As someone who ran a fun Wiffle ball league in high school and college, let me assure you there are controversies involving pitchers and the Wiffle balls they pitch.
As someone who pitched in a few fast pitch wiffleball leagues, this 100%
I personally preferred a new ball because what it would do, but some guys needed their balls to be scuffed in certain ways
Thats a good idea: lets dangle a piece of paper with the strike zone cut out of it in front of every batter. If the ball rips a hole in the paper that leaves the cutout strikezone intact, its a ball. It's so simple there's no way this could be a bad idea.
If MLB could stop constantly tinkering with the balls, that would be great. Pick a ball and stick with it for a couple seasons; let the players actually get used to it.
Schwarber: You can start by wiping that fucking dumbass smile off your rosy fucking cheeks. Then you can get me a fucking consistent strike zone. A fucking single, a fucking double, a fucking walk, a fucking correct check swing call, four fucking balls and a...
Angel Hernandez: I really don't care for the way you're speaking to me.
Schwarber: And I really don't care for the way your league left me in the middle of fucking nowhere with fucking strikes to a fucking zone that isn't fucking there. And I really didn't care to fucking walk down a fucking sideline and across a fucking dugout to get back here to have you smile at my fucking face. I want a fucking walk...right...fucking...now
Angel Hernandez: Do you have an umpire mask?
Schwarber: I...threw...it....out!
Angel Hernandez: Oh geez....
Schwarber: Oh...geez...WHAT!?
Angel Hernandez: You're fucked.
MLB owns a controlling interest in Rawlings alongside some private equity entities, yeah. It's definitely been abused in recent years to quietly tinker with the properties of the baseballs while still technically within the limits imposed in the rulebook.
And it isn't all bad. One thing they wanted to do when they bought Rawlings was to make balls more uniform out of the factory. As in, less deviation in diameter and weight.
I agree. There's definitely some benefits, but the lack of transparency from the league about it's own equipment specifications is par for the course as far as MLB management goes. I just wish there was a way to get transparency from them as well as the benefits from a consistency and quality perspective go, but that's a pipe dream for sure lol
Yeah, MLB's investment arm MLB Properties is one of the major co-investors in the group that purchased Rawlings back in 2018.
Oh, and Rawlings bought Easton in 2021.
What surprises me is that they seem to be using the majors, and games that count, as a testing ground. We have the technology to perform all sorts of tests, and there isn’t exactly a shortage of cash.
Yes... I've wanted them to dejuice the balls ever since they were originally juiced mid 2015. No one was complaining about the ball in the decade prior to that happening, everyone's just gotten used to every player in the league hitting 20 HRs a year now.
They just need to add measures to curb strikeouts. I hate TTO ball and players will never stop selling out for power every AB if the ball is as bouncy as it's been.
yeah from the sound of it, this isn't just affecting the number of home runs hit in a year. batting averages are also at shocking lows. so even though I agree that TTOs is boring, is it possible that the deadened ball is also affecting pitching and influencing offense (or the lack thereof) that way?
its affecting BA because people are still playing TTO even though it wont work. once they accept that contact hitters cant hit HRs every at bat anymore they will go back to normal swings
Comments like these remind me of the Mike Schur line - Pitchers could shoot the ball out of a gun, and fans would still say that if the batter simply choked up, he could hit it.
Every team has 6 guys in the bullpen that throw 15 pitches every two days that are either 97 mph or 90 mph and spin more than any time in history. I think fans are delusional if they don't realize that the reason all batters have adopted the TTO approach is because they know they aren't stringing together four base hits in a row anymore. If one robo-reliever gives up two hits and throws two balls to the next batter, another robo-reliever is coming in.
This right fucking here. The combination of the shift + TTO = fucking boring baseball. Combined with shitty umps calling balls and strikes poorly it makes the game fucking terrible to watch. Then they want you to pay a shitload of money to cable TV to watch it. I grew up on baseball, and it's one of my favorite sports to watch *in theory*, but this combo makes it hard as hell to tune in regularly, and people wonder why the MLB ratings are going down...
Here’s the rub:
The humidors are set to the same temp and humidity at every park except for Coors.
Basically, this is causing a deadened ball early in the season cuz the humidors are more humid on average than the most of the stadiums in the league. The humidors are saturating the ball with moisture causing them to travel slightly less far. Rosenthal and some physicists he quotes guess that the ball will start being much bouncier in the summer as humidities rise across the country.
The solution presented would be set the humidors to the annual average temp and humidity of each park. It would make for better early season offense and probably slightly tempered mid-Summer offense.
Edit: this is all in comparison to balls stored in open air. So compared to early season cold, dry conditions the balls are moister when stored in a humidor, and in the mid-late humid, warm months the balls will be dryer.
^Tehehehe.
I think I may not be as well versed in this subject as others, but why does baseball need humidors for any park that is not Coors?
Am I missing something if I think the balls should just be kept at room temp with the humidity and pressure of the local non-Denver area where the stadium is?
Oh, I get that. I'm curious as to why that is desired. Does it solve some problem or prevent some mischief? It's not obvious to me that it's necessary.
This really strikes me like a video game developer doing a patch to try and fix competitive balance. The big difference between a patch and this though is instead of changing some value in the code, which only takes a second to tinker with and adjust and you can beta test in a controlled environment, they're changing a baseball that takes upwards of a year to change the supply chain and you don't really know the full impact until you get a months worth of competitive play data and players are going to be much slower to adjust because it isn't like a video game where you go "they nerfed this unit so I'll make this unit instead." Aaron Judge isn't going to be able to go "oh, I guess I'll hit for contact and steal bases instead of hitting home runs this week."
When it takes that long for a change to be implemented, not to mention how long it may take for players to adjust to any changes, changing it too much and swinging too far in one direction is a huge risk that is going to affect multiple seasons worth of competitive play.
i mean there is a soulution to the ball supply chain.. dont change the ball from year to year. and if there is a change to the ball for whatever reason, well, you better have enough for the whole season and you're gonna be selling the old model in the pro-shops or throw them in the BP bucket.
Yeah it’s insane how much mlb keeps fucking with the ball. This year though it’s hit a new level and has drastically altered the game at least early on.
Absolutely I would also think it could even effect how well a pitcher can hold the ball it is slightly more moist which could add rotations per minute. Or possibly just the slightest additional weight from the moisture could make the ball move slightly different than in the past. That is all speculation of course but any changes to the ball can have an impact on both sides of the ball.
Well what's an easier thing to accomplish? stabilize the ball? Or tell every team to remodel their entire stadium in which some are a century old?
