Happy Wednesday, Athletics Nation!
Over the past year, MLB has been cracking down on pitchers’ use of foreign substances on baseballs for a better grip. In a complementary move, the league is now issuing new rules on “muddying” baseballs to improve their grip—a decades old practice—in order to give them a more consistent feel from game to game.
The league issued a memo to all 30 teams yesterday per Jesse Rogers at ESPN, and the new guidelines requiring all teams to use exactly the same muddying technique takes effect today. The league gathered feedback from players over the past two months prior to issuing the new guidelines.