Inside Baseball

February 11, 2021 8:26 AM

A smuggling operation, a scientific analysis and a cracked code. All helped an astrophysicist conclude that a portion of major league baseballs used in 2020 were smaller and lighter than before—meaning they likely flew farther.
posted by infinite intimation (36 comments total)

*
posted by Space Coyote at 8:36 AM on February 11, 2021 [8 favorites]

I would argue that going back to at least Mickey Mantle taking “vitamins” before games baseball has been juiced. I don’t get why it is surprising that the MLB owned baseball company designed balls to make the game more entertaining. I think there’s an idea that professional sports are pure. I don’t get why the MLB just be doesn’t admit what they did, who are they trying to fool?
posted by geoff. at 8:57 AM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

Fascinating. I trust Dr. Wills way more than Manfred and MLB.

I agree with geoff. Why not just declare what the balls are set up for at the beginning of the season or at the end of the previous season and let teams plan for it?
posted by AugustWest at 8:58 AM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

I don’t get why the MLB just be doesn’t admit what they did, who are they trying to fool?

I think they want to avoid the record books being page after page of Space Coyote's post.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:59 AM on February 11, 2021 [15 favorites]

If baseball wants to retain it's relevance, they need to be a bit more innovative than shaving a few grams off the ball. For example, they could Open the Book, start randomly incinerating players, occasionally bring people back from the dead, and/or hit the ball so hard they break the fabric of space time. Or at least get some great bands to him.
posted by kaibutsu at 9:05 AM on February 11, 2021 [15 favorites]

The article says that the "live" balls had a lighter center, offset by by a heavier next-to-outer layer. They conjecture that this resulted in a slightly smaller diameter, leading to less air resistance. I wonder if there is also a component of spin involved? Moving the mass to the outside could increase the angular momentum, and a longer, faster spin could effect the aerodynamics too. I am not good enough at physics to answer this one myself!
posted by TreeRooster at 9:19 AM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

I love posts like this.

Next time my kids ask me why they need to learn math, I will tell them that sometimes if you want to prove the emperor has no clothes, you need to pants them in public. With math.

And they will say, what the hell are you talking about crazy old man, but that’s hardly the point.
posted by mhoye at 9:22 AM on February 11, 2021 [30 favorites]

I don’t get why it is surprising that the MLB owned baseball company designed balls to make the game more entertaining

What's surprising is that, while they may have intended this change to make the game more exciting, three-true-outcomes baseball is actually boring. When you have players hitting for power instead of for contact, you wind up with more samey at-bats where nothing seems to happen, and there's less base-running and fewer plays at a base or the plate.

It's a similar issue as instant replay / VAR: It's intended to make sure that the right call is made, but it winds up being so overused that it slows the game down and gets into weird philosophical territory really quickly. (The answer to that is the refs get one minute to review the play, can't slow it down beyond a certain amount (maybe half or quarter speed, and if there's not evidence to overturn the call on the field in that minute, the call stands.)
posted by thecaddy at 9:22 AM on February 11, 2021 [11 favorites]

hit the ball so hard they break the fabric of space time

That's not really practical, but they could replace the pitcher with something a little more exciting.
posted by The Bellman at 9:26 AM on February 11, 2021 [2 favorites]

I don’t get why the MLB just be doesn’t admit what they did, who are they trying to fool?

I haven't read this new article, but if it's like the other dozen or so "scientific" "studies" that have come out in the last 4 years, the "juiced" balls are just made closer to the ideal spec than the balls made in the past.

As for why they don't "admit what they did": "Modern baseballs are manufactured using processes superior to those used in previous eras" doesn't fit the narrative, so when they do say that, it gets ignored.

In other words: QAnon type shit isn't just for politics.
posted by sideshow at 9:28 AM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

faster spin could effect the aerodynamics too

Enter all the breathless talk about exit velocity, etc.

We're in a strange place as humans in the 21st century re our sense of history and expectations. There's absolutely a proclivity for purity, right? It may have started in religion, but it's now in everything. Our food, our politics, our online posture. BUT then we also have the attention demand put on us of a thousand gnats trying to tear our eyelids in their direction and we know that if we look at the boring gnat, it's a waste. Sorry, where was I? Right, baseball.

Baseball has a beautiful lineage. But like New England coastal towns, its become so dependent on that as identity, it's almost strangled by it. This is especially true as everything else becomes faster and more relevant to their former fans.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 9:29 AM on February 11, 2021 [2 favorites]

but it winds up being so overused that it slows the game down and gets into weird philosophical territory really quickly.

I have to say that I truly loved the couple of seasons prior to this most recent one where the NFL's reception rules had the announcers completely befuddled to the point where one said "What even is a 'catch'?". Finally a moment where my pseudo-minor in philosophy and philosophy of science could be brandished whilst eating wings. Epistemology and pass the dip!
posted by srboisvert at 10:20 AM on February 11, 2021 [5 favorites]

I think they want to avoid the record books being page after page of Space Coyote's post.