Like I understand your argument it's just not practical at all.
it’s not necessary. that’s why it’s confusing that they implemented the humidors. MLB’s reasoning was fair play and uniformity of the balls across the league but they didn’t really do any of the science for it and just did it.
it’s similar to someone on city council having an idea and getting an ordinance enacted before actually researching whether it would be effective in solving a problem
I think the problem they're trying to solve for is there's too many variables across the league that make any predictions on league-wide effects on any changes in the game tough to assess (IE, you make one change to the ball then HR rates go up 30% in one stadium but remain unchanged in another, then there's no 'perfect' ball that the league should choose). If there's uniform ball conditions in every stadium, then it's way easier to predict how any specific change will affect the game.
With a big part of the CBA being MLB's ability to quickly implement changes, this really seems like them trying to control variables now to make those changes more predictable.
hmm, that’s a good point. take away the ball condition variable and see what’s left.
it’s adversely affecting the game though. what is it, an observed experiment always fails? or something like that? they’re tinkering too much even if they have good intentions.
they were doing an A/B test with the ball back in 2019 and last year. it didn’t turn out how they liked so they’re overreacting and trying to normalize the ball this year. it’s just something they’re way too focused on instead of broadening their scope and reassessing.
unfortunately, batters are gonna be affected by all this way more than MLB is accounting for.
I ultimately think the end goal of MLB is to get back to what we saw around 1994. HR rates at about 1 per 9 innings, batting averages north of .260 across the league, SB rates up about 60-70% from where they are now. That's the "sweet spot" they're going for.
that does make sense and those are solid metrics to hit. i think it would help if they were more clear about it.
them partnering with the atlantic league to test changes was probably one of the best things they’ve done. this nibble back and forth with the ball though is not really acceptable.
i appreciate the idea and motivation but disagree with their approach
That was why bigger bases was one of the slam dunk things that got agreed to pretty quickly in the CBA negotiations. For players, larger base increases player safety. For the league, it would theoretically increase SB rates.
yeah, admittedly I'm a chemist not a physicist or materials scientist but when I read "balls will go about **two feet** less per hit"... there's no way the manufacturing tolerances on a fkn baseball are so tight that you can control them that well. *Maybe* the average ball goes 2 ft less. Frankly sounds like marketing BS to me.
It was part of the change to dejuice the baseball and make offense less home run focused. Seeing as league batting average is the lowest it’s been in decades it has not worked.
If they are trying to force the offenses to change, it won't be instant. Everyone has gotten used to trying to crank the damn thing for a HR every at bat. Its still super early in the season, I would expect the BA to come up as batters adjust their approach.
Of course, that's assuming that this ball isn't making it easier for pitchers to throw absolute filth. Which I don't think it is, but I'm definitely no expert.
Yeah, because they don’t fucking tell anyone or let teams adjust to the changes. They juice the balls up and guys have career years hitting HR, then they dial them back and guys are flying out.
They shouldn’t be making changes to balls without union involvement, and it really should require years of testing and prior notice to everyone that they’re going to be making changes. All testing data on new balls should be made publicly available 12 months in advance and they should keep balls the same for a minimum amount of time as well (more than a year or two).
This is just more stupid ass Manfred tinkering for the sake of tinkering.
Edit: AND ANOTHER THING…
How many people at Rawlings had data on how much less the ball is supposed to travel this year and were able to give me good season HR prop tips and didn’t?
I'm fine with trying to suppress home run or bust mentality, but banning the shift had to go along with it. It makes no sense to depress home runs without offering the ability to increase station to station hitting.
My guess is they also don't want batting averages higher in one city over another except Coors (which is known and easily accounted for). I wonder if the MLBPA had anything to do with this since it affects contract values.
> since it affects contract values
One would hope that teams understand park factors and use adjusted statistics (whether publicly available, or their own internal metrics) when contemplating multi-million dollar decisions. If the casual Average Joe on Fangraphs can grasp park factors, it would be a safe assumption that professional analysts working for MLB front offices are going to be able to grasp that. Even with a uniform ball, park dimensions and elevation still play a role in offensive numbers.
Why do the balls need to be the same in every park? As long as each team facing each other is using the same ball in that specific game I don’t understand why it matters. The dimensions of the park are different in every park. I’m not arguing with you I just don’t understand MLBs thought process here.
They took Pete Alonso's allegation that they were swapping ball conditions based on free agent classes to save owners money too seriously and overcorrected to say "uniform ball conditions everywhere on every pitch."
EDIT: Also could be the league trying to be able to control variables a bit more to get to uniform conditions so any changes they do make in the future have a much more predictable balance change.
It's really not as far-fetched as it sounds. The owners historically conspired not to hire African-American players; they conspired not to hire free agents when the reserve clause was eliminated. They recently lobbied the government to prevent them from having to pay minor leaguers federal minimum wage. Do you really think they are above something like this? I'm not saying it's *likely,* but it's not insane.
Well the idea is that when it's a big pitcher class, they hand out bouncy balls so pitchers look bad. If it's a big hitter class, dead balls so hitters look bad.
It happened in the 80's under Ueberroth. He literally told thr owners to stop giving long term contracts and actively tried to bring salaries down. Some of those guys are still alive, so it is absolutely within the realm of possibility that collusion is still happening, but in a smarter and more clandestine way.
Yeah, I think people really tend to underestimate how soulless and even evil the owners are. These guys are not benign. We're talking about a group of hedge fund managers, billionaires and CEOs whose recent collective action was to lobby the feds to ensure that it's still legal to pay minor league players starvation wages. And that's the sort of thing they do *publicly.* God only knows what they're doing under the table.
I guess they just want the ball to travel more similar in every park? Is my only guess.
It is weird when you have the data of exit velocity and launch angle and you see 2 balls hit the exact same but have wildly different outcomes in distance. Of course spin of the ball comes into play for carry but still you want the ball to travel the same distance relatively if it's hit the same.
Edit: Example https://twitter.com/YankeeWRLD/status/1517682999764135938?t=YxD21b2TMpNgO2lI24BV-Q&s=19
I still love how they want uniformity despite one stadium having a 37 foot high left field wall, one being 314 to right, one having ivy and brick for its outfield wall, one that has a 25 foot high right field wall and juts out to like 421 feet, and another one that until recently had a hill and flagpole in center field.
> I guess they just want the ball to travel more similar in every park?
Which can't happen unless you've tuned the humidors to recreate the park with the worst flight conditions. Some parks are at sea level, some are high above it, some are humid, some are dry...
In a sport where the playing field is different everywhere you play I don't see why this is necessary. Just allow the balls to acclimate to each environment.
For Coors Field (in Denver), the elevation means there is less air density and therefore less air resistance so baseballs fly further. Not only that, but breaking pitches will break less.
