I have suspected that MLB has played around a bit with God like things, such as suppressing the baseball on one of the teams, which would greater favor the other team. In this age when all the leagues have gotten into bed with gambling outlets, it would be such a strong temptation to manipulate the score of a baseball game, and by doing so, making a ton of illegal money. The fact there are different balls out there makes this a real possibility. I don't think there is anything in place that would prevent something like this. A scary thought.....
In the early review, Albert Pujols saw a higher incidence of the juiced balls while he was chasing 700 home runs in that 2022 season, but I don't think the sample size was large enough to say for sure they were feeding him juiced balls. Like, it was higher than average but not high enough or statistically valid enough to know for sure.
And regarding your comment last night on X, when you look at others sports, the players even have the opportunity to inspect the game balls and, if they feel the smallest irregular thing, an odd bounce or whatever, they can change the ball.
I can just think of the LeBron outburst on social media if the commissioner tried to change something in the game balls mid season, or without the teams knowing.
Just from watching the games, I did not expect these numbers to be better than 2023. In fact, just by watching so many Olson hard hit balls have stayed in the wall, and the fact that the Braves HRs (outside of Murphy's savage HRs, Riley's mammoths, and now Acuña's) have not seemed as impressive or loud as 2023's, I believed the Braves numbers were going to be more affected by these changes. I'm surprised.
Being honest, when I went into this, I expected that too. I reached out to somebody to try and get my hands on an industry model where I can plug in some of Atlanta's early outs and see if they would change into hits and how that would impact the offense, but I don't have that yet.
Great article, Crosby!!
I have suspected that MLB has played around a bit with God like things, such as suppressing the baseball on one of the teams, which would greater favor the other team. In this age when all the leagues have gotten into bed with gambling outlets, it would be such a strong temptation to manipulate the score of a baseball game, and by doing so, making a ton of illegal money. The fact there are different balls out there makes this a real possibility. I don't think there is anything in place that would prevent something like this. A scary thought.....
In the early review, Albert Pujols saw a higher incidence of the juiced balls while he was chasing 700 home runs in that 2022 season, but I don't think the sample size was large enough to say for sure they were feeding him juiced balls. Like, it was higher than average but not high enough or statistically valid enough to know for sure.
And regarding your comment last night on X, when you look at others sports, the players even have the opportunity to inspect the game balls and, if they feel the smallest irregular thing, an odd bounce or whatever, they can change the ball.
I can just think of the LeBron outburst on social media if the commissioner tried to change something in the game balls mid season, or without the teams knowing.
Only in baseball.
Just from watching the games, I did not expect these numbers to be better than 2023. In fact, just by watching so many Olson hard hit balls have stayed in the wall, and the fact that the Braves HRs (outside of Murphy's savage HRs, Riley's mammoths, and now Acuña's) have not seemed as impressive or loud as 2023's, I believed the Braves numbers were going to be more affected by these changes. I'm surprised.
Great analysis.
Being honest, when I went into this, I expected that too. I reached out to somebody to try and get my hands on an industry model where I can plug in some of Atlanta's early outs and see if they would change into hits and how that would impact the offense, but I don't have that yet.
Man! Are your days 48hrs long? When do you do all of this reasearch?
I got 16 total hours of sleep across Friday-Sunday nights, so that's what happened. Needed a nap yesterday and probably another one today, as well.