Are Baseballs "Juiced" This Season?

[TonySoprano]

Alex Cobb says there needs to be an investigation.   Was there collusion between Manfred and Costa Rica?  Maybe we can do a two-year study on it, spend millions, question hundreds of people and produce a "Clark Report" when it's all finished.   The baseballs are "absolutely ridiculous" except maybe in NY, TB, and Toronto which combined have allowed 7 more HRs than the Orioles have alone.  TB has surrendered 1/3 of the total of the Orioles.   Are HRs up compared to this point last season, and does Cobb have a point? 

Quote

“Yeah, we’ve been giving up too many home runs as a staff. But, I don’t want to get too much into it, but the baseballs are just absolutely ridiculous,” Cobb said. “The home run rate that is happening this year in baseball I think is ready to outdo easily what it did last year, and we’ve had some questions about these baseballs for a long time and it seems like MLB is kind of doubling down on that. They are flying, no doubt. It doesn’t matter. We’ve got to figure out a way to get the ball on the ground, get outs. But you see pop-ups leaving the field right now. It’s tough to wrap your mind around.”

 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

Ok Cobb. 

[nate22]

Apparently Miguel Tejada was seen injecting them with B-12.

[DrungoHazewood]

There have been 1.33 home runs per team per game.  It's April, which is typically one of the lower-scoring months because of the colder weather.  

The all time record for homers/team/game is 2017's 1.26.  "On pace in April" is horribly abused, but it would be very typical to see more homers and more runs as the weather heats up.  It's plausible this year could smash the all-time homer mark.

It could be SSS weirdness.  Or it could be the ball is juiced.  Or ever-more players are selling out everything for elevation and home runs.  Or, I'd guess most likely, a combination thereof.

[Mayor McCheese]

LOL.

Really Cobb, you want to go there?!?.. pop-ups? Our staff has been getting hammered.  It's simple to fix. 

Make. Better. Pitches.

It's almost humorous watching our catchers consistently make a low and away target and our pitchers are completely off target.  Often these are 0-2/1-2 counts.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

14 minutes ago, Mayor McCheese said:

LOL.

Really Cobb, you want to go there?!?.. pop-ups? Our staff has been getting hammered.  It's simple to fix. 

Make. Better. Pitchers.

It's almost humorous watching our catchers consistently make a low and away target and our pitchers are completely off target.  Often these are 0-2/1-2 counts.

[LookitsPuck]

Or, maybe, the Orioles are just awful and having flyball pitchers who can't hit their spots is going to lead to awful results? This team is going to be awful this year. Pitching is going to be the #1 reason. And we're seeing it. Cobb needs to pitch better. That's all it means.

[Aglets]

Someone just needs to step in and ask Cobb if he would prefer to use the minor league balls instead.

Think we might have a candidate for Biggest Team Whiner now gents.

[Aglets]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

There have been 1.33 home runs per team per game.  It's April, which is typically one of the lower-scoring months because of the colder weather.  

The all time record for homers/team/game is 2017's 1.26.  "On pace in April" is horribly abused, but it would be very typical to see more homers and more runs as the weather heats up.  It's plausible this year could smash the all-time homer mark.

It could be SSS weirdness.  Or it could be the ball is juiced.  Or ever-more players are selling out everything for elevation and home runs.  Or, I'd guess most likely, a combination thereof.

The cynic in me assumes that if you ignore the Orioles team games that number goes down to like 1.05.  heh

But sure I agree this is something to keep our eyes on.

[nate22]

 MLB has considered "juicing" the balls, whether or not they actually have is another story. From 2015....

https://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/story/mlb-commissioner-rob-manfred-recognizes-boring-needs-change-more-offense-adapt-quickly-012515

"....

The data packet that baseball sent to the union — and subsequent informal conversations — included the following ideas, according to the source:

• Lowering the mound.

• Bringing in the fences in every park (a decision generally left to the individual clubs).

• Wrapping the ball tighter to make it fly farther.

• Adjusting the strike zone, which has gotten wider and lower, according to baseball’s data.

• Adopting the designated hitter in the National League.

Now don’t start howling on social media — none of these ideas has even progressed to a proposal, and it’s possible that none ever will."

In any event, if the trend today is all about launch angles, I would think it would make more sense to pitch up in the strikezone.

 

[interloper]

In fairness to Cobb, he's definitely not the first one to bring this up. There's some data that suggests there's some truth to this for sure. 

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, interloper said:

In fairness to Cobb, he's definitely not the first one to bring this up. There's some data that suggests there's some truth to this for sure. 

The allowances they have in place allow for a significant amount of change in flight dynamics.

 

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, nate22 said:

 MLB has considered "juicing" the balls, whether or not they actually have is another story. From 2015....

• Wrapping the ball tighter to make it fly farther.

There is a ton of circumstantial evidence, and maybe even more than that, that baseball has tinkered with the balls at multiple points through history.  I really can't explain '86-88 without someone playing with the baseballs.  Home runs went from 0.91 per team per game to 1.07 to .76 in consecutive years.  Then from '92-94 they went from 0.72 to 1.03.  That's an average team going from 116 homers a season to 167.

From '76-77 homers per game went from 0.58 to 0.87.  Full season that's 94 to 141 in one year.

During WWII they explicitly said they replaced the rubber in the baseballs with something called balata, which apparently was made out of rocks.

In 1911 they explicitly changed the composition of the core of the ball and batting averages went up 17 points and OPS by 49 points. 

I think it's pretty obvious they did something with the balls in the 2014-17 period, where homers went from 0.86 to 1.26.  In '14 we almost dipped below four runs/game for the first time since the early '70s, then in a couple years homers were higher than the highest of the Bonds/McGwire/Sosa years.

[atomic]

2 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

There have been 1.33 home runs per team per game.  It's April, which is typically one of the lower-scoring months because of the colder weather.  

The all time record for homers/team/game is 2017's 1.26.  "On pace in April" is horribly abused, but it would be very typical to see more homers and more runs as the weather heats up.  It's plausible this year could smash the all-time homer mark.

 It could be SSS weirdness.  Or it could be the ball is juiced.  Or ever-more players are selling out everything for elevation and home runs.  Or, I'd guess most likely, a combination thereof.

Or it could be it is warmer this year.  The Orioles don't seem to be hitting a crazy amount of home runs. 

[atomic]

2 hours ago, LookitsPuck said:

Or, maybe, the Orioles are just awful and having flyball pitchers who can't hit their spots is going to lead to awful results? This team is going to be awful this year. Pitching is going to be the #1 reason. And we're seeing it. Cobb needs to pitch better. That's all it means.

Or maybe they have bad analytics that are telling them to throw the ball in the wrong place to the wrong hitter.  Or maybe the Orioles pitchers aren't very good.  Bundy sure gave up a lot of home runs last year.