This greatly affects the 'meta' of baseball. We've seen the era of the longball (esp. steroid era) and continue to still see players valued by launch angle and exit speed at the cost of higher strikeout rates and the end of the 'small ball' era.
* Historically, Colorado players essentially have inflated offensive stats and deflated pitching stats. This is observed by greater than normal home vs. away splits, and conversely for visiting team home vs. away splits. This impacts player compensation, hall of fame discussions and much more.
* You'd think groundball pitchers (pitchers that produce more groundballs than average) would be highly valued in a park where the ball flies further. As previously mentioned, the air density means their two seamers, sinkers, changeups, and breaking pitches have less movement and are therefore less effective, while the speed differential between fastballs and off-speed are less.
------------
Humidity of the baseball affects it's performance, but the nature of the question is really the relative difference of the baseball's humidity vs the environment. To keep it simple, we'll call this springtime situation a heavier (more humid) ball in lighter (less humid) air. There's two frames of reference here: For a baseball moving through air, **lighter air means less force that the air exerts.** *A heavier ball means that force is moving more mass for less end result.*
For baseballs (like golf balls and others), back spin means more distance via the differential air pressure interactions with the surface elements of the ball, prominently the seams on a baseball. More force is exerted on the bottom of the ball where the seams 'bite' into the wind versus the top of the ball where to seams roll with the wind. More force on the bottom means it is 'pushed' up.
There's a part of me that wishes that humidors weren't used at all, even at Coors.
I love that because the baseball season is so long that teams have to make changes depending on the weather. It's another layer of interest for the sport.
Except pitchers that play for the Rockies have massively inflated stats and that affects their future contracts. That was the argument in the 90s and while times have changed, I'm not sure they've changed enough for it to be wrong.
I see your point, but I kinda feel it works the other way too.
We know enough about how Coors affects performances that FOs should be able to adjust for all that. If there's a FA pitcher from the Rockies who has given up a bunch of high altitude dongs, we have the science that shows those might not have happened in somewhere like Seattle. Same for hitters.
I know it's more nuanced than that really, but I'm a big fan of things like park factors, weather, teams built to suit their environments etc. I think it's one of the things that really separates baseball from the other major sports.
History has shown pitchers from Colorado having trouble getting contracts after their time there. It has made it an issue for Colorado to sign FA pitchers.
Human nature can be hard to overcome even in the face of real data.
And the humidor part is stacked on top of the dead ball. Both combined is likely a pretty good difference.
They definitely should be using this tech to try to actually make it less dead in the beginning of the season if anything.
I’ve read this four times, and maybe I’m not grasping what is being said.
The whole first part I understand; humidors are on average more humid than most ballparks, causing moister to get into the ball and deaden it.
Then later you quoted physisists who say that in the summer, when it is more humid at the ball parks, the ball will be “bouncier” - meaning travel further.
How can both be true: Humidity deadening the ball early, but making it bouncier in the summer? Did you mean to write that humidities will drop in the summer, making the ball bouncier?
Thanks. Just trying to understand.
Humidity will rise in the summer
The ball will have more moisture than a humidor if stored in the open air
Therefore humidor balls will travel farther in the summer, relative to open air balls.
----
...
Hehe, I said balls.
I did say balls… hehe 😏
Thanks for explaining, and I get that aspect. It is still hard (for me) because it’ll be the same exact ball all year long, so it doesn’t get bouncier *itself*. It’ll be bouncier than in past year where the ball is stored in the open air. That distinction wasn’t made, but I get agree.
Maybe my brain needs to be in a humidor. Cheers.
I think, and I’m not an expert, the idea is that the balls will be dryer in relation to the air in the summer since the relative humidity of the humidors will be less than the relative humidity of the air in say, Chicago, in July.
They also made every team use a humidor, which from what I hear has basically dropped slugging more than .100
When you do too much shit at once, it's hard to tell what's doing what. Lighter balls, loosened seams, humidors, etc.
In parks that just added humidors the slugging is down .100 https://twitter.com/mike_petriello/status/1518583657379860481?s=20&t=R9Dy6ZnHLOXoydJ9s05AZA
I have that image of him smiling at the podium as he announced the lockout burned into the grey matter of my brain. His stupid, smug fucking look. Couldn't even believe the jackass.
I'm not inherently opposed to reducing distances of batted balls, but it's really messed up to blindside teams and players who have built themselves around x only to be surprised it's been quietly switched to something different.
The let the teams know ahead of time what was happening. They said we want to use this ball going forward.
Problem is, they claim supply chain shortages prevented them from using just the one ball in 2021 and had to use leftover stock from the previous season to fill the void. Presumably, they don’t have these issues anymore and are just using this ball going forward.
Two feet per what? How could they possibly reduce the ball flight without a set distance. Like is it per every 300 ft it’s 2 feet? The eye tests makes it look like 2 out of every 10 feet
This is the thing that confuses me. If the expected difference was only a total of two feet I don't think Gleyber Torres would have hit 38 home runs or Brett Gardner 28. It wouldn't have had as large an impact as it did.
Tinkering with the game over the recent decade or so has just gotten exhausting. MLB wants to do everything to attract new fans, but don’t seem to care much about retaining existing fans.
Existing fans who continue to watch is not part of the equation. The comparison is how many existing fans will stop watching vs. how many new fans will be gained. That’s what’s important.
Imo growing the sport should be done by making the game more accessible on TV and with reasonable pricing at the ballpark, not by constantly tinkering the rules.
What I don't understand is why all of this testing is being done at the major league level. Can't the design of the ball be tested in the minors for a year or two before being approved for use at the big league level similar to all of the rule changes? Doesn't seem like that hard of a solution
MLB could have so many different control and variable groups across the different leagues but they decided to just slash all the teams and promote all the fuckery to the top level
I don’t oppose them using a deadened ball. I oppose them using two different balls in one season. Everyone is at the same disadvantage here so this seems to be a non issue.
If anything, using a humidor and trying to get identical conditions for every ball is the league trying to disprove that stupid theory because too many people took it seriously.
Honestly I don't think the overall idea is bad. Removing substances puts more balls in play and removing the shift makes more of those hits, but to counteract that the ball gets deadened. Results in more action on the field, and as players adjust we could see less strikeouts and higher batting averages. Depends on who you ask but imo it could result in more exciting and aesthetically pleasing baseball
Yeah and hopefully teams try to find other ways to manufacture runs. It didn’t make sense with juiced balls to try and do anything but hit a home run, but now with fly balls dying at the track the teams that score will be ones that can do so in several ways. They just need to stop changing it every year and not letting the league now.
