MLB Might Have Another New Ball and Controversy
HOUSTON — The investigative team of Ben Lindbergh, Rob Arthur and Alan Nathan might have to get back to work. Not only has the ball played differently since 2015 when it became livelier, now the World Series ball is playing differently players told Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci.
“Lance McCullers took the blindfold test in the bullpen,” said Charlie Morton, Houston’s Game 4 starter, referring to another Astros pitcher. “He could tell which ball was which with his eyes closed. It’s that different.”
Said Houston pitcher Justin Verlander, “The World Series ball is slicker. No doubt. I’m telling you, we’re in here signing [World Series] balls before the game, and it’s hard to get the ink on the ball sometimes. You know when you sign a receipt at Starbucks, and if you don’t hold the paper down with your hand, the pen just slides across the paper and the ink doesn’t stick to it? That’s what it’s like sometimes trying to sign these balls. That’s how slick the leather is.
A slick ball is thought to negatively impact the slider more than other pitches since there is more contact between the grip hand and the surface of the ball. In throwing curveballs, for instance, pitchers typically dig into a seam.
Perhaps it is this slicker ball that led to, or played a role in, Darvish’s struggles with the slider in Game 3. Perhaps it is the latest new ball that explains some of Ken Giles’ on-going issues, and Brad Peacock’s decision to shelve his often-used slider in Game 3.
Moving forward in the series, a slicker ball would appear to be more of an issue for the Astros, which threw the fifth highest rate of sliders in the majors (20%), while the Dodgers ranked 18th (15.5%). But Game 5 starter Clayton Kershaw threw his slider at a career-high rate of 34.9% in the regular season, while Astros starter Dallas Keuchel relies less upon his breaking ball. More intrigue!
So is there a measurable change?
Let’s start with Kershaw. According to Brooks Baseball data, which I will use in this post, Kershaw’s slider averaged 5.68 inches of vertical movement and -2.06 inches of horizontal movement in the regular season. In his World Series Game 1 start? It averaged 5.99 inches and -1.46 inches, respectively. Kershaw did not shy away from the pitch in Game 1, he threw 32 sliders among his 83 pitches overall. The pitch generated six swings and misses and five balls in play, which averaged 81.1 mph in exit velocity, the weakest contact among his pitches according to Baseball Savant data.
And Yu Darvish, who struggled in Game 3, and who throws a slider on about a quarter of his offering (24% in the regular season)?
Darvish lost his slider in Game 3. He threw 14 of them and none generated a whiff. The pitch seemed to flatten and stay up in the zone.
Said Darvish to Sports Illustrated: “I had trouble with the ball throwing a slider. It was slicker.”
Darvish’s slider average 9.12 inches of horizontal movement in the regular season. In Game 3? 8.23 inches. Darvish’s vertical movement on his slider had been changing each month since joining the Dodgers, reaching -0.24 vertical in September. In the World Series? 0.30 inches. Really, not too much change as far as movement, but there were perhaps mechanics matters, and feel, at play in his poor Game 3 start.
Another slider-heavy pitcher who has struggled in the Series? Ken Giles.
Said Giles to reporters after his Game 4 ninth-inning blow up: “They were all crappy pitches.”
That is candid and concise. And Giles was fastball-heavy in Game 4:
In the World Series, Giles has had 1.89 inches of vertical movement on his slider. In the regular season? 1.07 inches. In the World Series, Giles has had -0.88 inches of horizontal movement. In the regular season? -0.03. Giles’ slider is not notable for its movement, rather for its velocity (87.3 mph). But the pitch is moving slightly differently in the postseason.
What is perhaps more notable with Giles is that his location has faltered and his velocity is down a full mph in the World Series.
Another slider-heavy Astros reliever, Peacock, abandoned the pitch in his tandem, piggy-back outing in Game 3.
Peacock’s slider averaged 5.86 inches of horizontal of movement in the regular season and the pitch has averaged 4.52 inches of vertical movement in the World Series, albeit a small sample of nine pitches.
The pitch averaged 3.61 inches of vertical movement in the regular season, and 5.72 inches of movement in the World Series.
