If you tune in to an MLB game on any given night, there is a good chance you will talk about the topic that is dominating the sport so far this season.
The latest exploits of Ohtani. Nope. The New York teams are off to great starts. Try again. The Los Angeles Dodgers are loaded. Not this spring.
What MLB has done to the ball being used this season and how it is impacting the on-field product is what everyone is focused on.
We dig into what is going on with the ball, how it is shaping the game and what it means for MLB's future.
The average runs per game for the month of April were 4.0, which is the lowest for a month since 1981 and.26 runs per team per game less than a year ago.
The leaguewide batting average of.231 was the lowest through April in MLB history, and the.75 OPS was the lowest since 1968.
The batting average is the lowest it has ever been one month into the season, and the offense is scoring the lowest runs per game in four decades.
The league-wide batting average and isolated power have all decreased from last April, when the pitchers hit just.110, the worst mark in a full season in MLB history.
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.232.BA, 699 OPS,.157 ISO will be used in 2021.
The decline of batting average is nothing new in baseball, and the last four full seasons account for each of the four lowest individual April leaguewide marks in the past 40 full seasons.
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Home runs made up just 36% of runs this April, the lowest total since 2015. The Year of the Home Run was when MLB hitters hit the most homers in the history of the sport. The number of home runs in April has plummeted in just three years.
Something is different because we look at the metrics. Patrick Wisdom, an infielder for the Chicago Cubs, said that it starts raising some eyebrows when the ball gets caught.
For the first time in three years, there was less than one home run hit per team per game in the first month of the season.
The year 2022.
2021.
2019: 1.31
It was 1.09 in this year.
2017: 1.17
The year 2016 ended with 1.05.
The year 2015: 0.91
We looked at balls that were hit with an exit velocity between 105 and 102 mph and a launch angle between 27 and 29 degrees. The batting balls match the average exit velo and distance traveled on home runs since Statcast was introduced. To limit the impact of weather on the outcome, we limited our research to two indoor venues.
Six of the seven balls from the previous season fit our criteria and resulted in home runs, compared to three of the balls from the previous season. Every ball hit that falls within our parameters this season traveled less total feet than its counterpart from a previous season, despite having similar exit velocity at a similar launch angle in the same conditions.
The ball is not the same as it used to be. I used to be 165 pounds soaking wet flicking balls out. We are talking about how this guy had an exit velo of 96 with a launch angle of 31, and his ball went out, and I had an exit velo of 100 and 28. Baseball players are not getting weaker.
The baseball is fundamentally different in 2022.
The ball will be changed in response to the soaring home run rates in recent seasons according to a memo sent to every team. During the regular season, a record 6,776 home runs were hit, and the rate of homers resulting in plate appearances had fallen slightly from 6.6% to 6.5%.
The first of three wool windings within the ball was loosened in order to better center the ball. The adjustment would bring down the coefficient of restitution and reduce the ball's weight without changing its size, according to research done by Rawlings.
The changes were designed to lose one to two feet of distance on balls hit more than 375 feet, but a look at the batting balls most likely to leave the yard shows the impact goes.
| 2015-21* | 2022 | |
|---|---|---|
| HR % | 59% | 47% |
| FB distance | 399.6 | 394.6 |
| Batting average | .790 | .706 |
| Slugging % | 2.783 | 2.384 |
| * Does not included shortened 2020 season |
Dodgers pitcher Daniel Hudson said that there have been times this season where he has been like, "I can't believe that ball didn't go out." I guess that was the problem, there was no openness to it.
For the first time, all 30 teams are using humidors to store their baseballs. The amount of water in the air around the ball is standardized by humidors. There is a big difference in the offensive rates in the stadiums that already had humidors and the stadiums that have added one for this season.
| HR/FB | BA | OPS | HR% | AB/HR | Runs/Game | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Previously had humidor: | -0.7% | .001 | -.001 | -0.1% | 0.30 | -.0.01 |
| Added humidor this season: | -2.4% | -.003 | -.035 | -0.8% | 13.11 | -0.35 |
That is very stark. The number of at-bats per home runs has barely changed in the holdovers, but in the new ones, it has taken an average of 13.1.
I got caught at the track in Minnesota when I hit 106 at 29 degrees. That should be a home run. The Dodgers infielder said that the other one should have been a home run.
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The good news for fans of offense is that it usually picks up as the season progresses and the weather warms up. Here is a look at the month-by-month offense over the course of a year.
HR every 30.1AB is.243/.317/.403.
HR every 28.9AB is.250/.319/.413.
HR every 28.6AB was.255/.321/.423 in June.
HR every 28.6AB, 4.57RPG was achieved in July.
HR every 26.7AB was.254/.322/.426 in August.
HR every 28.2AB, 4.56RPG, Sept/Oct:.249/.320/.416,.716 OPS, HR every 28.2AB, 4.56RPG.
We have had a lot of balls hit to the warning track. Jake Burger says that they have only played in cold weather.
The best teams and the biggest names in baseball can be seen on the sports network.
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We asked our MLB experts what the rest of the season will look like and what the league should do about it.
All we need from the ball is consistency from the batches to the years. Home run rates are down this year, and they could decline a little more. As the weather warms, runs will go up, but the issue remains more about how runs are scored than how many. A decline in home run rate leads to a higher rate of non- homer scoring. We need to keep heading in this direction.
Maybe baseball shouldn't do anything. Angels manager Joe Maddon said that the opposite-field long ball by non- home run hitters has decreased so far this season. That is the way it should be. True power hitters will get theirs. If the trend continues, the current launch-angle era might be replaced by a more complete hitter. It will take some time, but perhaps that is the goal of MLB.
What kind of game is most optimal for baseball? How many runs per game do we want, how many home runs, how many triples, and stolen bases do we want? And so on. The ball is only part of the equation. Look at the history of the sport. There are many instances of run scoring that are different from year to year.
If the answer to the above question is more runs, then the limits on pitchers should eventually go back to 12.
Over the last few weeks, players have clamored for transparency. They want more information from MLB on the types of baseballs being used, how they are stored, how they are handled, and why. Chris Bassitt, a pitcher for the New York Mets, lent his voice to that recently. He told me that he was shocked to find that one of the foul balls he picked up had higher seams than the other. Consistency is needed with the baseball's most important product.
This story was told with information from the following sources: Bradford Doolittle, Jesse Rogers, David Schoenfield, and Alden Gonzalez.
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