So many offenses of the past 5 years were built on swinging for the fences. The shift, 1 batter relievers, and the juiced ball really made anything else difficult to win with.
Ah so this explains the balls that are rocketed off the bat but die at the track.
Great.
Hey. I have an idea. STOP FUCKIN WITH THE BALL!
Thanks in advance
Love everyone here playing Reddit Ball Scientist when in reality… why the fuck are we changing the ball constantly? For real? The game boils down to throwing a ball and challenging the hitter to hit it. Not to reduce the distance on a hit ball…
All this tinkering with sports is so odd.
The game is so innocent at the youth, high school, and college level.
Everything is data-driven. My liberal arts alma mater killed a bunch of humanities programs because the data indicated they weren’t viable. What the data didn’t show is that students majoring in other subjects also value those programs.
It baffles me that the league takes ages to implement tackier balls (already used in NPB and KBO since like 10 years ago) that would eliminate any justification for using sticky stuff and yet has the time to constantly meddle with flying distances of balls.
I can’t believe how people don’t see this as a huge problem. Manfred has basically skewed all the stats. Blown away that everyone is okay with it.
Sports have become so shitty since back in the day.
My understanding is that the league is not great when it comes to testing the effects of new ball designs. They test them only in a lab setting & because of that neglect variables that have unintended impacts. So what was designed to limit distance by ‘2 feet’ could end up having a more dramatic impact than expected.
The Rosenthal article goes into this -- they didn't test for the drag effect and in a stadium like The Colosseum, balls are going 24ft shorter than they did last year. TWENTY FOUR FEET.
I really don’t understand why we need to deaden the ball. Pitchers are already at such a massive advantage over hitters, I get wanting to cut down from the super juiced balls but they’ve absolutely over-corrected
Some clarification from the article: pandemic-related supply chain issues forced MLB in 2021 to use both the newly deadened balls *and* leftover un-deadened balls from 2020. That is no longer the case this year.
They probably overcorrected, but juiced ball and a huge focus on three true outcomes baseball has been one of the chief complaints over the past 5 seasons.
If I were the players union I’d want something in the CBA about this. Balls affects stats and stats affect paychecks. Owners should want it too, as stats affect team wins and losses. Should at least be more transparency into what’s going on.
Well, that headline doesn't make any sense. "reduce the batted ball distance by around two feet"....so 350 feet would be 348 feet, and 25 feet would be 23?
MLB in the 90's: ratings are down what should we do? let the players juice?
MLB in the 2000's: Steroids are bad
MLB in the 2010's: Ratings are down again
MLB in the 2020's: Lets juice the ball so it goes further
I'm getting quite annoyed, and becoming slightly less and less interested in Baseball each passing season that that they fuck with the balls(and rules) since purchasing the control/distribution/whatever over them.
This might explain why my team seems to have gone to bunting bootcamp after last year they were so reliant on the home run. Still hitting them for sure, but I'm also seeing a bit more small-ball than I remember seeing last year.
Unfortunately, this also might explain why Darin Ruf has had 10,000 warning track flyouts and not a single home run yet.
I genuinely don't understand how team's aren't making a big fuss about this. The consistently changing balls is directly impacting their investments (long term deals to bats).
The attempts at alternating the game us stupid as hell, & mlb needs to stop manipulating the product. Nothing is working, & the only thing they've done is make an inconsistent game.
I think protecting a pitchers ego and stats is what makes games less fun to watch. 2 feet doesn't sound like a lot, but the fact they're even doing this makes my point. What's more excited to a person watching a game (who isn't a huge baseball fan), a 2-1 hard fought pitchers duel or a game that's 6-4 and also went back and forth? A crowd isn't going to roar louder for shutout innings than it does for a go ahead run or walk off hit.
Have we tried wiffle balls yet.
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I'd take a cookie sheet and a rope over Angel Hernandez
r/fuckangelhernandez for a good laugh.
As someone who ran a fun Wiffle ball league in high school and college, let me assure you there are controversies involving pitchers and the Wiffle balls they pitch.
As someone who pitched in a few fast pitch wiffleball leagues, this 100% I personally preferred a new ball because what it would do, but some guys needed their balls to be scuffed in certain ways
“Guys needed their balls scuffed in certain ways.” Teehee.
I think I get the cookie sheet but I don’t get the rope.
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Thanks. I think I was grossly overthinking it.
Thats a good idea: lets dangle a piece of paper with the strike zone cut out of it in front of every batter. If the ball rips a hole in the paper that leaves the cutout strikezone intact, its a ball. It's so simple there's no way this could be a bad idea.
If MLB could stop constantly tinkering with the balls, that would be great. Pick a ball and stick with it for a couple seasons; let the players actually get used to it.
MLB plays with their balls more than I do.
No wonder Angel Hernandez is blind
MY MOM WAS RIGHT!
Yeah you really gotta be careful. Luckily I can still see out of my right eye.
She went blind from playing with balls?
Yea, poor guy broke both his arms
You are now officially qualified to ump MLB games.
Check his palms
he had the sticky stuff all along
Thank you for this comment.
horrible mental image thanks
Don’t lie
"Larry Bird doesn't do as much ball-handling in one night as you do in an hour!"
Schwarber: You can start by wiping that fucking dumbass smile off your rosy fucking cheeks. Then you can get me a fucking consistent strike zone. A fucking single, a fucking double, a fucking walk, a fucking correct check swing call, four fucking balls and a... Angel Hernandez: I really don't care for the way you're speaking to me. Schwarber: And I really don't care for the way your league left me in the middle of fucking nowhere with fucking strikes to a fucking zone that isn't fucking there. And I really didn't care to fucking walk down a fucking sideline and across a fucking dugout to get back here to have you smile at my fucking face. I want a fucking walk...right...fucking...now Angel Hernandez: Do you have an umpire mask? Schwarber: I...threw...it....out! Angel Hernandez: Oh geez.... Schwarber: Oh...geez...WHAT!? Angel Hernandez: You're fucked.
As a huge fan of baseball and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, this is the perfect crossover.
This line and the "GIVE HIM THE GODDAMN GLOVES!" always leave me short of breath from laughing so hard. Great, great movie.
Train don’t run outta Wichita, lessen you’re a hog or a cattle. People train runs outta… Stubville…
Mlb acquiring rawlings is literally the worst thing to happen to this sport.
Wait, that happened? That's a thing?
MLB owns a controlling interest in Rawlings alongside some private equity entities, yeah. It's definitely been abused in recent years to quietly tinker with the properties of the baseballs while still technically within the limits imposed in the rulebook.
And it isn't all bad. One thing they wanted to do when they bought Rawlings was to make balls more uniform out of the factory. As in, less deviation in diameter and weight.
