By: S. Christopher Michaels
“Chris Bassitt is hardly alone in his outcry that something has changed regarding the tool of his tradecraft. Questions were asked by experts and fans alike.”
The dam has broken. Near the end of April, Chris Bassitt of the Mets blasted Major League Baseball over the construction of current baseballs (Chris Bassitt calls out MLB). Whether it was seeing another teammate headhunted in a particularly frustrating game or some internal gnawing beast let loose from its confines, Bassitt bared his soul with condemnation typically reserved for mortal enemies.
Please tell us how you really feel, Chris. No need to hold back…
The Metropolitan pitcher’s outburst is only the latest public solicitude about perceived or actual changes to the very thing everyone expects to remain the same: the five-ounce spheroid simple known as ‘the ball.’
So, what broke the dam?
In truth, the story of the current baseball has multiple entry points. One needn’t know its history since the 1800s to recognize the ball has taken strange flight paths as of late. Chris Bassitt is hardly alone in his outcry that something has changed regarding the tool of his tradecraft. Questions were asked by experts and fans alike. Independent committees were formed to study the surge in home runs from 2015 to 2017 and again in 2019. MLB executives demurred, as execs are wont to do.
In May 2018, the Committee Studying Home Run Rates in Major League Baseball released a full report detailing its findings and recommendations. The Committee acknowledged that home runs did increase from 2015 to 2017. They used StatCast data to analyze factors like launch angle and exit velocity. They examined historical trends in home run rates using various metrics. They analyzed HITf/x data from 2015 and 2016 (this specific technology was discontinued and replaced by future StatCast developments). They studied the properties of many dozens of individual baseballs from 2012 to 2017 (Albert, 2018). The Committee was made up of professional researchers and scientists. While the findings and recommendations were reported to MLB, the Committee was granted independence to carry out its work.
The 2018 Home Run Committee listed thirteen key findings and offered seven recommendations to MLB. Two elements stood out to me. First, the Committee found that “there is supporting evidence that the aerodynamic properties of the baseballs have changed” (2018, p. 3 – 4). This cannot be overstated, as small changes could have unintended consequences. The Committee noted as much. Second, “while it cannot be ruled out that small year-to-year variations [in the baseball] might be a minor contributing factor to the home run surge, these changes are within normal and expected manufacturing variation” (2018, p. 4). The Committee could not definitively identify the culprit responsible for the decreased drag coefficient on the baseball that led to the home run surge.
That’s where Dr. Wills comes in.
Dr. Meredith Wills isn’t just another expert. She is the expert in the room on the construction and aerodynamics of the baseball. Lifehack; when a NASA-trained astrophysicist takes it upon herself to conduct an empirical study of the structure of a baseball, you sit back and listen quietly. In two articles she wrote for The Athletic in 2018, she outlined her independent study of baseballs and her observed changes.
While commenting on this piece, Dr. Wills told me her “research only became meaningful because of the Home Run Committee Report.” Frankly, I think she was being modest. Through two separate studies, she discovered:
- “The laces in the newer baseballs are different—noticeably different. Those used to stitch the seams on the 2016 – 2017 balls are 9.0% thicker than those on the 2014 balls” (Wills, June 2018, para 6).
- “These findings suggest that balls made after 2015 have less bulging at the seams, meaning they are more spherically symmetric, and thus have lower drag” (September 2018, para 12).
- “Since all that is needed to create the home run surge is a slight decrease in average drag, the ball doesn’t have to be perfectly round; it just has to be rounder” (September 2018, para 15).
There is something to the notion that baseballs have changed periodically throughout the game’s history—notably in 1920, 1938, and 1974 (Carroll, 2022, ch. 1). Over the last decade, the changes seem to have eclipsed all previous changes combined. Still, if baseball accepted the recommendations of the 2018 Home Run Committee or Dr. Wills’s results, this story wouldn’t need to be told. Had MLB executives acted in the interest of the players or fans, we wouldn’t have to speculate.
In a Twitter thread from February 2019, Eric Fisher, the U.S. editor for SportBusiness Group, reported on the SportTechie State of the Industry Conference. Specifically, he noted that Rob Manfred, Commissioner of MLB, attributed the home run surge to improvements off the field, such as training, analytics, and coaching. Even after being asked to clarify his comments in light of the 2018 Home Run Committee Report, Manfred insisted that non-ball factors played a more prominent role in the rise in home runs (Eric Fisher Tweet).
