Episode 1781: Hidden Balls Trick

Summary[]

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about listener responses to their earlier conversation about the proper pluralization of "hit by pitch," then (11:41) bring on Bradford William Davis and Dr. Meredith Wills to discuss the reporting and research that revealed that two types of baseballs were used during the 2021 MLB regular season, as well as the differences between balls, players' and teams' reactions to the news, whether MLB's ball problems stem from incompetence or conspiracy, how the league could improve its messaging and production process, the outlook for offense next year, the ball's impact on gambling and the labor situation, and more.

Topics[]

Interview with Bradford William Davis and Dr. Meredith Wills on their discovery of the multiple ball models in use during the 2021 season
Where the variation comes from
How to control ball liveliness in manufacturing
How the balls were tested at manufacture
MLB's admission that there were two balls and their explanation why
Batch codes showing that MLB's story doesn't add up
Player reactions to discovery
Ball controversy in the NBA in 2006
Front office and agent reactions to the discovery
Likelihood that balls had changed in the past, but we didn't have the technology to detect it
Stumbling on the idea that the ball design had changed
Is this an MLB conspiracy or merely incompetence?
What benefit does MLB gain from this?
Impact on gambling and player earnings
What ball will be used in the 2022 season?
Recommendations for the best way forward
Final notes: Episode 1780 follow-up: Other thoughts on how much Wander Franco would make on the open market.

Banter[]

Buck O'Neil and Minnie Miñoso among new inductees to the Hall of Fame, more to come in the next episode
Episode 1780 follow-up: Listener suggestions for plural of "hit by pitch": hits by pitch, hit by pitches, hits by pitches, hit batsmen, bases on hit by pitch.

Notes[]

The SABR style guide says that the plural of hit-by-pitch is hit-by-pitches. Meg: "I think we over-hyphenate as a culture."
Meredith explains that the ball covering is hand-stitched, which is naturally going to vary, but the core is machine-wound and machine-measured, so differences there are more likely to be intentional. A looser-wound core will absorb more energy from the bat and travel less.
Meredith says that Rawlings tested the balls by dropping them and seeing how high they bounced. They didn't test springiness off the bat, and they didn't vary humidity. Wool is sensitive to humidity. In low humidity (summer conditions), wool shrinks and results in a less dense core.
When Bradford asked MLB about Meredith's discovery, MLB admitted that there were indeed two balls. Their explanation that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they couldn't produce enough new balls, so they also used leftover balls with the old design.
Meredith used the batch codes on the balls to determine that MLB continued to produce balls under the old design. They produced balls with the new design for a few months, then switched to the old design for a few months, and so on.
Meredith has baseballs going back 20 years, and she found no evidence that the ball design had changed in the past.
Meredith was looking at baseballs in 2020 and couldn't make sense of the outliers. A friend suggested that maybe the outlier balls were being built to a different spec. That's when she discovered that the outliers were consistent with each other, and what she had was a new ball design. Nobody had even considered this as a possibility before.
Bradford can't think of a way changing the ball could end up good for MLB. It undermines confidence and competitive integrity.
Bradford's best-case scenario is that MLB just wanted to see which ball works better.
Bradford thinks MLB should have been transparent and said, "There were supply chain problems" or even "It's hard to make the ball consistent."
Taiwan's baseball league, the CPBL, changed the ball and not only announced that the new ball would be deader, but they provided quantitative details on what they changed.

Episode 1781: Hidden Balls Trick

Summary[]

Topics[]

Banter[]

Notes[]

Links[]

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