One Complication for the Slicker-Ball Theory
The thing about the slick-baseball theory is it’s so easy to believe. To review, as quickly as possible: Pitchers believe the World Series baseball is different. Like, the actual baseball itself. They suspected it was kind of different earlier in the playoffs, but now they think it’s more different. It’s different by feeling more slick, more slippery. You can imagine how that could pose a problem. What are pitchers to do if they’re not accustomed to their instrument?
So the idea goes, it’s had a profound effect on sliders in particular. Anecdotally, you can get behind it, because we’ve seen some sliders get hit hard. But the other evidence is even more compelling. There’s the blindfold test. There are pictures. And, simply, there are the pitchers, speaking their minds. Experienced pitchers, who you’d think would know what a baseball feels like more than anyone. This is more than just one or two guys. Tom Verducci spoke to players and coaches from both the Astros and the Dodgers. Why would you doubt what the pitchers have to say? Why would they just make this up?
I don’t think they are making it up. I think pitchers do have a certain sense for things. I’d just like to present a graph.
This theory isn’t universally believed. No theory is universally believed. Major League Baseball has already come out and said there’s no difference in the balls, aside from the different postseason stamp. But that shouldn’t do anything. Of course, MLB has every reason to try to deny something like this, so, perhaps more believably, there’s Rich Hill.
The Dodgers’ Rich Hill, who will oppose Verlander in Game 6 and throws more curveballs than sliders, said he thought the balls felt the same.
“I think they’ve been extremely consistent in the World Series, and also in the playoff games as well,” Hill said, adding that he had not seen any variation in the seams of the ball, or the size. “I think it just has to do with the conditions. If it’s colder, it’s going to be slicker. If it’s a little warmer out or humid, I think you’re going to have a little bit more moisture to the baseballs.”
It’s possible that Hill is outnumbered. Indeed, it seems probable that Hill is outnumbered. We can’t know the opinions of the pitchers who haven’t been asked, or who haven’t shared their thoughts, unsolicited. Hill’s a breaking-ball guy. Seems fastidious. You’d suppose he’d know if something was up, but then the exact same argument goes for Justin Verlander, who has detected something weird. Look, I don’t know. It’s just that the slick-ball theory isn’t unopposed.
But we can look at some other numbers. We can do a little bit of indirect research. Pitchers will tell you what they think. There are two ways for them to share their thoughts. There is, of course, the spoken way. Providing background, or going on record. Several pitchers have opted for the spoken way. That’s how Verducci composed his whole article. But then there’s also on-field strategy. When the games are played, and especially when they’re as important as the World Series is, players won’t lie to you. They’ll perform in the way they think will maximize their chances of winning. So this actually makes things really easy. There’s a theory that the baseball is different, affecting sliders in particular. If sliders are worse, it stands to reason pitchers would throw them less often. Have pitchers changed how they’re pitching?
I grabbed data from Brooks Baseball, using the classifications of pitches as hard, breaking, or offspeed. I looked at the World Series, I looked at the first two rounds of the playoffs, and I looked at the final month of the regular season. And for all these splits, I examined the 16 pitchers who have thrown at least 40 pitches in the World Series so far. On the low end, there are Tony Cingrani and Ken Giles, with 41 pitches. At the upper end, there’s Clayton Kershaw, with 177. I calculated the weighted-average pitch frequencies, for all three time periods. Here’s what came out.
There’s just — there’s not really much of anything there. The rate of hard pitches has gone from 63% to 62% to 64%. The rate of breaking balls in the World Series is down three percentage points from the first two rounds, but it’s an exact match for the rate of breaking balls in the final stretch of the regular season. There’s not much going on with offspeed pitches. Based on their words, some of the pitchers have indicated that their arsenals have been weakened. Based on how pitchers have pitched, it doesn’t look like they’ve lost faith in their breaking stuff.
Now, it’s worth remembering that every pitcher is different, and so every pitcher might be differently sensitive. Brad Peacock, for example, broke out this year in large part because of his slider, but in the World Series he’s mostly left his slider on the shelf. On the other hand, Kershaw has thrown a higher rate of breaking balls in his two starts. As mediocre as his slider seemed in Game 5, it was great in Game 1. Game 1 of the World Series involved World Series baseballs.
Another point is that, well, perhaps it’s not that breaking balls are most affected. Maybe all pitches are kind of equally affected. In which case, you wouldn’t see changes in frequencies, because, what would be the purpose? Might as well pitch like normal and hope for the best.