Manfred’s comments are at odds with the Home Run Committee and Dr. Wills’s research. It drew a division between science for the sake of answers and “science” intended to support a predetermined conclusion. The independent Committee sought to inform baseball and its elders about the first type. Commissioner Manfred’s comments suggest he wanted the issue to remain in the past—presumably because of the Committee’s recommendations.
Dr. Wills has reentered the chat.
In June 2019, Dr. Wills published another article describing a completely different baseball. “To be clear though, the 2019 baseball is not the 2017 baseball. Not only is it different from those of late 2015 – 2018, it’s different from balls going back to at least 2000” (Wills, June 2019, para 6). Another round of testing from the astrophysicist led to conclusions that further called the centerpiece of the national pastime into question:
- “For the first time in at least 19 years, seam height had decreased to such an extent that, even taking uncertainties into account, the seams were demonstrably lower” (June 2019, para 19).
- “Up through 2018, the baseballs showed the sort of ball-to-ball variation expected from a handmade construction process. However, the static friction for the 2019 balls is 27.6 percent lower, a statistically significant result demonstrating the leather covers are genuinely smoother” (June 2019, para 24).
- “Not only were the 2019 balls virtually round, what bulging they did show was slightly negative, suggesting the seams might be slightly “nestled” into the leather” (June 2019, para 27).
- “With statistical significance, the lace thickness has decreased to something comparable with pre-2015. This change could be encouraging for pitchers, given the increase in blisters during late 2015 – 2018 (June 2019, para 32).
- “Over the last five years, the official Major League baseball has undergone three noticeable changes, two of which have occurred in the past year. The changes from the 2018 season to the 2019 regular season to the 2019 postseason have left teams unable to make roster decisions with any certainty” (November 2019, para 26).
Taken in conjunction with the Commissioners comments, Dr. Wills’s latest findings added to the confusion of the 2019 season. If home runs surged from 2015 to 2017, they absolutely flooded the market in 2019. The previous record for home runs was 6,105, set in 2017. Before that, the most dingers hit in a season was 5,693, established in 2000. In 2019, teams hit 6,776 round-trippers. It represented an 11% increase over the previous high set in 2017.
Dr. Wills’s ongoing research had to feel like a thorn in the side of MLB execs. It’s one thing for an independent Committee commissioned by the league to recommend further investigation into the rise in home runs. Had the mark set in 2017 been an aberration, Manfred’s comments from February of 2019 would have afforded time to marinate in the minds of fans and players. The surreal leap forward in four-baggers squashed any chance the issue would fade away quietly.
2019 saw another Home Run Committee tasked with “analyzing possible causes of the change in home run rate in Major League Baseball during the period 2017 – 2019 and the features of the baseball that affect its aerodynamic properties” (Albert, 2019, p. 1). This time around, six of the ten members of the 2018 Committee opted not to participate in the study. It’s not unreasonable to speculate that Commissioner Manfred’s reticent comments from the SportTechie Conference left some 2018 Committee members feeling undermined.
“The 2019 Committee Report does not appear to have sufficient data to reject the 2018 conclusions, especially when considering Dr. Wills’s findings regarding the 2019 baseball.”
The 2019 Committee produced thirteen findings and six recommendations across three themes in their Preliminary Report. The themes were properties of the baseball affecting drag, catalysts responsible for changes in the home run rate, and the home run rate during the 2019 postseason (2019, p. 6 – 10). In stark contrast to the work done by the 2018 Committee, the 2019 iteration made specific mention of “alternate hypotheses discussed in the media” regarding the drag coefficient of the baseball (2019, p. 6). It was a thinly-veiled comment directed at Dr. Wills and Rob Arthur regarding conclusions about various changes to the 2019 baseball. The single area of agreement between the 2019 Committee and the outside experts was the ball’s seam height.
Comparing the 2018 and 2019 Committee Reports offered additional points of disagreement. In 2018, the Committee stated in Finding #11 “that changes in batter behavior might be contributing to the surge [in home runs] are not borne out by the StatCast data” (Albert, 2018, p. 5). Conversely, Finding #3.2.5 of the 2019 Report stated that “lacking strong evidence that the change in launch conditions are due to changes in the baseball, we conclude that they are due to a change in player behavior” (2019, p. 8).