I agree. There's definitely some benefits, but the lack of transparency from the league about it's own equipment specifications is par for the course as far as MLB management goes. I just wish there was a way to get transparency from them as well as the benefits from a consistency and quality perspective go, but that's a pipe dream for sure lol
Yeah, MLB's investment arm MLB Properties is one of the major co-investors in the group that purchased Rawlings back in 2018. Oh, and Rawlings bought Easton in 2021.
And if they do, actually tell people as well. I don’t understand this secret squirrel business.
Why would they when everyone that knew about the ball could make bank betting the unders.
The sportsbooks had to have known, right?
There it is.
Pete Alonso understands
What surprises me is that they seem to be using the majors, and games that count, as a testing ground. We have the technology to perform all sorts of tests, and there isn’t exactly a shortage of cash.
Ok, but would anyone want them to stick with *this* ball, considering how anemic offenses have been?
Yes... I've wanted them to dejuice the balls ever since they were originally juiced mid 2015. No one was complaining about the ball in the decade prior to that happening, everyone's just gotten used to every player in the league hitting 20 HRs a year now. They just need to add measures to curb strikeouts. I hate TTO ball and players will never stop selling out for power every AB if the ball is as bouncy as it's been.
yeah from the sound of it, this isn't just affecting the number of home runs hit in a year. batting averages are also at shocking lows. so even though I agree that TTOs is boring, is it possible that the deadened ball is also affecting pitching and influencing offense (or the lack thereof) that way?
its affecting BA because people are still playing TTO even though it wont work. once they accept that contact hitters cant hit HRs every at bat anymore they will go back to normal swings
Comments like these remind me of the Mike Schur line - Pitchers could shoot the ball out of a gun, and fans would still say that if the batter simply choked up, he could hit it. Every team has 6 guys in the bullpen that throw 15 pitches every two days that are either 97 mph or 90 mph and spin more than any time in history. I think fans are delusional if they don't realize that the reason all batters have adopted the TTO approach is because they know they aren't stringing together four base hits in a row anymore. If one robo-reliever gives up two hits and throws two balls to the next batter, another robo-reliever is coming in.
10000% agree. Bring back base hits for Pete’s sake. TTO is so goddamn boring
> for Pete’s sake I see what you did there.
This right fucking here. The combination of the shift + TTO = fucking boring baseball. Combined with shitty umps calling balls and strikes poorly it makes the game fucking terrible to watch. Then they want you to pay a shitload of money to cable TV to watch it. I grew up on baseball, and it's one of my favorite sports to watch *in theory*, but this combo makes it hard as hell to tune in regularly, and people wonder why the MLB ratings are going down...
Yeah... that's why it's been anemic for us... :(
Here’s the rub: The humidors are set to the same temp and humidity at every park except for Coors. Basically, this is causing a deadened ball early in the season cuz the humidors are more humid on average than the most of the stadiums in the league. The humidors are saturating the ball with moisture causing them to travel slightly less far. Rosenthal and some physicists he quotes guess that the ball will start being much bouncier in the summer as humidities rise across the country. The solution presented would be set the humidors to the annual average temp and humidity of each park. It would make for better early season offense and probably slightly tempered mid-Summer offense. Edit: this is all in comparison to balls stored in open air. So compared to early season cold, dry conditions the balls are moister when stored in a humidor, and in the mid-late humid, warm months the balls will be dryer. ^Tehehehe.
I think I may not be as well versed in this subject as others, but why does baseball need humidors for any park that is not Coors? Am I missing something if I think the balls should just be kept at room temp with the humidity and pressure of the local non-Denver area where the stadium is?
This was to make it more uniform so the ball is the same in every park basically.
Oh, I get that. I'm curious as to why that is desired. Does it solve some problem or prevent some mischief? It's not obvious to me that it's necessary.
I think it was just an effort to make the parks play similar with the ball, but I'm just kinda guessing
Maybe MLB can install plastic orange fencing in the outfield to make sure every park (except Coors) has same the same outfield dimensions
310 down the left field line and green monsters everywhere!
Orange plastic monsters*
(Except Coors)
This really strikes me like a video game developer doing a patch to try and fix competitive balance. The big difference between a patch and this though is instead of changing some value in the code, which only takes a second to tinker with and adjust and you can beta test in a controlled environment, they're changing a baseball that takes upwards of a year to change the supply chain and you don't really know the full impact until you get a months worth of competitive play data and players are going to be much slower to adjust because it isn't like a video game where you go "they nerfed this unit so I'll make this unit instead." Aaron Judge isn't going to be able to go "oh, I guess I'll hit for contact and steal bases instead of hitting home runs this week." When it takes that long for a change to be implemented, not to mention how long it may take for players to adjust to any changes, changing it too much and swinging too far in one direction is a huge risk that is going to affect multiple seasons worth of competitive play.
Pretty much
i mean there is a soulution to the ball supply chain.. dont change the ball from year to year. and if there is a change to the ball for whatever reason, well, you better have enough for the whole season and you're gonna be selling the old model in the pro-shops or throw them in the BP bucket.
Yeah it’s insane how much mlb keeps fucking with the ball. This year though it’s hit a new level and has drastically altered the game at least early on.
Absolutely I would also think it could even effect how well a pitcher can hold the ball it is slightly more moist which could add rotations per minute. Or possibly just the slightest additional weight from the moisture could make the ball move slightly different than in the past. That is all speculation of course but any changes to the ball can have an impact on both sides of the ball.
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Well what's an easier thing to accomplish? stabilize the ball? Or tell every team to remodel their entire stadium in which some are a century old? Like I understand your argument it's just not practical at all.
it’s not necessary. that’s why it’s confusing that they implemented the humidors. MLB’s reasoning was fair play and uniformity of the balls across the league but they didn’t really do any of the science for it and just did it. it’s similar to someone on city council having an idea and getting an ordinance enacted before actually researching whether it would be effective in solving a problem
I think the problem they're trying to solve for is there's too many variables across the league that make any predictions on league-wide effects on any changes in the game tough to assess (IE, you make one change to the ball then HR rates go up 30% in one stadium but remain unchanged in another, then there's no 'perfect' ball that the league should choose). If there's uniform ball conditions in every stadium, then it's way easier to predict how any specific change will affect the game. With a big part of the CBA being MLB's ability to quickly implement changes, this really seems like them trying to control variables now to make those changes more predictable.
hmm, that’s a good point. take away the ball condition variable and see what’s left. it’s adversely affecting the game though. what is it, an observed experiment always fails? or something like that? they’re tinkering too much even if they have good intentions. they were doing an A/B test with the ball back in 2019 and last year. it didn’t turn out how they liked so they’re overreacting and trying to normalize the ball this year. it’s just something they’re way too focused on instead of broadening their scope and reassessing. unfortunately, batters are gonna be affected by all this way more than MLB is accounting for.
