The Yankees are walking a fine line when it comes to their sticky stuff regulation. Their solution to the problem is simple in theory but difficult in execution.
It's one thing for pitchers to be caught using sticky stuff. It's another thing for their hand to be the "stickiest hand" an umpire has ever felt.
That's what crew chief James Hoye said about New York Yankees starter Domingo German's hand last Tuesday, ejecting him in the fourth inning in the second game of a series against the Blue Jays.
Then, last Friday, Clarke Schmidt got checked for foreign substances and was allowed to wash his wrist after the umpire ruled him "tacky" but safe.
Clearly, the Yankees need someone on quality control to check pitchers' hands for foreign substances, and the club has decided it would police its players by itself. Using the honor system, presumably.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone said the team was planning to do some more checks of their own in the dugout:
"There's that, there's pitchers holding each other to account and obviously the coaching staff being involved in that."
Pitching coach Matt Blake reiterated the same thing, telling the media that the team was going to "stay vigilant" about sticky stuff usage and try to be at least "10 steps" behind the line.
Yankees plan to rely on their own coaches and players to regulate sticky stuff
That's fine in theory — as long the Yankees' perception of the line is the same as the league's.
Since there are hordes of different umpires checking for sticky stuff across the MLB, and since the rule itself is somewhat ambiguous, a team self-policing itself for foreign substances could get tricky.
Per MLB, rosin is considered a "prohibited foreign substance" only "when used excessively" or applied to other parts of the body or uniform.
Blake spoke about the challenges of interpreting that rule:
"That's the hard part — there's really no line in the sand, it's just kind of subjective, like, 'I think this is tacky.' When German gets thrown out, I get it, they said, 'That's the stickiest hand' they've ever felt. Well, what's the second-stickiest or the third-stickiest? It's like, where does the line start coming down?"
"That's why it's so dangerous when [Schmidt] goes out there and it's like it's a little bit tacky on his glove hand. OK, but what is that? How do we know when enough is enough?"
How do Yankees coaches and players know when enough is enough? Based on recent events, it doesn't seem like the club has a uniform baseline for an acceptable amount of foreign substance, which is why pitchers are getting in trouble in the first place.
For now, all Yankees members are on high alert. The less sticky stuff, the better.
