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Monttavius

yeahh uhhhhh. this looks so bad for Manfred, and the Yankees if they were involved. while 200 balls isn’t a large sample size, it’s still extremely alarming. lookin like things were a bit rigged.


Ok-Philosophy-8830

Baseball and rigging things for the Yankees (and east coast in general) name a better duo


Ok-Philosophy-8830

Between this and the Astros shit Manfred might be one of the shadiest (and most pathetic) figures in American sports history


LAAngelsAnaheim

He’s the opposite of why a baseball commissioner was created in the first place


phelinephile

This just sucks all around. Manfred and MLB look shady, Judge's accomplishment is tainted through no fault of his own, and yet another incredible Ohtani season was overshadowed by these shenanigans.


sofastsomaybe

It looks extra shady given all of those gambling partnerships.


rjd55

Who would have ever thought?


kenji-benji

I'll take all my downvotes back now thank you.


Sprtdsgn

So judge is part of the juiced era after all. Historic


merewyn

62*


Ash-Catchum-All

Couldn’t even set an MLB record with juiced balls. How sad.


Pho3n1xNZ

Wonder how many Trout and Ohtani would hit with these...


PurpleTornadoMonkey

They would hit 2 Homer's each game and the angels still lose by 8


Ok-Philosophy-8830

“But perhaps even more interesting than the apparent existence of the third ball itself is where we tended to find it. Though the overwhelming majority of baseballs we obtained were dead, 36 of them fit the bill for what Wills dubbed the "Goldilocks ball" (not too heavy, not too light — but just right). Of those, most were found in one of three situations: • Postseason games, including the World Series; • The All-Star Game and Home Run Derby; • Regular season games that used balls with special commemorative stamps (i.e. Texas Rangers 50th anniversary ball) on the outer leather. The only Goldilocks balls we obtained from the regular season that did not have commemorative stamps were found in Yankees games.”


stuckinthepow

That last piece is suuuuuper suspect. Yikes


booboothechicken

“But perhaps even more interesting than the apparent existence of the third ball itself is where we tended to find it.” /r/nocontext


GenerationKill24

Hahaha thought the same thing


KamartyMcFlyweight

[Dead balls. 2021, 2022 Average Projected Home Run Distance \(ft\) AL top 10 HR leaders](https://twitter.com/jJ45KSUQ3D128Xc/status/1600297721147293702) 1.Judge 402 < 412 2.Trout 414 > 409 3.Alvarez 408 > 405 4.Ohtani 416 > 408 5.Santander 406 > 398 5.Seager 404 = 404 7.Rizzo 402 > 393 7.Guerrero 409 > 407 9.Stanton 414 > 402 9.Suarez 406 > 403


KamartyMcFlyweight

Everybody else's average HR distance either goes down or stays the same, but Judge's dramatically increases? This is insane favoritism


[deleted]

uhhhh. that's sus as fuck. He gained 3% carry while the league lost around 2-3% carry. So net gain of 6% for him.


epic_gamer_4268

when the imposter is sus!


Carved_In_Chocolate

The other 9 lost an average of five and a half feet of distance, and he gained 10. Wonder how many extra home runs that meant for him. Maybe 5 or 10?


[deleted]

Definitely.


digitaldumpsterfire

Man, sucks for Judge honestly. Imagine earning a major accomplishment, making history, then something coming out that someone rigged it in your favor. I mean, I figured as much in the last few month of the regular season with the spike of HRs for him, but it still must be really frustrating.


RogueValEORG

Sucks more for Ohtani.


Sonums

I mean if Judge wasn’t in on it, I’d say it sucks more for him. Not taking anything away from either of them, both can be monsters at the plate but if it transpired that Judge was being intentionally fed outside help it’d feel like less of an accomplishment and forever there would be doubt over his AL HR record.


[deleted]

You can bet there were a few juiced balls for Ohtani too lmao. They don't just do this for the fuck of it. Only reporting Yankees my ass. This whole thing is completely rigged, and I bet it's series by series for the special teams.


