Major League Baseball finds itself playing defense over inconsistencies with the baseball used in games as an independent study finds that two different balls were used during the 2021 season.
As research from Dr. Meredith Wills has shown, the issues with the consistency of the ball used by Major League Baseball have seen several changes starting around 2015. In 2019, Wills and others quantified that a significant increase in home runs was due to changes in the ball. As cries of the ball being “juiced” escalated, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred pulled together a committee to look at home run rates and how the aerodynamics of the ball could be affecting them.
Manfred said to me shortly before the committee findings that something needed to be done to address the ball.
“The only thing I’m prepared to say at this point and time is I do think that we need to see if we can make some changes that gives us a more predictable, consistent performance from the baseball,” Manfred said.
The committee found that there was something that created a decreased drag on the ball but could not determine the cause. Wills, independently, found that the cause was due to increase lace thickness.
What is most concerning about the fluctuations in the performance of the ball is that MLB purchased Rawlings, the official manufacture of baseballs for the league, in 2018. The league said that one of its biggest reasons for purchasing Rawlings was to get consistency with the ball.
“We are particularly interested in providing even more input and direction on the production of the official ball of Major League Baseball, one of the most important on-field products to the play of our great game,” said Chris Marinak, MLB’s executive vice president for strategy, technology, and innovation at the time.
Marinak said something undeniable: the ball is crucially important to the game. It is foundational. It is what determines how we measure home runs from year to year. It determines pitching stats. And, ultimately, at the highest level, changes to the ball can affect game outcome.
So, when it was reported recently that (yet again), two different balls were used during the 2021 season, it begins to call the integrity of the game into question. If players using steroids altered the game and its integrity, isn’t the changes to the ball in that same discussion?
Over the past week, I have talked with a half-a-dozen players about the current lockout in MLB. Every single one of them has brought up the topic of the ball. And it’s a topic circulating well beyond that small circle. Pete Alonso of the Mets discussed it as disrupting player stats.
Asked to comment regarding the most recent reports on the ball changing during the 2021 season, Major League Baseball released a lengthy statement.
“Every baseball used in a 2021 MLB game, without exception, met existing specifications and performed as expected,” the statement reads. “In consultation with Rawlings and as previously announced, MLB approved a production change in the baseball that re-centered the ball within the specification range for Coefficient of Restitution (COR), and first approved game use of baseballs produced after the change for the 2021 season.”
The league went on to say that Rawlings manufactures Major League balls on a rolling basis at its factory in Costa Rica. That, generally, balls are produced 6-12 months prior to being used in a game. Because Rawlings was forced to reduce capacity at its manufacturing facility due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the supply of re-centered baseballs was not sufficient to cover the entirety of the 2021 season.
“To address this issue, Rawlings incorporated excess inventory into its shipments to Clubs to provide a full complement of baseballs for the 2021 season,” the statement further said. “MLB’s independent panel of experts and the Players Association were informed of this decision. The baseballs were fully within the specification range both before and after the production change. The excess inventory from the shortened 2020 season has now been exhausted and the 2022 season will be played with only balls manufactured after the production change.”
The MLBPA has been concerned about the ball, and as noted in the league’s statement, has been involved on some level. Right now, core economics are at the heart of trying to get a new labor deal in place, but the concern about the ball remains and will certainly resurface.
Unlike other points in time, the issue of a “juiced” or “deadened” ball would be a discussion with the players, fans, and media. That would be bad enough. But something far greater is now in play. And it’s something that could lead to the league getting quality control firmly locked down.
It doesn’t take much time watching baseball on television or reading about it on the internet to see that the gaming industry is now fully partnered with Major League Baseball. Betting on baseball is now freely advertised and billions of dollars in sponsorship deals are infusing MLB’s bottom line. It begs the question: when do gaming interests start applying pressure to get a ball consistent, not just for a short period, but for years? A change to the ball now influences the betting lines. It can impact prop bets. Willfully or not, changes to the ball have significant financial implications in the age of legally betting on baseball.
Major League Baseball has said that the ball is within a specified range. The players continue to ask whether that is true given it is only discovered that changes have regularly occurred through independent reporting? As one player noted, two balls hit by him with the exact same exit velocity and launch angle had two remarkably different outcomes during the season: one went about 5 rows out of the ballpark. The other died well ahead of the warning track. Together, there were over 60 feet of difference. There may be sound reasons for the two being markedly different (weather and time of year, are certain factors), but with the ball’s changes now an active discussion with players, fans, and media is it any wonder the players now question variations?
Even baseball’s own committee made a series of recommendations to try to get more consistency. They point a finger at the league by saying, “MLB should continue to study the drag properties of baseballs, with the goal of elucidating the reasons for the large variation of these properties among baseballs.” They recommended that labs “develop methods to measure and monitor parameters of the baseball that affect the carry. This should include using the parameters, with fixed initial conditions, to monitor and control changes in carry distance.”
As of the 2021 season, not all the recommendations in the report had been adopted. How many more reports of changes to the ball need to occur before we say that the ball, itself, has undermined the integrity of Major League Baseball just as much as performance-enhancing drugs? What’s certain is the ball will continue to be examined by independent researchers. Manfred and the league, along with the MLBPA, have a chance to proactively get out in front of the issue for good, and there’s no excuse not to. In a sport that prides itself on knowing every statistical angle, and leans heavily on the use of statistics to quantify player value, shouldn’t rigorous production control be paramount to something so integral to the heart of the game? It is called Major League “Baseball” for a reason.
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December 07, 2021 at 11:15AM
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