Again, a really small sample, but Peacock’s slider is performing dramatically different, and Peacock abandoned it for a reason.
Kenley Jansen has inexplicably allowed runs and home runs in two World Series appearances. Jansen’s cutter averaged 9.37 inches of vertical movement and 3.25 inches of horizontal movement in the regular season. In the World Series? Jansen’s vertical movement has dropped to 8.99 inches and his horizontal movement has increased to 3.77
Jansen’s slider averaged -1.14 inches of vertical movement (-1.39 in the regular season) and 4.19 inches of horizontal movement in the World Series (3.21 inches of movement in regular season).
From a spin-rate perspective, it’s tough to identify anything meaningful in the following chart:
| Player | Reg. season sliders | Avg. RPM regular season | WS sliders | Avg. RPM World Series |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brad Peacock | 589 | 2660 | 9 | 2624 |
| Justin Verlander | 759 | 2526 | 16 | 2649 |
| Joe Musgrove | 456 | 2484 | 3 | 2562 |
| Ken Giles | 436 | 2402 | 12 | 2392 |
| Kenta Maeda | 480 | 2401 | 12 | 2502 |
| Ross Stripling | 394 | 2347 | 9 | 2333 |
| Dodgers as team | 3190 | 2415 | 91 | 2508 |
| Astros as team | 4332 | 2439 | 62 | 2473 |
There’s already been much controversy since the second half of the 2015 regarding whether the ball is juiced, regarding the manufacturing standards and procedures of Rawlings and Major League Baseball. Now those questions are raised again. There seems to be enough smoke and testimonials to suspect the ball is different. Perhaps baseball needs to get together with Rawling and build a better ball.
After all, the World Series is not the time to be adding a new kind of variable — a new kind of ball.
A Cleveland native, FanGraphs writer Travis Sawchik is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, Big Data Baseball. He also contributes to The Athletic Cleveland, and has written for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, among other outlets. Follow him on Twitter @Travis_Sawchik.
Given that some pitchers have seen a decrease, and some an increase, in the amount of movement, in either dimension, I’d like to see some control data, e.g., comparison of regular season movement and postseason movement in 2016. Maybe changes like these are quite common in small sample sizes.
Also, assuming the ball is different, when exactly are people claiming it became different? Just for the WS this year? How did the pitchers take a blindfold test? Where did they get a ball that was not slicker, if that’s all that’s being used now?
This type of “research” is never going to be conclusive. It is just a headline and an interesting idea to think about.
Did you read the Verducci article referenced above? Some of your questions are answered there.
They make different balls for each postseason stage. You can see the Logos and insignia marked on the game balls for posterity
From the vertical and horizontal figures given, one can calculate the actual amount of movement of the ball, i.e., the distance it curves (RS vs. WS):
Peacock slider: 6.88 vs. 7.29 in.
Jansen cutter: 9.92 vs. 9.75 in.
Jansen slider: 4.34 vs. 3.50 in.
Except for Jansen’s slider (and even then only in terms of % change), the difference doesn’t seem very great, but in all three cases, the horizontal movement increases at the expense of the vertical movement, IOW, it seems they’re throwing more sidearm.
Ill note that the pitch Bregman hit for the home run was Kenley Jansen’s slider that didn’t break at allllll
Both HR that Jansen gave up were middle-middle I believe. I know the first one was. There isn’t a pitch in the world that can’t get hit a mile if its in the wrong location.
Ever think it was in the wrong location because the pitcher’s control over the ball was different?
The pitch to Bregman was on the outside edge
I’d be interested to see if there was a difference in how the ball was performing in different conditions. For example, in LA it was absurdly hot, and the pitchers were dripping sweat. Maybe the extra moisture was helping make the ball easier to grip. One factor that Alan Nathan has previously analyzed is that there are issues with the ball being too slick in Arizona where the humidity is so low, and that is one of the reasons the Astros want to install the humidor, since their park ends up a low humidity, but temperature-controlled (with the roof closed) environment. Pitchers have reported issues with pitch grip at Chase due to the extreme dryness of the ball.