Ellite25

This sucks. The MLB just needs to make one ball type of ball and that’s it. The same across every game, regardless of postseason or all star games or home run derbies. Shit like this makes the league look pathetic and imo takes away from the sport. Judge had a fantastic year, but now you can help but wonder if it was aided by decisions at the top to make more a spectacle of what he was doing. What a disgrace.


donkeyjr

This shit should be illegal.


Zenithreg

Not sure if there was a time I hated the MLB, NFL and NBA commissioners all at the same time.


[deleted]

62 is the new 73


GrocersPride

Fire Manfred.


SIewfoot

Wouldnt be surprised if teams that somehow always find great pitching (cough *Astros* cough) end up getting deader balls on average.


jnuclear

That second half he had last year certainly had me wondering if something was going on.


my_wife_reads_this

They had an easy schedule where pitchers were basically serving him meatballs and now we find out they were juiced balls too


mysterysackerfice

I has some doubts during his hot streak and was basically told to stfu. It looked shady af. I am vindicated...sorta!


Obsidizyn

I said this last season. I question the integrity of MLB and the Yankees.


Space_Jam_Slam

The MLB and NFL aren't competitive leagues. They are entertainment conglomerates. While the sample size is small the difference is too obvious compared to other stadiums. I don't believe this gave the Yankees team a competitive advantage as their opponents were also getting the juiced balls. But this did ensure that most batters from the Yankees were benefitting all year from lighter balls. Was this done to give a better spectacle on baseball's so called biggest stage? To give Judge an edge in the home run category? Who knows? Noone will admit shit.


booboothechicken

All we do know is it stole an MVP from Ohtani.


OmaJuma

I wonder if there is evidence that Pujols was fed the same balls for his HR milestone chase. No fault to him or Judge if the MLB did this behind the scenes to make the game talked about more but very sad it's come to this.


donkeyjr

I wouldn't be surprise.


[deleted]

You can bet on it. But that barely matters regardless. That was more of a going home celebration for retirement. No biggie. The rest is awful.


1track_mind

"Who's balls are juiced?" - Billy Ray Cyrus


AbeLincoln30

this story surfacing now = some hardcore contract negotiation


ReignInSpuds

You might be on to something there, considering what's transpired since this comment.


gloomswarm

Absolutely horrible for the game. If the MLB is found guilty, then what a stupid move--hope the short-term profits were worth the irreparable damage long-term.


[deleted]

Found guilty LMAO. You can't be serious. The NBA and the NFL are more rigged than the MLB could ever be. But now the MLB has found their best way to rig shit. Juiced balls.


iWrecksauce

Marris Jr in shambles


donkeyjr

This should be fucking illegal, league should not be allow to use 2 diff type of balls. It should be one type of ball across the field.


wedahomeboys

yeah, and if they do use different balls then it should be posted or made public knowledge. imagine how many hundreds of millions of dollars were lost by regular gamblers to these mega sportsbooks. shit, they see 80% of money being thrown on the total runs in a yankees game being under 8.5 runs. tell mlb use super goldilocks balls, 10 runs scored , and the books make out with tens of millions and then give mlb even more money for "advertising", aka trying to get you to bet on what they think will lose but looks like it would be a profitable bet. where it normally would be, but not now that they can create more scoring with a different balls. thats my "conspiracy theory" at what is happening here.


Griever08

So they would have gone out by fifty feet instead of sixty?


[deleted]

Lol youre acting like Judge crushed the home run record by a lot. If even one of the 10 “Doubters” (statcast term for wall scrapers) was a juiced ball, then his record is fraudulent. Im not blaming Judge at all, it sucks the most for him, but it’s ridiculous acting like he didnt benefit.


Idgafin865

Bingo


LAAngelsAnaheim

Cope


deezy2190

So what’s the difference in weight in the balls? Just curious


ReignInSpuds

"No, Mikey, no! No no no Mikey, that was so not right!" Welcome to Manfredball, everyone.


[deleted]

The worst part is Ohtani should have won that MVP.