Yeah, this is probably it. MLB is so screwed up about a lot of this stuff. The idea that you can compare modern-day sluggers to Babe Ruth is ridiculous on its head, but somehow they want to pretend like they can. NFL, on the other hand, has been fairly open about having made numerous changes to the rules that favor the offense deliberately to make the game more interesting to watch (NBA did the same with the shot clock). It doesn't take away from the greatness of either Bart Star or Aaron Rodgers to observe that a big part of the reason their statistics are so different has to do with deliberate changes in the game. But for whatever reason whenever MLB does something like this, you get all the "purist" a-holes blubbering about the "purity of the game" (no doubt the same ones that are against bat flipping and go on and on about "respecting the unwritten rules"). So as a result MLB has to do it in secret. And, yanno, the fact is that baseball is waning in popularity and could stand to be more interesting for fans.
posted by slkinsey at 10:35 AM on February 11, 2021 [3 favorites]

From the MLB rules:

The ball shall be a sphere formed by yarn wound around a small core of cork, rubber or similar material, covered with two strips of white horsehide or cowhide, tightly stitched together. It shall weigh not less than five nor more than 51⁄4 ounces avoirdupois and measure not less than nine nor more than 91⁄4 inches in circumference.

That level of consistency isn’t possible given the materials specified. Factors like moisture content, cork density, etc will result in some level of variability in the weight. Suppose they change the way they store the balls and suddenly they dry out more before use —- now you have lighter ball . And this is before we factor in things like applying mud to the ball.

It’s possible that MLB is deliberately juicing the ball or is possible that we’re just seeing an expected random variance in the balls because of underlying materials and usage.
posted by interogative mood at 10:36 AM on February 11, 2021 [5 favorites]

This all seems a little inside baseball.


Literally inside baseballs.
posted by GuyZero at 10:37 AM on February 11, 2021 [21 favorites]

I haven't read this new article

Say no more. You are dismissing this as so much "QAnon type shit" and the article is pretty clearly not that. The article does address fairly minute details, but we know the level of play in the major leagues is all about tiny margins of difference.. strike or ball, popfly or home-run. The article is interesting.
posted by elkevelvet at 10:37 AM on February 11, 2021 [11 favorites]

It’s possible that MLB is deliberately juicing the ball or is possible that we’re just seeing an expected random variance in the balls because of underlying materials and usage.

He outlined the same information that the league would soon relay to teams in a memo, describing a production change that “adjusted the tension in the first winding” and resulted in a “de minimis”—so trivial as to be meaningless—weight reduction of “less than 1/10 of one ounce,” or about 2.8 grams. (He noted that all the balls in Wills’s study fell within those specifications.) But in the KBO, changes of just one gram to the ball contributed to affecting its flight.

“None of it really adds up,” says a longtime baseball factory inspector. He does not work at Rawlings, but requested anonymity for fear of retribution from MLB. If he saw a 0.1 oz change—MLB’s de minimis—he says he would flag it immediately. “That’s a big percentage,” he says. “That would raise eyebrows.” He says the changes Wills found could have been only deliberate, but they don’t seem to match up with the experimentation the league described.

This is a great article, thanks!!
posted by ChuraChura at 10:43 AM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

Purity will be the death of things we love. (And c'mon, this is an org that uses one particular type of mud from one secret area to treat the balls prior to use... they know exactly what they're doing)
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:53 AM on February 11, 2021

I haven't read this new article, but if it's like the other dozen or so "scientific" "studies" that have come out in the last 4 years, the "juiced" balls are just made closer to the ideal spec than the balls made in the past.

Sounds like a pretty serious case of “didn’t read the article” but I suppose the first step to recovery is admitting the problem.
posted by atoxyl at 11:10 AM on February 11, 2021 [9 favorites]

I haven't read this new article, but [...] In other words: QAnon type shit isn't just for politics.

My dude.
posted by mhoye at 12:09 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

Say no more. You are dismissing this as so much "QAnon type shit" and the article is pretty clearly not that

I read the article. I stand behind my earlier comments. It might as well say lizard people from the future have infiltrated the MLB to force Manfred to save the universe by blowing away all the records from the first half of the 20th century. Just like the rest of of these articles. They even interviewed the same players that always get interviewed for these articles.

Look, you all can go over to /r/baseball if you want to see this same shit hashed over and over and over and over. You don't have to wait for it to get posted to The Blue.
posted by sideshow at 12:11 PM on February 11, 2021

I've been peripherally following this via interviews with the researcher from the Universtiy of Illinois who had been studying this so, thank you for posting.

The air-drying vs. heat drying and the effects on the stitching really struck me. Not only are balls more round, but the seams are smaller and have less air to grab. So pitchers who have particular pitches in their arsenal would be seeing the ball move a bit less. I surmise, hanging where they might not have broken in the past. Rising a fraction of a second later, perhaps. If you mess with the throws, the hitters are too good to not make contact with the ball.

Anyhow, this is the plight of baseball. When you demure and don't protect the integrity of your sport, the door is open. The trust with fans is altered. Records that meant something to fans mean less.