There’s one last possibility, as I see it: Maybe pitchers are stubborn. Maybe they’ve believed their breaking balls are worse, but they’ve forced them anyway, pitching against their own best interests. I’m disinclined to believe this explanation, but I should put it out there, in any case. Who knows? No one wants to have to pitch without their breaking balls. You try to make them happen. You try, and you cross your fingers.
I don’t think it’s all necessarily connected to how World Series offense has been up. Pitchers might complain no matter what. But the theory’s more resonant with the balls we’ve all seen flying out of the yard. To which I’d respond, these are the two best offensive teams in the playoffs. The Astros are one of the better offensive teams in history. We know that the Crawford Boxes in Minute Maid Park allow for some silly home runs. And the game-time temperature for Game 1 in Los Angeles was 103 degrees. The game-time temperature for Game 2 was 93. Balls carry when it’s hot. In the World Series, compared to the first two rounds, the Dodger lineup’s strikeout rate is slightly up, and its walk rate is down. The Astros lineup’s strikeout rate is the same, and its walk rate is down. Turn a few weak home runs into doubles or outs and suddenly this looks like a regular series.
There’s nothing I think is strongly conclusive either way. I can’t in good conscience dismiss what pitchers are saying about how the ball feels, but then, they’re not all saying it. The hitting in the World Series has been mostly normal, overall, and pitchers, as a group, haven’t meaningfully altered their pitch frequencies. It’s complicated, and presently unknowable, and this is more of a bad thing for baseball, given there were already other concerns about how the ball has been playing. Baseball could stand to be a lot more transparent. But as for the World Series ball, specifically: I just don’t know. Nothing’s quite as certain as it seems.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
Gaylord Perry wouldn’t mind the World Series ball.
What? Nothing conclusive? EVERYTHING is ALWAYS conclusive! The fact that Game 5 was 13-12 is PROOF that slick BALLS are RUINING the World Series. Without slick balls those cheap Puig and Cornea home runs would have been nothing but dribblers down the third base line
this feels like prime content for StVtFaB
You’re right:
What? Nothing at all in the end! The current game 5 is 13-12 while the PROOF gets smoothly the world series BALLS RUINING. Without the lean balls of Puig and the cheap Cornea, the dribblers would descend the third baseline.
This was so good, I had to take this back through French to Vietnamese to Serbian:
What? Nothing in the end! The current game 5 is 13-12 while PROOF runs the world series BALLS RUINING. Without cheap poker tournaments Puig and Cornea, racers will go to third base.
This is what? There is nothing of interest. The fact that five match proof ball Cup 13-12 ruins are smooth. If there are no balls in an unpleasant, Bofty House Puig and Vivid just leave a third main line
That actually makes more sense than the original for once.
You really have to give it to Carlo Cornea, he is a damn fine hitter. His teammates like Greg Spinner and Joe Altitude are really putting up some clutch performances also.
Are you accusing Jose of lacking altitude?
Compared to Jason Lavender, Even Gratis, Ft. Worth Ketchup and even Joseph Redneck, absolutely.
“Ft. Worth Ketchup” hahahaha
The thing I really love about Cornea is, he never takes his eye off the ball.
It would seem to me, that if ball tracking along the balls entire trajectory of a pitch is precise enough one could analyze the path length of that trajectory and evaluate whether there was a demonstrable difference in ‘break’ during the flight of balls of different manufacturer.
This was done in another article at this site a couple of days ago. Several pitchers, including Darvish, Peacock and Jansen, had different movement on their breaking balls, generally less movement in one plane or vector (horizontal or vertical) and more in the other, relative to the regular season. The question is whether the differences in such a small sample size are significant.
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/mlb-might-have-another-new-ball-and-controversy/
Another issue is that the available data don’t show a lot of change in spin rate, WS vs. regular season. As Alan Nathan pointed out, if spin rate doesn’t change, one would think that the spin axis, which determines the amount of “useful” movement (horizontal and vertical vectors), would also not change. IOW, if a slipperier ball is interfering with the pitcher’s normal grip, one would expect primarily less spin, and secondarily a change in the position of the pitcher’s hand relative to the ball (which should determine orientation of the spin axis, and thus the relative amounts of horizontal and vertical movement).
