Baseball has certainly gotten.. less interesting to watch in recent years, with doctored balls and players optimizing for homeruns (which increases strikeout rates), plus the game takes so dang long for so little action.

Foolish Baseball has IMO a great take on a list of things the MLB could do to "fix" baseball, with not blatantly allowing super sticky stuff being one of them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh_F8WtrDCo (I also like the idea of a shot clock for pitchers)

If sticky stuff didn't negatively impact the end product, then I'd say just allow it. But it does, even though I love seeing wiffle ball-esque nastiness, because it results in far fewer balls put in play. I want to see fielders making great catches and throws, crazy bassrunning, and legitimate hustled triples, not _just_ whiffs and homeruns and Shohei Ohtani.

So maybe there's a middle ground where they could provide a legal product beyond just a rosin bag that pitchers can use to ensure control without artificially boosting spinrates so significantly, and then continue to collect balls throughout the year and issue harsh suspensions for illegal foreign substances found.

I don't blame pitchers for having used it in the current environment, seeing as their paychecks were on the line and EVERYONE else was doing it too because it wasn't being enforced until social media put a spotlight on it (except DeGrom seemingly).