It is an interesting topic to me. What constitutes sport? What makes it interesting? What elements can be changed without effecting the sport? How do children engage in a sport to provide future participants? How do parents talk about the issues with their kids? So much to discuss.

Again, appreciate the post.
posted by zerobyproxy at 12:28 PM on February 11, 2021 [3 favorites]

I'm only here because someone mentioned the magical baseball mud, which I am here for. Because this magical baseball mud stuff is pretty wild.
posted by loquacious at 12:29 PM on February 11, 2021

(Magic mud - https://www.si.com/mlb/2019/08/07/baseball-mud-rawlings )
posted by drewbage1847 at 12:54 PM on February 11, 2021

The BLACKHORSE code is awesome.
posted by kaibutsu at 1:15 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

I read the article. I stand behind my earlier comments. It might as well say lizard people from the future have infiltrated the MLB to force Manfred to save the universe by blowing away all the records from the first half of the 20th century.

I don’t know if there have been a series of specific, extensively-reported claims that didn’t pan out, but I thought the article was pretty clear about the “innocent” explanations for the various observed changes in balls, including this most recent one. It also noted that the primary consulted expert has not found previous changes to be suspiciously outside of normal bounds, while making a case that this most recently identified change is a little more distinct, but did not strongly push a conclusion regarding the real reason for it.
posted by atoxyl at 1:49 PM on February 11, 2021

Look, you all can go over to /r/baseball if you want to see this same shit hashed over and over and over and over.

Were you expecting a tense scene where The Gang corners the Masked Ball Stitcher, who confesses to a scheme to steal Barry Bonds' record so he can take over the local little league field and build condos? Somebody rips his mask off, and oh my god it was Old Man Selig the entire time?
posted by mhoye at 1:52 PM on February 11, 2021

It is also possible that the extraordinary results were caused by the extraordinary playing conditions imposed because of the pandemic. The schedules, the venues, the lineups, crowd sizes, etc were all very different from a normal baseball season; it would be very difficult to filter those things out when trying to isolate the effect of any changes to the ball alone from purely observational data of how the season went. I want someone to get some official baseballs and build some mechanical devices to simulate a pitcher and batter in repeatable way and see what the actual impact on distance, ball speed, etc are. Where is the enterprising YouTuber to make this happen?
posted by interogative mood at 2:00 PM on February 11, 2021

For real, though, I wonder if we can pull the batsignal for the Smarter Every Day guy and his baseball cannon to dig into this, I’d love to watch that.
posted by mhoye at 2:09 PM on February 11, 2021 [3 favorites]

It’s true that people have been making claims along these lines for a long time. I remember a baseball forum regular who had a whole website ten years ago about why the 90s-00s spike in offense ought to be attributed to a change in the ball, rather than steroids.
posted by atoxyl at 2:55 PM on February 11, 2021

I'm only revisiting the comment to say, yes people have been discussing these aspects of baseball for years but that is hardly the same as sideshow's "QAnon type shit." It's such a lazy conflation of contexts.. I don't doubt there will be many more articles, and much scrutiny, on how league balls change over time. Some people find this very interesting, I just don't get the dismissive tone combined with the spurious QAnon analogy.

Some people care about baseball more than I ever will, and any area of interest will promote differing degrees of scrutiny from different observers. This is quite apart from whatever one might mean by "QAnon type shit."
posted by elkevelvet at 3:20 PM on February 11, 2021 [3 favorites]

Anyone calling this Qanon type shit is either woefully ignorant of Qanon or they are trying to recon Qanon as a bit of harmless nonsense in the same way every political scandal got a gate attached to it.
posted by interogative mood at 3:34 PM on February 11, 2021 [12 favorites]

Still isn't going to help the Mets.
posted by mikelieman at 3:50 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

I don’t know the current state of affairs, but according to a commentary by a baseball announcer I listened to, it used to be that home teams were responsible for supplying 50+ new baseballs per game, and one of the umps would rub the mud on them immediately before the game.

If that’s still the case, I think it would be easy for the home team to deaden the balls whenever they felt like it by putting them into a suitable pressure vessel and pumping it up to ~90 lbs. (skinny road bike tire level), and then explosively decompressing. Deflate Gate comes to baseball, in other words.

You might be able to detect such a manipulation by dropping a baseball from say a 7 ft. height onto a steel plate and measuring the rebound.
posted by jamjam at 12:29 AM on February 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

MLB really does seem to be trying to turn baseball into nothing but boring superhuman pitching and home runs. Skillful and exciting infield play is so much better; I guess major leagues is just not for me... and they seem to be gutting much of the minor leagues too. At least I still have a local college summer league team that's dirt cheap and a nice fun local event.
posted by thefool at 7:31 AM on February 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

Let's start a chant: "Three true outcomes ball sucks! What do we want? Bunts!"

(If it isn't clear - I find 3TO baseball to be boring and dull. Sure, home runs are fun, but still. And I do prefer minor league ball to majors for watching live.)
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:00 AM on February 12, 2021