To be clear, scientists discard outdated conclusions when faced with new data that refutes previous theories. The 2019 Committee Report does not appear to have sufficient data to reject the 2018 conclusions, especially when considering Dr. Wills’s findings regarding the 2019 baseball. To frame this in my mind, I thought about my own research into the component parts of run-scoring. I can’t imagine rejecting previous research on the topic without placing it alongside my own data sets to demonstrate the shortcomings of competing theories compared to my own.
In that spirit, the 2019 Committee did share a graphic (2019, Figure 4, p. 13) comparing one dozen high-drag and one dozen low-drag baseballs. In their illustration, lace thickness appears to be similar. All the same, there is no way to know from this visual which baseballs we are looking at. The Committee examined 65 dozen unused baseballs from 2013 to 2019 (2019, p. 5). Twenty dozen balls each from 2018 and 2019 were analyzed. The report also mentions testing 20 dozen baseballs from the 2019 postseason for seam height and drag coefficient. What is not clear is whether the 2019 postseason baseballs were included in the previously mentioned 65 dozen under investigation. In this case, details matter. Figure 4 from the report only compared two dozen baseballs, separated only by their drag coefficient.
In the best light, the Committee randomly selected three percent of all baseballs they examined and used that sampling to arrive at the conclusion they put forth in Figure 4. Under less than ideal conditions, the baseballs used for the illustration are not representative samples. I am not suggesting the Committee engaged in unethical practices. I am saying I would have no way of replicating their study based solely on the information provided to the public. Returning to a topic mentioned earlier, science for the sake of answers is about replicating experiments in an objective and unbiased environment.
On the one hand, we are left with the 2018 Home Run Committee Report, Dr. Wills, and the empirical evidence she provided for replication. On the other, we have Manfred’s February 2019 comments that were out of step with the 2018 Committee’s Final Report and a new Preliminary Report that attempted to refute “alternate hypotheses discussed in the media” without telling us how those hypotheses were refuted. The circumstances favor the independence of the 2018 Committee and Dr. Wills. Any reading of the entirety of baseball’s official actions in 2019 does not suggest objective fact-finding.
If the story ended there, it would still be sufficient to demand transparency to protect the game’s legacy. As is often the case, the story didn’t end there.
In April 2020, Dr. Wills published another article outlining an examination of baseballs allegedly from the 2019 MLB postseason. She found baseballs from batches made in 2018. Under normal circumstances, it would not be unusual for baseballs made to outfit games at the end of one season to find their way into contests the following season. This episode was circumspect because MLB adamantly insisted that the 2019 postseason baseballs were pulled from the 2019 production run at the Costa Rican Rawlings factory. (2020, para 33). Dr. Wills’s discovery likely meant the 2019 Home Run Committee could not have correctly identified the postseason baseballs used in their study.
Moreover, the statement by MLB is puzzling. Why not acknowledge the common practice of some batches of baseballs from the previous season being used in the following season? Perhaps, Dr. Wills said it best:
“It is unclear why MLB has continued to maintain that all 2019 postseason balls were taken from 2019 regular season stock. After all, Thompson stated the use of existing inventory was in line with Rawlings’ policies, and an open acknowledgment of a mixed population would have stemmed any controversy” (2020, para 36).
February of 2021 saw a fast and furious parade of concerning news regarding Major League Baseball. Sports Illustrated learned that baseballs were smuggled out of team facilities for outside analysis by experts like Dr. Wills (Apstein, 2021, para 3). MLB and Rawlings disputed Dr. Wills’s findings published in April 2020, alleging that experimentation did not carry over to baseballs used in actual games (2021, para 8). The comments were poorly timed.
Sports Illustrated followed up with questions. Major League Baseball came clean:
“After the league admitted to S.I. that it had made adjustments, but insisted that they were minimal, it sent a memo to general managers, assistant general managers, and equipment managers informing them of the changes … [t]his is the first time MLB has publicly acknowledged experimenting with the ball, indicative of its typically close-to-the-vest approach” (2021, para 9 – 10).
In a hasty press release published the day before the Sports Illustrated article was released, Major League Baseball sent the memo in question to affiliate organizations (Sarris and Rosenthal, 2021). S.I. had scooped baseball’s bigwigs. Naturally, it was another hit to MLB’s waning credibility. On went the 2021 season under more clouds of suspicion.
