If Moreno, a converted shortstop, can do all of those things in the big leagues, it doesn't matter how good his glove is. With that bat, at that position, he's a star.
Five July stories worth watching
1. Trevor Bauer is the highest-profile player since Aroldis Chapman to have a domestic violence investigation opened by MLB, and while the coming week could offer a better sense as to whether he'll be charged by prosecutors after a woman alleged he beat her up and assaulted her while having sex, the fallout will not end there. As Marcell Ozuna's case has shown, teams will not necessarily release players simply because of an allegation or an arrest. But the prospect of a seismic change in Bauer's life -- well beyond his career -- is very real.
2. Shohei Ohtani competing in the Home Run Derby is amazing for baseball. Plenty of players skip it for personal reasons, as they're entitled to, but when someone of Ohtani's skill chooses to participate, it takes one of the game's marquee events and makes it that much better. As nice as it would've been to see Ohtani against Fernando Tatis Jr., Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and others, Ohtani alone is reason enough to make the Derby a must-see event.
3. While the July 30 trade deadline will be fascinating for any number of reasons, chief among them is the clear majority of teams looking to add. Going forward, when playoffs are going to expand, this will be the reality every year -- a market in which the demand outstrips the supply and prices are high. But to get that a year early speaks to just how wide open things are this year. Halfway through the season, there's no obvious World Series favorite, and the trade market will be a clear reflection of that.
4. Whatever comes of Hector Santiago's appeal after he was the first player suspended for foreign substances, his case illustrates the complications of MLB's crackdown. It shows the power of umpires, who have the unilateral ability to force discipline based simply on their judgment. It displays the fine line they must walk with enforcement, as Santiago said all he used was rosin -- which is legal -- and they believed otherwise. If indeed Santiago loses 10 games for doing something that is completely within the rules, what message does that send to pitchers? It's easy to foresee a scenario where they believe they're damned if they do and damned if they don't.
5. Innings counts are starting to exceed levels from last season, and in July, some teams are going to begin the slow process of tapering, especially with younger pitchers. It may not be obvious -- an inning fewer here, an extra day of rest there -- but in the end, it's all part of the plan to help keep arms healthy as baseball enters a place it's never been, going from 60 games to 162. The result will be more Triple-A-quality arms pitching in the majors -- and, as a result, more offense.
189 words about something relatively important
The first round of the MLB draft is on July 11, a Sunday night, the same day as the Futures Game. The idea of stacking MLB's two marquee non-big league events is fine in theory and a mess in practice. If the idea is to give as much shine as possible to each, great, but they don't complement one another well placed back-to-back.
In a sport whose amateurs simply don't have the same level of recognition as football and basketball, building up the draft -- making it at very least its own day, if not its own weekend -- is advisable. Start Futures Week by holding the draft one weekend, spend the rest of it telling stories about players' ascent from the draft to minor league excellence and roll that into the Futures Game kicking off All-Star week.
Instead, baseball is self-cannibalizing. The same people who cover the minor leagues tend to have the best pulse on amateur baseball, and by putting the Futures Game and draft on the same day, it forces them to make a choice. There shouldn't need to be a choice. It can, and should, be both.