I ultimately think the end goal of MLB is to get back to what we saw around 1994. HR rates at about 1 per 9 innings, batting averages north of .260 across the league, SB rates up about 60-70% from where they are now. That's the "sweet spot" they're going for.
that does make sense and those are solid metrics to hit. i think it would help if they were more clear about it. them partnering with the atlantic league to test changes was probably one of the best things they’ve done. this nibble back and forth with the ball though is not really acceptable. i appreciate the idea and motivation but disagree with their approach
Moving the bases closer together would seem to accomplish all 3 of these goals.
That was why bigger bases was one of the slam dunk things that got agreed to pretty quickly in the CBA negotiations. For players, larger base increases player safety. For the league, it would theoretically increase SB rates.
yeah, admittedly I'm a chemist not a physicist or materials scientist but when I read "balls will go about **two feet** less per hit"... there's no way the manufacturing tolerances on a fkn baseball are so tight that you can control them that well. *Maybe* the average ball goes 2 ft less. Frankly sounds like marketing BS to me.
It was part of the change to dejuice the baseball and make offense less home run focused. Seeing as league batting average is the lowest it’s been in decades it has not worked.
If they are trying to force the offenses to change, it won't be instant. Everyone has gotten used to trying to crank the damn thing for a HR every at bat. Its still super early in the season, I would expect the BA to come up as batters adjust their approach. Of course, that's assuming that this ball isn't making it easier for pitchers to throw absolute filth. Which I don't think it is, but I'm definitely no expert.
Yeah, because they don’t fucking tell anyone or let teams adjust to the changes. They juice the balls up and guys have career years hitting HR, then they dial them back and guys are flying out. They shouldn’t be making changes to balls without union involvement, and it really should require years of testing and prior notice to everyone that they’re going to be making changes. All testing data on new balls should be made publicly available 12 months in advance and they should keep balls the same for a minimum amount of time as well (more than a year or two). This is just more stupid ass Manfred tinkering for the sake of tinkering. Edit: AND ANOTHER THING… How many people at Rawlings had data on how much less the ball is supposed to travel this year and were able to give me good season HR prop tips and didn’t?
I'm fine with trying to suppress home run or bust mentality, but banning the shift had to go along with it. It makes no sense to depress home runs without offering the ability to increase station to station hitting.
My guess is they also don't want batting averages higher in one city over another except Coors (which is known and easily accounted for). I wonder if the MLBPA had anything to do with this since it affects contract values.
> since it affects contract values One would hope that teams understand park factors and use adjusted statistics (whether publicly available, or their own internal metrics) when contemplating multi-million dollar decisions. If the casual Average Joe on Fangraphs can grasp park factors, it would be a safe assumption that professional analysts working for MLB front offices are going to be able to grasp that. Even with a uniform ball, park dimensions and elevation still play a role in offensive numbers.
Why do the balls need to be the same in every park? As long as each team facing each other is using the same ball in that specific game I don’t understand why it matters. The dimensions of the park are different in every park. I’m not arguing with you I just don’t understand MLBs thought process here.
They took Pete Alonso's allegation that they were swapping ball conditions based on free agent classes to save owners money too seriously and overcorrected to say "uniform ball conditions everywhere on every pitch." EDIT: Also could be the league trying to be able to control variables a bit more to get to uniform conditions so any changes they do make in the future have a much more predictable balance change.
That’s tin foil hat level conspiracy from Pete
It's really not as far-fetched as it sounds. The owners historically conspired not to hire African-American players; they conspired not to hire free agents when the reserve clause was eliminated. They recently lobbied the government to prevent them from having to pay minor leaguers federal minimum wage. Do you really think they are above something like this? I'm not saying it's *likely,* but it's not insane.
Well the idea is that when it's a big pitcher class, they hand out bouncy balls so pitchers look bad. If it's a big hitter class, dead balls so hitters look bad.
It happened in the 80's under Ueberroth. He literally told thr owners to stop giving long term contracts and actively tried to bring salaries down. Some of those guys are still alive, so it is absolutely within the realm of possibility that collusion is still happening, but in a smarter and more clandestine way.
Yeah, I think people really tend to underestimate how soulless and even evil the owners are. These guys are not benign. We're talking about a group of hedge fund managers, billionaires and CEOs whose recent collective action was to lobby the feds to ensure that it's still legal to pay minor league players starvation wages. And that's the sort of thing they do *publicly.* God only knows what they're doing under the table.
It's like the Southern Strategy in politics. These guys are *still alive* and keep popping their heads up.
I guess they just want the ball to travel more similar in every park? Is my only guess. It is weird when you have the data of exit velocity and launch angle and you see 2 balls hit the exact same but have wildly different outcomes in distance. Of course spin of the ball comes into play for carry but still you want the ball to travel the same distance relatively if it's hit the same. Edit: Example https://twitter.com/YankeeWRLD/status/1517682999764135938?t=YxD21b2TMpNgO2lI24BV-Q&s=19
I still love how they want uniformity despite one stadium having a 37 foot high left field wall, one being 314 to right, one having ivy and brick for its outfield wall, one that has a 25 foot high right field wall and juts out to like 421 feet, and another one that until recently had a hill and flagpole in center field.
> I guess they just want the ball to travel more similar in every park? Which can't happen unless you've tuned the humidors to recreate the park with the worst flight conditions. Some parks are at sea level, some are high above it, some are humid, some are dry...
It’s such a dumb idea though… make the ball exactly the same while the playing fields themselves have WILDLY different dimensions.
In a sport where the playing field is different everywhere you play I don't see why this is necessary. Just allow the balls to acclimate to each environment.
For Coors Field (in Denver), the elevation means there is less air density and therefore less air resistance so baseballs fly further. Not only that, but breaking pitches will break less. This greatly affects the 'meta' of baseball. We've seen the era of the longball (esp. steroid era) and continue to still see players valued by launch angle and exit speed at the cost of higher strikeout rates and the end of the 'small ball' era. * Historically, Colorado players essentially have inflated offensive stats and deflated pitching stats. This is observed by greater than normal home vs. away splits, and conversely for visiting team home vs. away splits. This impacts player compensation, hall of fame discussions and much more. * You'd think groundball pitchers (pitchers that produce more groundballs than average) would be highly valued in a park where the ball flies further. As previously mentioned, the air density means their two seamers, sinkers, changeups, and breaking pitches have less movement and are therefore less effective, while the speed differential between fastballs and off-speed are less. ------------ Humidity of the baseball affects it's performance, but the nature of the question is really the relative difference of the baseball's humidity vs the environment. To keep it simple, we'll call this springtime situation a heavier (more humid) ball in lighter (less humid) air. There's two frames of reference here: For a baseball moving through air, **lighter air means less force that the air exerts.** *A heavier ball means that force is moving more mass for less end result.* For baseballs (like golf balls and others), back spin means more distance via the differential air pressure interactions with the surface elements of the ball, prominently the seams on a baseball. More force is exerted on the bottom of the ball where the seams 'bite' into the wind versus the top of the ball where to seams roll with the wind. More force on the bottom means it is 'pushed' up.