Two articles published by Eno Sarris of The Athletic highlighted the strange impacts the new ball had on the game in 2021. In April of that year, Sarris reported, “the ball is somehow showing us more exit velocity despite being designed to be less bouncy internally” (April 2021, para 14). In June, he said, “the ball has been slightly deadened in the core, and the ball is lighter. What’s funky is that those two alterations have had different, sometimes confusing effects, but the overall effect is obvious: offense is down some” (June 2021, para 1). Years of inconsistent results with the baseball were reaching a fever pitch.
Finally, Business Insider’s Bradford Davis published an article in November 2021 detailing another study conducted by Dr. Wills. According to that study, “the league used two distinct types of baseballs—one lighter and deader than the other—during the 2021 season” (2021, para 11). To make matters worse, MLB had “alternated between making balls with heavier and lighter centers since late 2019, when it started production for the 2020 season” (2021, para 16). The positive from that episode is that Major League Baseball finally went on record, admitting to using two structurally different baseballs for the 2021 season (2021, para 17).
What may have been benign changes to previous baseballs now appeared to represent intentional experimentation.
Another narrative runs parallel to the physical changes baseballs underwent. I expect it is lesser-known. I also imagine it’s harder to piece together because it’s couched inside an otherwise exciting innovation. I like to think of Dr. Wills’s work as the “what.” She tirelessly demonstrated ongoing physical changes to the baseball—something she is still doing today. The next part of our story is the “why.”
In 2014, MLB Advanced Media presented StatCast at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference (Nathan, n.d., para 1). It represented a paradigm shift if you aren’t familiar with this advent. It changed how data from baseball games was captured and how that data was presented to teams and fans alike. R.J. Anderson of Newsweek reported in 2014, “because StatCast is a league-wide initiative, every team is receiving the data” (2014, para 6). Anderson went on to say, “the success of such a system relies on its promise to capture everything” (2014, para 8). 2015–the year StatCast was installed in every ballpark—promised to be a pivotal year for baseball.
“Using StatCast data as THE tool to measure advanced analytics for the rise in home runs allowed MLB to attribute the 2019 home run surge to anything but the baseball.”
In 2015, MLB franchises were worth a combined $35 billion (Staff, 2015). By itself, the valuation of the baseball league is a footnote. All the same, StatCast was a new and exciting innovation destined to change how fans interacted with the game—not to mention its future financial standing. Baseball was poised to go big time in the market, not because of the number of fans in the stands. By its nature, StatCast would be a tech boon for watching games on television or mobile devices. Commissioner Manfred and execs were undoubtedly thinking about the financial future of the game.
The StatCast rollout had its bugs, as tech initiatives are known to do. Two years in, MLB continued to act as a gatekeeper of its newfound data. In 2017, R.J. Anderson quoted Mike Petriello of MLB.com, ‘“I do understand why people would want the entire database opened up immediately, and the truth is a lot of this stuff is so new that we need to vet what it means”’ (2017, para 8). Regardless of the statement’s truth, it has new context when Major League Baseball’s actions around the baseball are superimposed. It leaves fans to wonder.
As stated in both the 2018 and 2019 Home Run Committee Reports, the league used StatCast data to analyze the home run surges (Albert 2018, 2019). Again, at the time, it did not carry the meaning it now does. Using StatCast data as the tool to measure advanced analytics for the rise in home runs allowed MLB to attribute the 2019 home run surge to anything but the baseball. Undoubtedly, there is sensibility in using the “capture everything” technology to aid in reviewing home run data. That sensibility is marred when the analytical tools are owned by MLB, then used to dismiss outside findings that suggest further investigation is warranted.
In 2020, StatCast was overhauled. An exciting technology—called Hawk-Eye—replaced the original system of tracking cameras. In the MLB Technology Blog, Ben Jedlovec wrote, “the Hawk-Eye StatCast system has demonstrated significant accuracy improvements in pitch, hit, and player tracking, and its pose-tracking capabilities open up an exciting new frontier for analysis” (2020, para 1). Later that year, Quinten Dol of Built-In reported, “the end of the old StatCast system’s life was always planned for 2020. The system struggled to track balls in certain conditions, including throws across the field or hits that launched skyward at particularly steep angles” (2020, para 5). The statement is especially puzzling in light of how StatCast data was a lynchpin of the 2018 and 2019 Home Run Committee Reports.
Let’s rewind for a moment. StatCast data was sufficient for its inclusion in two independent Committee Reports. This came on the heels of Major League Baseball reporting that data needed to be vetted (in 2017, mind you) before it was released. Then we learn the original technology was always intended to be replaced after five years because it didn’t track the baseball well enough to warrant mere updates.