There could also be differences in how the Astros and Dodgers are storing the ball. We heard nothing about this in the two LA games but see some substantial things (like Darvish’s problems and Peacock actively avoiding his best pitch on purpose) at Houston.
which may make the difference come Tue/Wed in LA where the weather is supposed to be back to normal with temps right around 70 instead of the mid-upper 90’s.
For a slider, if the spin rate hasn’t changed, on average, but the movement has changed, then the issue is with the spin axis. Presumably less movement means less of the spin is useful spin and more of it is gyrospin. While it is possible that the spin axis might be affected by the slickness of the surface of the ball, I would have guessed that the spin rate would more affected. Just tossing that out there for everyone to consider.
I know there has been research into issues with the humidity of the ball and the gripping of the ball, especially in Arizona. Is it possible that the different conditions at each park has made this more of an issue in Houston than it was in Los Angeles? I would imagine it was much easier to rub up the ball on the spot in LA when it was 100 degrees and pitchers were pouring sweat to use to rub with the dirt, than in a temperature-controlled, roofed Minute Maid.
From the numbers given in this article, we know that both the vertical and horizontal components of movement have been affected, though it remains to be seen whether the changes are significant. But these both correspond to useful components of spin, with the axis changing its position in a plane that the pitcher faces (like the plane commonly shown as the batter’s strike zone). To affect gyrospin or non-useful spin, the axis would have to move out of this plane and in the direction of a plane parallel to the ground or field.
Hypothetically, if the spin rate is unchanged, but the total movement (square root of the sum of the vertical movement squared + horizontal movement squared) is reduced, I would assume that some of that spin must be gyrospin, with a component of the spin axis now moving into that plane parallel to the ground?
I think that’s what I said, albeit with less detail.
I see a table in this post titled, “How are the Slicker Balls Spinning?”
Senator, have you stopped beating your wife?
Travis, were you not one of the authors pointing to a lack of evidence for juiced baseballs earlier this year? I am not sure if you were, but I though you were. At one point the majority of authors here were making that claim to the tune of a conspiracy theory. Nobody ever talks about the baseball cores – that is where the most significant manipulation can take place.
Why would MLB care to fix anything? They are not the ones playing the games, but they do get to profit from extraordinary results. MLB demonstrates a lack of respect for history as they inflate offense and change the game. They act in their own interests – MLB is just their company and they are selling new features and increased specs, like a new iPhone.
Is that the same history that saw fit to move out of the dead ball era, probably the greatest transformation in the history of the sport?
I think that guy’s point is fair. The fact that the game has changed before doesn’t mean all subsequent changes are therefore appropriate or good for the game.
He’s right, just because there are some that can only pay attention for home runs, does not mean any change that brings more scoring is positive. Those same people will later lose interest in homeruns as well when ever single player who plays 145 games has 20-30 of them.
“Let’s start with Kershaw. According to Brooks Baseball data, which I will use in this post, Kershaw’s slider averaged 5.68 inches of vertical movement and -2.06 inches of horizontal movement in the regular season. In his World Series Game 1 start? It averaged 5.99 inches and -1.46 inches, respectively. Kershaw did not shy away from the pitch in Game 1, he threw 32 sliders among his 83 pitches overall. The pitch generated six swings and misses and five balls in play, which averaged 81.1 mph in exit velocity, the weakest contact among his pitches according to Baseball Savant data.”
Why on earth would you report these numbers this way, without doing any significance testing? This is impossible to interpret. It is not difficult to run a T-test.
To me it’s just tough watching so many homeruns on pitches where it is clear that the hitter was fooled, and is expecting a flyout to the warning track and these balls are making it over the fence. Not to mention the extra ridiculous porch in Houston. Baseball should be ashamed as it’s turning this game in to a slow-pitch softball league.
Could the issue be that they are not rubbing the baseballs enough or correctly before the game? Or that the factory is using a different, more resilient sheen compound? They all come from the same factory, and I can’t see either side courting controversy by changing the ball at this stage of the season. My guess is that someone wants the ball to look pretty and shiny for the cameras and isn’t de-sheening them enough.
If there has indeed been a change to the ball, Manfred’s consistent denials are going to come under huge scrutiny.