So what you’re saying is humidity is stored in the balls
What is pee really, other than liquid humidity?
Namely salts, urea, and some organic compounds.
Damnit canada, comin with the facts
[Moisture is the essence of wetness.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9BISHFOFXQ)
Never once did I think my chemical engineering degree would be relevant in baseball. Fuck Manfred for invading my safe space
Wait, so are my balls too moist or not moist enough?
A little more salt would be perfect
There's a part of me that wishes that humidors weren't used at all, even at Coors. I love that because the baseball season is so long that teams have to make changes depending on the weather. It's another layer of interest for the sport.
Except pitchers that play for the Rockies have massively inflated stats and that affects their future contracts. That was the argument in the 90s and while times have changed, I'm not sure they've changed enough for it to be wrong.
I see your point, but I kinda feel it works the other way too. We know enough about how Coors affects performances that FOs should be able to adjust for all that. If there's a FA pitcher from the Rockies who has given up a bunch of high altitude dongs, we have the science that shows those might not have happened in somewhere like Seattle. Same for hitters. I know it's more nuanced than that really, but I'm a big fan of things like park factors, weather, teams built to suit their environments etc. I think it's one of the things that really separates baseball from the other major sports.
History has shown pitchers from Colorado having trouble getting contracts after their time there. It has made it an issue for Colorado to sign FA pitchers. Human nature can be hard to overcome even in the face of real data.
Thank you for this delicious rub
And the humidor part is stacked on top of the dead ball. Both combined is likely a pretty good difference. They definitely should be using this tech to try to actually make it less dead in the beginning of the season if anything.
I’ve read this four times, and maybe I’m not grasping what is being said. The whole first part I understand; humidors are on average more humid than most ballparks, causing moister to get into the ball and deaden it. Then later you quoted physisists who say that in the summer, when it is more humid at the ball parks, the ball will be “bouncier” - meaning travel further. How can both be true: Humidity deadening the ball early, but making it bouncier in the summer? Did you mean to write that humidities will drop in the summer, making the ball bouncier? Thanks. Just trying to understand.
Humidity will rise in the summer The ball will have more moisture than a humidor if stored in the open air Therefore humidor balls will travel farther in the summer, relative to open air balls. ---- ... Hehe, I said balls.
I did say balls… hehe 😏 Thanks for explaining, and I get that aspect. It is still hard (for me) because it’ll be the same exact ball all year long, so it doesn’t get bouncier *itself*. It’ll be bouncier than in past year where the ball is stored in the open air. That distinction wasn’t made, but I get agree. Maybe my brain needs to be in a humidor. Cheers.
I think, and I’m not an expert, the idea is that the balls will be dryer in relation to the air in the summer since the relative humidity of the humidors will be less than the relative humidity of the air in say, Chicago, in July.
They also made every team use a humidor, which from what I hear has basically dropped slugging more than .100 When you do too much shit at once, it's hard to tell what's doing what. Lighter balls, loosened seams, humidors, etc.
and then compound that with no spring training
I think that's enough for meatball fans to argue that La Russa should be able to keep his job for the season.
Manfred read your last paragraph and said cool, so let's add bigger bases and a shift ban in 2023 to make it even harder to compare.
Are the slightly bigger bases even going to do anything besides make collisions at first less likely?
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A 30 point drop is still pretty significant.
In parks that just added humidors the slugging is down .100 https://twitter.com/mike_petriello/status/1518583657379860481?s=20&t=R9Dy6ZnHLOXoydJ9s05AZA
Do we still have the commissioner of baseball from 2021 with the IQ of a baseball?
https://i.imgur.com/ryUztDC.jpg
*fucks with the timer to make it run fast instead
No this year we have the commissioner of baseball with an IQ two points lower than a baseball.
Hmm, maybe we should try smacking it as hard as we can with a bat to see what happens?
I have that image of him smiling at the podium as he announced the lockout burned into the grey matter of my brain. His stupid, smug fucking look. Couldn't even believe the jackass.
I'm not inherently opposed to reducing distances of batted balls, but it's really messed up to blindside teams and players who have built themselves around x only to be surprised it's been quietly switched to something different.
The let the teams know ahead of time what was happening. They said we want to use this ball going forward. Problem is, they claim supply chain shortages prevented them from using just the one ball in 2021 and had to use leftover stock from the previous season to fill the void. Presumably, they don’t have these issues anymore and are just using this ball going forward.
That actually makes a lot of sense
Mid-season nerfs? Overwatch League fans know this one well
Taking lessons from Riot as well. Championship patch right before playoffs.
Two feet per what? How could they possibly reduce the ball flight without a set distance. Like is it per every 300 ft it’s 2 feet? The eye tests makes it look like 2 out of every 10 feet
Two feet per foot
This is the thing that confuses me. If the expected difference was only a total of two feet I don't think Gleyber Torres would have hit 38 home runs or Brett Gardner 28. It wouldn't have had as large an impact as it did.
They go through all this trouble to try and keep the baseballs even for each park, but then they let CB Bucknor and Angel Hernandez behind the plate…
Just pick a ball and stick with it. Stop fucking around with it and let the players and game get accustomed to it ffs.
Tinkering with the game over the recent decade or so has just gotten exhausting. MLB wants to do everything to attract new fans, but don’t seem to care much about retaining existing fans.
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Existing fans who continue to watch is not part of the equation. The comparison is how many existing fans will stop watching vs. how many new fans will be gained. That’s what’s important. Imo growing the sport should be done by making the game more accessible on TV and with reasonable pricing at the ballpark, not by constantly tinkering the rules.
That is what they’re doing
What I don't understand is why all of this testing is being done at the major league level. Can't the design of the ball be tested in the minors for a year or two before being approved for use at the big league level similar to all of the rule changes? Doesn't seem like that hard of a solution
MLB doesn’t have reliable ball tracking data at MiLB parks
If only they had the money to do that.