What does that imply about the StatCast data used in the 2018 and 2019 Home Run Committee Reports?
As you might expect, StatCast has only grown in popularity. The 2021 All-Star Game’s Home Run Derby saw “the return of the alternate Statcast broadcast on ESPN2 opposite the live telecast on the Worldwide Leader In Sports main channel. The Statcast telecast emphasizes that there is an increasing audience interested in the analytics of baseball” (Brown, 2021, para 2). It wasn’t a novel idea. The league promoted the Derby in a similar fashion before the pandemic. Still, Major League Baseball went out of its way to note the return of this particular broadcast because of an increased interest in analytics.
Our StatCast narrative ends far from American shores. With interest on the rise, Major League Baseball wanted to protect its brand. The 2020 Tokyo Olympics—delayed until 2021 because of Covid—used a baseball that met its own strict specifications. “Above all, the Olympic balls are remind[ers] that alternatives exist to the Rawlings balls sparking frustration and cheating in the world’s top professional association, Major League Baseball” (Paresh, 2021, para 5). It was bad enough that MLB would have to contend with a different baseball, meeting different specification requirements, on display for fans to see in a different competition. Unnamed league officials made the matter worse, criticizing the Olympic baseball for “all the darting and dipping pitches and the foolish swings at them…making the game boring” (2021, para 7). League concerns were not shared by all participants:
“Joe Ryan, a top Minnesota Twins prospect playing for the U.S. Olympic team, said on Friday the SSK version “is the best ball in the world” and urged America to adopt the “amazing” and “perfect” creation” (2021, para 8).
Olympic baseball was seen worldwide as a juxtaposition to the chaos and questions surrounding Major League Baseball. There was no StatCast coverage of the Olympic games. Absent the fancy graphical overlays displaying spin rate, launch angle, and exit velocity, American baseball fans were provided a comparison between boring Olympic baseball and the standard staple of exciting StatCast baseball. MLB quietly reacted to the success of the Olympic ball by “experimenting with the use of a different, pre-tacked baseball in select Triple-A games during the final days of the minor league season” (Glaser, 2021, para 1).
Perhaps Olympic baseball, with no mention of StatCast or its impact on the game, wasn’t so boring after all.
We have parallel narratives that converge on a single point. We’ve seen the what and why of this story. What hasn’t been publicly presented is the “how.” To examine how Major League Baseball experimented with the baseball, we need to apply the principle of ‘totality of circumstances.’ Strictly speaking, it refers to the legal threshold required in an affidavit to obtain a warrant. As the sporting public, we don’t need a warrant to ask Major League Baseball and its executives questions. The circumstances already provide sufficient facts suggesting MLB is neither protecting the game’s legacy nor treating its players as worthy of frank discourse on the experimentation with the baseball.
At some point in the not too distant past, Major League Baseball began a trial and error process of finding the desired balance within the construction of the baseball to make the game exciting. We don’t have to speculate about this. Baseball execs told us as much. Their off-the-cuff slight of the Olympic baseball as boring illustrated their thinking by what they didn’t say. Bear in mind that this is hardly the first time baseball elders have used the boring versus exciting paradigm.
Ken Burns, American documentarian extraordinaire, brought us the renowned series Baseball, initially released in 1994. In Episode 4, the battle between tradition and progress is highlighted by none other than a new baseball that produced more home runs in the 1920s than the game had ever seen. Traditionalists—including pitchers—hoped for a return to the old game. Baseball executives insisted the game was more exciting because of the lively ball and, of course, more home runs.
In recent years, MLB needed a tool that provided real-time feedback on the in-game event they wanted to maximize to make the game more exciting: the home run. The only analytical tool capable of producing these results is StatCast. It is the single-greatest analytics tool the game has seen to date. We already know it was used to provide analysis on home runs for the independent Committees tasked with studying separate surges. We also know the technology is here to stay because it was a league-wide initiative that was upgraded to its current iteration in 2020. StatCast isn’t going anywhere.
In what we should interpret as the same warning delivered one hundred years ago, baseball executives are banking on piquing fans’ interest through home runs. But not too many—and not from your platoon infielder…
The depressed home run rates of 2013 through 2015 were specifically what baseball wanted to reverse. The highest home run rate was 1.01 home runs per game during that spell. In fact, the last time the home run rate was above 1.1 home runs per game was during the steroid era in 2006. Baseball had become boring—at least in the eyes of MLB executives. Like the summer of ’98, when McGwire and Sosa gave fans a shot in the arm, experimentation with the baseball—or looking the other way to claim plausible deniability—allowed Commissioner Manfred to design the exciting game he wanted. The fly in the ointment was 2019 when home runs flew out of parks at an unprecedented clip.
