2021 MLB General thread

[Nik]

I'm not sure how compelling the evidence for that really is. I mean, just about everyone on the Yankees had pretty middling offensive years other than Judge and Judge's power numbers are pretty consistent throughout the season. (12 HR in 119 PA in May, 11 in 136 PA in September/October).

If there's a pattern there, or evidence that everyone on the Yankees was hitting against a juiced ball, I can't see it.

[Dappleganger]

So MLB was likely juicing the ball for Yankees games.  Cool stuff

Also Judge stays with the Yankees - 9 years for 360 million

Very first thing I thought was the Yankees were juicing their own balls.

[Andy]

https://www.insider.com/mlb-used-two-balls-again-this-year-and-evidence-points-to-a-third-2022-12


Evidence is actually pretty interesting

[Nik]

https://www.insider.com/mlb-used-two-balls-again-this-year-and-evidence-points-to-a-third-2022-12


Evidence is actually pretty interesting

It's a good article and, despite some of the science stuff being over my head, I agree there's some interesting stuff there. The testimony from the players is, for sure, worthwhile. I still can't look at the Yankees season though and see much in the way of any sort of outcome that would make a juiced ball a plausible explanation(again, outside of Aaron Judge just generally having a very good season). To use an analogy, it feels like finding a smoking gun but having no dead body. I fully buy that MLB may have used different baseballs in the season, as the article points out they've done that before, but I'm not even sure I see a good hypothetical as to why they'd rig Yankee games specifically.

[L K]

https://www.insider.com/mlb-used-two-balls-again-this-year-and-evidence-points-to-a-third-2022-12


Evidence is actually pretty interesting

It's a good article and, despite some of the science stuff being over my head, I agree there's some interesting stuff there. The testimony from the players is, for sure, worthwhile. I still can't look at the Yankees season though and see much in the way of any sort of outcome that would make a juiced ball a plausible explanation(again, outside of Aaron Judge just generally having a very good season). To use an analogy, it feels like finding a smoking gun but having no dead body. I fully buy that MLB may have used different baseballs in the season, as the article points out they've done that before, but I'm not even sure I see a good hypothetical as to why they'd rig Yankee games specifically.

I mean the good hypothetical is the same reason Selig ignored steroids with Sosa/McGuire...and then Bonds until it became painfully absurd how much his body changed...ratings.  I don't buy he was doing it to help the Yankees win games, but I do certainly buy that MLB would do it to have the story of Judge breaking a record.  Which I think takes nothing away from Judge's season itself. 

[Nik]

I mean the good hypothetical is the same reason Selig ignored steroids with Sosa/McGuire...and then Bonds until it became painfully absurd how much his body changed...ratings.  I don't buy he was doing it to help the Yankees win games, but I do certainly buy that MLB would do it to have the story of Judge breaking a record.  Which I think takes nothing away from Judge's season itself. 

I guess that's where I get back to that suggestion meaning one of two things. Either:

A) MLB used a juiced ball in Yankees games all year, with no real way of knowing Judge was bound to have a big year(and nobody else on the Yankees then had a particularly big HR year)

B) MLB only starting using the juiced balls when it became apparently Judge might have a shot at the record...despite there not seeming to be a big difference in his HR rate in the first and second halves of the season.

So that's where I'm not sure I see the connections. Like, ok, I suppose you could make an argument that absent using the juiced balls in the second half of the season Judge would have fallen off in a similar manner to other guys who have been on record setting paces but even then it should show up with other guys on the team, right? But of the Yankees top 3 non-Judge HR hitters the only one who had good offensive numbers in September was Torres and even then he still didn't have his best HR/PA month of the season.