MLB launches investigation to see if 2017 balls were juiced

[bkox]

MLB is determined to find out if baseballs were 'juiced' in 2017

As Ive said before... I believe there was some change to the baseball. It will be interesting to see if they find anything.

To me though, whats more interesting, is what if they do find something? Will they correct it? Will Giancarlo Stanton be just as valuable hitting 40HRs as he is hitting 59? Will we swing back to the pitching dominated league we saw a few years ago? And how does that affect teams as they try to plan for the future.

[zambonir]

Interesting. It's always been weird to me that baseball treats its record book and history as sacrosanct when there's never actually consistency, whether you are talking length of season, different ballparks or raising the mound, to say nothing of bats, balls and both legal and illegal substances (in terms of both equipment and "nutrition").

So yeah, what if they find out the balls are a little zippier, do they just say, "hey that was a fun season, let's keep it that way!"? It didn't affect the results of games, just favored offense over defense.

It also seems just as likely to me that they are not juiced, that this is a purely reactive, strategic and sabremetric development. No one is being coached to hit ground balls anymore and everyone is willing to either strike out or hit a home run and that's also a result many power relievers get. Things will eventually change again. I like a 2-1 pitchers duel as much as anyone but I'll take the postseason we had over games defined by strikeouts and the shift.

[andyb]

Even if the balls on average are found to be more lively (which I think they are), I don't think it changes much how you would value most players. Obviously there may be a few with warning track power that get helped disproportionately, but the more important WAR (win shares above replacement) calculations would not change much. We would just evaluate traditional stats differently. Take away 50 points of OPS or ERA to compare to non-lively ball years. Or something like that.

[zambonir]

I mean, arguably the evaulation adjustment was already happening. Stanton is still Stanton if it turns out he can only hit 45 home runs. And a guy like Tommy Joseph is already being valued like a guy who can only hit 15.

[allentown]

And a guy like Tommy Joseph is already being valued like a guy who can only hit 15

And Galvis like a guy who can only hit 10-12. The most interesting valuation will be Hoskins, if he starts next season as he ended this year. He seems a legit 50 HR guy. Both Hoskins and Stanton have that huge OPS -- close to .400 in the case of Hoskins.

[zambonir]

For sure, Freddy's value as a "good fielder with pop" is suspect. Even more so since the supposed juiced balls didn't help him (he hit 20 last year).

I don't believe Hoskins' value is a given. RH 1B/LF only power is not a super-scarce resource. But obviously we've got two years to find out and a long time before you have to pay anything for it. And while they are obviously related, that .400 OBP (which is what you meant) is something that could be sustained at a good level even as the SLG drops. His OPS in September/October was "just" .897 after the superhuman start (1.149 in August), but the OBP was the roughly the same.

[VoteForKalas]

Doesn't MLB control who makes and how the balls are made?

This seems like MLB investigating itself, are we going to be shocked when no wrongdoing is found?

[zambonir]

But, that's also the problem with conspiracies isn't it? Who would have decided to juice the balls? The commisioner? All of the owners in a meeting? A secret pact between one person in the MLB office and one person at Rawlings? Or maybe a player agent paid off one foreman in Costa Rica. If there is any outcome to the investigation, it will be called a manufacturing error.