The independent Committees could not pinpoint a singular finding responsible for the rise in home runs. Indeed, the 2018 Committee, filled with esteemed scientists, offered reasonable suggestions for further study. The dilemma likely would have remained shrouded in mystery if not for Dr. Wills. She brought the problem to light. Her hard evidence led to hard feelings between players and management. As an aside, neither report from the independent Committees is available on MLB’s website. That is telling.
With the league richer than ever before, Commissioner Manfred and other executives are myopically focused on a product that delivers television ratings. StatCast is THE tool permitting baseball to increase interest for casual fans. Anyone who wants to sound invested when discussing the launch angle of the mammoth home run from last night’s game around the water cooler at work needs only know a handful of details.
Do workplaces still have communal water coolers?
Numerous examples abound. Look no further than the new Designated Hitter rule for the National League. How many broadcasts this season have already highlighted this rule change? We were told it would increase offense around the game. Another example of tinkering is the use of humidors in all ballparks. Ostensibly, this normalizes the ball to produce an equitable experience across the varied climates of the United States (and Toronto, Canada). In reality, it should lead to more balls in play. “In more humid parks, the humidor will remove water from the air, which will increase the bounciness of the ball, and in turn increase the distance the ball travels in the air. That means more offense” (Sarris, April 2022, para 3).
“Baseball insiders obfuscated for years about the baseball. They ignored evidence then and continue to do so now.”
At the very least, meddling Manfred has increased the public conversation. These developments are sure to be seen as a positive for baseball because people are talking about the game. Unfortunately, they only serve as an ugly reminder. They add to our skepticism.
Baseball insiders obfuscated for years about the baseball. They ignored evidence then and continue to do so now. An article from Newsday over the weekend brings yet another head-scratching revelation. While grumbling ballplayers is nothing new, the latest grist feeding the rumor mill is concerning. Before a big game against division-rival Philadelphia, Mets hitting coach Eric Chavez was warned to “watch how the baseballs travel during the premier nationally televised game of the week. They had heard that the balls in those games were in some way different” (Healey, 2022, para 10).
Players and coaches feel powerless to hold MLB accountable. In the same article, Healey lamented that “Chavez did not want to venture a guess, at least publicly, about what specifically is going on” (2022, para 17). Let’s not forget the frustrations of pitchers like Chris Bassitt, who was utterly exasperated and left to air his grievance publicly.
What are the players to do?
All the while, Major League Baseball franchises saw their 2022 combined value increase to $62 billion—a 77% increase from 2015, despite a worldwide pandemic and looming national recession (Ozanian, 2022, para 2). Something had to make baseball a more valuable asset to broadcast companies. My money is on StatCast with all its bells and whistles.
I have to say, StatCast ain’t all bad. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I have either my smartphone or tablet tracking the same game when I watch a ballgame. I want to see the StatCast data because baseball wisely tapped into my desire for more analytics.
I’m the sucker MLB had in mind when it started using StatCast to experiment with the game…
And all of these examples point to body blows for baseball’s legacy. It’s hard to swallow when MLB execs aren’t honest about their ongoing tinkering with the baseball to produce a more exciting product. It brings up too many memories of impropriety that tarnish a game so many of us love. We’re still reeling from the sign-stealing scandal (certainly, the Astros; but probably more). We’re not that far removed from the steroid era (Jose Canseco and allegations against untold idols of the game). The distant past is filled with painful instances of racism (a ‘gentlemen’s’ agreement regarding non-white players), thrown games (the Black Sox and maybe Pete Rose), true brutality (Ty Cobb), and cringe-worthy episodes of poor sportsmanship (also Ty Cobb). The only thing baseball has to do to fix this is come clean.
With everything I’ve learned on this journey, I’m left to awkwardly implore Commissioner Manfred:
Tell us the truth. Tell us you intentionally experimented with the construction of the baseball because you wanted to increase the one element you believed would make the game more exciting. If you don’t, you risk alienating a generation of fans. You won’t lose me, though. For better or worse, I’ve been hooked on baseball since my first visit to Royals Stadium over forty years ago. But my daughter, she doesn’t take well to being lied to…
I hope you’ve enjoyed this column. I want to challenge your thinking about baseball statistics. Someday, my own research on the game will become outdated. Please feel free to spar with me about the ideas I’ve presented here—I enjoy the discussion because it challenges my thinking. I can be reached here on Baseball Almanac, via email at christopher.s.michaels@gmail.com, and I’m on the social media (Facebook, Twitter). As always, this has been the World According to Chris. Thanks for tuning in.