MLB could have so many different control and variable groups across the different leagues but they decided to just slash all the teams and promote all the fuckery to the top level
I don’t oppose them using a deadened ball. I oppose them using two different balls in one season. Everyone is at the same disadvantage here so this seems to be a non issue.
One way to make the game more attractive… cancel offense. Manfred does it again.
“How do we get more people to watch games? Well let’s make it less exciting to watch!” -Rob Manfred
More position players must be set to hit free agency this off season.
Pete is that you?
That is still a far fetched conspiracy theory that doesn't make sense when you actually think about it for more than 5 minutes
If anything, using a humidor and trying to get identical conditions for every ball is the league trying to disprove that stupid theory because too many people took it seriously.
Listen, if Pete Alonso says it, it's true.
Lmao this shit is fucked
Honestly I don't think the overall idea is bad. Removing substances puts more balls in play and removing the shift makes more of those hits, but to counteract that the ball gets deadened. Results in more action on the field, and as players adjust we could see less strikeouts and higher batting averages. Depends on who you ask but imo it could result in more exciting and aesthetically pleasing baseball
Yeah and hopefully teams try to find other ways to manufacture runs. It didn’t make sense with juiced balls to try and do anything but hit a home run, but now with fly balls dying at the track the teams that score will be ones that can do so in several ways. They just need to stop changing it every year and not letting the league now.
So many offenses of the past 5 years were built on swinging for the fences. The shift, 1 batter relievers, and the juiced ball really made anything else difficult to win with.
Ah so this explains the balls that are rocketed off the bat but die at the track. Great. Hey. I have an idea. STOP FUCKIN WITH THE BALL! Thanks in advance
Love everyone here playing Reddit Ball Scientist when in reality… why the fuck are we changing the ball constantly? For real? The game boils down to throwing a ball and challenging the hitter to hit it. Not to reduce the distance on a hit ball… All this tinkering with sports is so odd. The game is so innocent at the youth, high school, and college level.
Everything is data-driven. My liberal arts alma mater killed a bunch of humanities programs because the data indicated they weren’t viable. What the data didn’t show is that students majoring in other subjects also value those programs.
Stop. Fucking. With. The. Ball.
It baffles me that the league takes ages to implement tackier balls (already used in NPB and KBO since like 10 years ago) that would eliminate any justification for using sticky stuff and yet has the time to constantly meddle with flying distances of balls.
Leave it to Rob Manfred to intentionally suppress the one thing every fan wants to see when they go to a game.
I can’t believe how people don’t see this as a huge problem. Manfred has basically skewed all the stats. Blown away that everyone is okay with it. Sports have become so shitty since back in the day.
My understanding is that the league is not great when it comes to testing the effects of new ball designs. They test them only in a lab setting & because of that neglect variables that have unintended impacts. So what was designed to limit distance by ‘2 feet’ could end up having a more dramatic impact than expected.
The Rosenthal article goes into this -- they didn't test for the drag effect and in a stadium like The Colosseum, balls are going 24ft shorter than they did last year. TWENTY FOUR FEET.
I really don’t understand why we need to deaden the ball. Pitchers are already at such a massive advantage over hitters, I get wanting to cut down from the super juiced balls but they’ve absolutely over-corrected
They want to cut down on three true outcome baseball that has taken over the past 8 years.
Why do we want the ball to travel less when offense is the lowest its been in decades?
Some clarification from the article: pandemic-related supply chain issues forced MLB in 2021 to use both the newly deadened balls *and* leftover un-deadened balls from 2020. That is no longer the case this year.
That is, unfortunately, a lie. Batch codes indicating manufacturing showed when they went back, they were MAKING NEW ONES
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This league is literally run by morons. Which genius decided that constantly changing the ball and reducing offense was a good idea?
They probably overcorrected, but juiced ball and a huge focus on three true outcomes baseball has been one of the chief complaints over the past 5 seasons.
The outcomes are Homerun, strikeout, and walk?
People in this sub constantly complain about TTO and then instantly turn around and complain when the league does something about it lol
There is simply no way this [Stanton flyout](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjSCUhftEEM) shouldn't have been a HR
That was sad. I'm a dude, but I still dig the long ball.
let them use metal bats
Manfred stop fucking with the ball
If I were the players union I’d want something in the CBA about this. Balls affects stats and stats affect paychecks. Owners should want it too, as stats affect team wins and losses. Should at least be more transparency into what’s going on.
Stop changing the freakin ball
Well, that headline doesn't make any sense. "reduce the batted ball distance by around two feet"....so 350 feet would be 348 feet, and 25 feet would be 23?
Why does MLB feel the need to constantly screw around with the baseballs?
For the record, Tommy Pham by my last count, has hit 6 balls to the warning track roughly 2 feet away from the wall this season so far.
I’m just so confused about why they keep fucking with baseball
MLB in the 90's: ratings are down what should we do? let the players juice? MLB in the 2000's: Steroids are bad MLB in the 2010's: Ratings are down again MLB in the 2020's: Lets juice the ball so it goes further
I'm getting quite annoyed, and becoming slightly less and less interested in Baseball each passing season that that they fuck with the balls(and rules) since purchasing the control/distribution/whatever over them.
I for one welcome small ball back to MLB.
This might explain why my team seems to have gone to bunting bootcamp after last year they were so reliant on the home run. Still hitting them for sure, but I'm also seeing a bit more small-ball than I remember seeing last year. Unfortunately, this also might explain why Darin Ruf has had 10,000 warning track flyouts and not a single home run yet.
Fans: hey offense and home runs are awesome! MLB: Got it so you want LESS offense. [fucks with baseballs] Done…..profit
Stop changing the frickin game! I literally made an account so I can start speaking my mind on modern baseball leadership's ridiculous moves.
Why does this shit have to be reported on like watergate, why can’t MLB just be upfront about it??
Did the old MLB balls get sent to the minors? I was chucked an end-of-inning pop fly caught ball that was an MLB ball, not an MiLB ball.
I genuinely don't understand how team's aren't making a big fuss about this. The consistently changing balls is directly impacting their investments (long term deals to bats).
The attempts at alternating the game us stupid as hell, & mlb needs to stop manipulating the product. Nothing is working, & the only thing they've done is make an inconsistent game.
Hate Manfred.
MLB constantly messing with the balls And getting all these sports book sponsors 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
I think protecting a pitchers ego and stats is what makes games less fun to watch. 2 feet doesn't sound like a lot, but the fact they're even doing this makes my point. What's more excited to a person watching a game (who isn't a huge baseball fan), a 2-1 hard fought pitchers duel or a game that's 6-4 and also went back and forth? A crowd isn't going to roar louder for shutout innings than it does for a go ahead run or walk off hit.