Fired MLB employee says he supplied star pitchers with banned substances

• Former Angels employee Brian Harkins was fired in 2020 for giving pitchers a banned substance.
• Harkins told Sports Illustrated that he provided star pitchers across baseball with the substance.
• Text messages show Harkins selling the substance to Gerrit Cole, Max Scherzer, and others.

Former Los Angeles Angels visiting clubhouse manager Brian "Bubba" Harkins released text messages with star MLB pitchers showing that he supplied them with banned substances, according to Stephanie Apstein and David Prewett of Sports Illustrated.

Harkins, who the Angels fired in 2020 after a nearly four-decade run for giving pitchers a custom-made substance to improve their grip on the baseball, told Prewett and Apstein that several big-name pitchers outside of Los Angeles have come to him for the substance.

The list includes New York Yankees veterans Gerrit Cole and Corey Kluber, Washington Nationals pitcher Max Scherzer, St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainright, and Houston Astros pitcher Justin Verlander.

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Harkins told Apstein and Prewett that he was supplying the substance to about 15-20 pitchers a year throughout the 2010s.

MLB superagent Scott Boras, who represents both Cole and Scherzer, didn't confirm or deny whether his clients used the substance but did argue that the use of banned sticky substances is not new in baseball.

"This is what every great player or average player is taught by teams and coaches to advance and produce quality major league pitchers," Boras told Apstein and Prewett. "This is a custom-and-practice dynamic that the commissioner's office and everybody in the league has been aware of for decades."

Harkins filed a defamation lawsuit against MLB in August of 2020, claiming that the publicity surrounding his firing unfairly cast him in a negative light that impacted his ability to find employment.

Harkins said the league singled him out over something common among most players and coaches, citing the long-used practices of MLB pitchers using pine tar and rosin to improve their grip on the ball.

"I made it knowing that it was not frowned upon by MLB," Harkins told Apstein and Prewett. "Sure, it's in their rulebook, but they don't even enforce their own rulebook."

When Cole was asked if he used banned substances to improve his grip during a press conference on June 8, he replied with an awkward non-response and cited historical practices passed down from older players.

"There are customs and practices that have been passed down from older players to younger players from the last generation of players to this generation of players," Cole said. "I think there are some things that are certainly out of bounds in that regard, and I've stood pretty firm in terms of that, in terms of the communication between our peers and what not."

MLB has seen a dramatic increase in overall pitching performance and a decline in hitting numbers so far this season, and illegal substances use by pitchers is one suspected cause. Investigators presented evidence that the substances were being used "very prevalently" this season at an MLB owner's meeting on June 3, according to Jon Heyman of MLB Network.

In response, the league introduced new measures to stop the use of sticky substances and harsher penalties for pitchers caught using them, including 10-game suspensions.

Several top hitters in MLB have even publicly spoken out against pitchers for using the substances as well.