References/Further reading:
Albert, J., Bartroff, J., Blandford, R., Brooks, D., Derenski, J., Goldstein, L., Hosoi, A., Lorden, G., Nathan, A., & Smith, L. (2018, May 24). Full report of the Committee studying home run rates in Major League Baseball 052418. The Physics of Baseball. Retrieved May 5, 2022.
Albert, J., Hosoi, A., Nathan, A., & Smith, L. (2019, December 10). Preliminary report of the Committee studying home run rates in MLB. The Physics of Baseball. Retrieved May 5, 2022.
Anderson, R. J. (2014, July 24). With big data, Moneyball will be on steroids. Newsweek. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
Anderson, R. J. (2017, June 6). How StatCast has changed MLB and why not everybody seems all that happy about it. CBSSports.com. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
Apstein, S. (2021, February 9). Did MLB use juiced balls in 2020? Sports Illustrated. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
Arthur, R. (2019, October 25). Moonshot: The baseball isn’t rejuiced. it’s just inconsistent. Baseball Prospectus. Retrieved May 10, 2022.
Brown, M. (2021, June 30). Details of ESPN’s 2021 Home Run Derby, All-Star Game, and MLB draft coverage revealed. Forbes. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
Burns, K. (1994). Baseball: A Ken Burns documentary (Episode 4). PBS. Retrieved May 8, 2022.
Carroll, W. (2022). Science of Baseball: The Math, Technology, and Data Behind the Great American Pastime. W.W. Norton.
Davis, B. W. (2021, November 30). Major League Baseball secretly used 2 different types of baseballs last season. Business Insider. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
Dol, Q. (2020, October 5). A deeper look at MLB’s new StatCast. Built In. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
Fisher, E. (2019, February 27). Manfred says recent rise in home runs owes to improved training/analytics/coaching, not elements with the baseball itself. Twitter. Retrieved May 6, 2022.
Glaser, K. (2021, September 23). MLB to experiment with pre-tacked baseball during triple-A final stretch. College Baseball, MLB Draft, Prospects – Baseball America. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
Healey, T. (2022, May 6). Have baseballs been unjuiced? Mets ponder why hard-hit balls are not flying as far. Newsday. Retrieved May 8, 2022.
Jedlovec, B. (2020, July 20). Introducing StatCast 2020: Hawk-Eye and Google Cloud. Medium. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
Nathan, A. (n.d.). The Physics of Baseball: StatCast. The Physics of Baseball. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
Ozanian, M. (2022, April 14). Baseball’s most valuable teams 2022: Yankees hit $6 billion as new CBA creates new revenue streams. Forbes. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
Paresh, D. (2021, July 30). Baseball: ‘Best ball in the world’ gets mud bath, gloved treatment. Reuters. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
Sarris, E. (2021, April 14). More drag, but more bounce: The new MLB baseball is having bewildering, unexpected impacts on the game. The Athletic. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
Sarris, E. (2021, June 1). What role is the new ball playing in all these no-hitters? The Athletic. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
Sarris, E. (2022, March 31). Baseball will have humidors in every park—what will it mean for offense? The Athletic. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
Sarris, E., & Rosenthal, K. (2021, February 8). MLB making changes to the baseball, deadening it—but by how much? The Athletic. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
Staff. (2015, March 26). Forbes: MLB team values for 2015. The Arizona Republic. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
Wills, D. M. (2018, June 6). How one tiny change to the baseball may have led to both the home run surge and the rise in pitcher blisters. The Athletic. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
Wills, D. M. (2018, September 19). Studying the baseball to find the ‘how’ of the home run surge. The Athletic. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
Wills, D. M. (2019, June 25). Yes, the baseball is different—again. An astrophysicist examines this year’s baseballs and breaks down the changes. The Athletic. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
Wills, D. M. (2019, November 13). The search for answers about the 2019 postseason baseball. The Athletic. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
Wills, D. M. (2020, April 6). Uncovering the secrets of the 2019 postseason baseball. The Athletic. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
