Major League Baseball is cracking down on foreign substances, with new rules stating if a pitcher is caught using them they will automatically be ejected and suspended for 10 games with pay. David Samson discused the new rules and how he feels about them on the latest episode of "Nothing Personal with David Samson."
"This is the type of crisis that you knew was a crisis and saw it coming and now that it's here, you're playing from behind," Samson began.
The podcast host mentioned that this has been going on for a long time, but finally the league felt they had to do something about it.
"And then it happened. All of a sudden you had position players saying out loud 'It's gone too far.' Normally MLB wouldn't have cared about that. They would've been happy when position players are fighting with pitchers," he said. "Except something happened in the interim that made baseball say to themselves 'if we are ever in a position where the competitive integrity of our game is in question ... we're gonna do better than we did with the Astros and the sign stealing.'"
But, Samson believes the rule change was too abrupt:
"MLB needs to take the memo that they just released and throw it in the garbage ... You cannot ask a player to change what he has been doing with zero notice, or one week, or two weeks. I grant you they've been breaking the rules. It's like asking a football player to stop wearing a cup with no notice. Can't do it. And you're risking bodily harm ... It's just impossible for players to do."
He doubled down on his stance, saying, "Get rid of these rules. Every single rule that you announced yesterday, get rid of them."
Pitchers have not been shy about speaking out against the league's new rules. Tyler Glasnow even said he believes the rule changes are to blame for his latest injury.
"All MLB has done is put themselves in crisis and the worst possible thing has happened, the day they sent the memo out to the teams ... that day one of the best pitchers in baseball got hurt ... But then, he took the microphone," Samson said, referencing Glasnow calling out the league.
Samson noted that there's no communication with the union, there's not proper communication with players directly, injuries are at an all-time high and now the league is in a crisis and their "hair is on fire."
He added that the way MLB has done everything makes them look incredibly disorganized and emphasized that the next step is getting rid of those new rules.