I’m thinking about actual digital rectification of the curve traced by the balls trajectory. As I recall the only requirement is the curve be ‘smooth’ and ‘finite’. It would seem to only demand the trajectory be of sufficient precision. One would think there is either sufficient data or baseballs already available. But it would be interesting to control such an experiment using a pitching machine. The only assumption, I think, is that if a ball breaks’ more, it follows a longer trajectory.
While we’re, as it were, spitballing: I’ve seen less than I expected to see of speculation about variation in the balls’ preparation. What if it wasn’t (or wasn’t just) the climatic conditions that changed between LA and Houston, but something about the way the balls were mudded and rubbed up pre-game at the two ballparks?
I don’t really see the point of this article. The consensus seems to be that the slick ball is affecting the slider, not all breaking balls. Lumping all breaking balls together is useless. Hill doesn’t throw a slider, neither does McCullers. Verlander, Giles, Peacock, Kershaw, Darvish, and to a lesser degree, Jansen all throw sliders and all have had less success with their sliders in the WS. I’d like to see a pitch value comparison between each pitch type for the end of season, early round post season, and world series.
You may want to check your facts. Jansen throws a cutter, with a four-seam fastball grip, not a slider. All of those pitchers you mentioned as not featuring a slider often, actually feature the slider heavily. All of them threw sliders at least 20% of the time during the regular season: Verlander (21%), Giles (47%), Peacock (38%), Kershaw (35%), and Darvish (25%).
Jeff’s methodology is only an issue if pitchers are replacing sliders exclusively with curveballs, rather than the easier-to-grip fastball or change-up. If pitchers are replacing sliders with something other than curveballs exclusively, then there would still be a significant drop in the frequency of all breaking balls.
Jansen’s secondary pitch is a slider which he throws infrequently but always in 2 strike counts and it almost always makes hitters look ridiculous.
Alex Bregman hit one a mile because it didn’t break at all.
Also, most pitchers use a similar grip to a slider to throw a cutter, and it is the other pitch that depends largely on the grip to impart the spin (there’s no twisting of the wrist to add spin like with a curveball).
Jansen throws a four-seam fastball with natural cut. That’s his cut fastball. I’m not sure how most pitchers grip a cutter, but Jansen grips his a lot like a four-seamer. Kenley Jansen without a slider is not much different than Kenley Jansen with a slider, so the claim that his inability to throw an effective slider is knocking him off his game doesn’t pass the smell test for me.
Not sure about your reading comprehension. I mentioned all of them BECAUSE they throw a lot of sliders and I specifically said “and to a LESSER DEGREE” Jansen. Jansen DOES throw a slider, just not often (“to a lesser degree”). His slider is what Bregman homered off of in game 4, which showed its ineffectiveness. I really don’t see what’s so hard to understand.
And I don’t think any of the pitchers (except for Peacock) have gone away from their sliders, the point is that they have been bad. Darvish threw a lot, and got hammered on almost all of them. Kershaw couldn’t throw strikes with his. Giles couldn’t throw strikes with his. Peacock stopped throwing his.
“Hill doesn’t throw a slider, neither does McCullers. Verlander, Giles, Peacock, Kershaw, Darvish,”
That looks more like a failure of written communication than one of reading comprehension if what you were trying to say is that those pitchers throw a lot of sliders. And McCullers relies primarily on his curveball, not a slider, so none of this sentence makes a lick of sense.
Most of the time pitchers stop throwing a pitch if they can’t command it. They don’t continue throwing it up there to be hammered. I think that was part of the point Jeff was making.
My mistake. For some reason, I was seeing the period between McCullers and Verlander as a comma.
I was a bat boy for a few games at the triple-A level. The first game I worked, I learned about rubbing mud on baseballs to get them game-ready. It was a pain and we were maybe a bit lackadaisical in the process. Advance to the top of the first, and our starting pitcher is really struggling. He blames the condition of the baseballs, and the bat boys have to go back and re-apply the mud. I didn’t work too many games after that. I don’t know who prepares the balls at the major league level but I could certainly believe that sometimes the balls are more slick based on how well the mud is applied. And this could certainly influence one team or pitcher more than another.
Don’t they get the mud from one special place, I think it’s in Pennsylvania or Delaware? Maybe they had to switch to a different source.
Delaware is out of mud? Damn…
“There’s one last possibility, as I see it: Maybe pitchers are stubborn. Maybe they’ve believed their breaking balls are worse, but they’ve forced them anyway, pitching against their own best interests. I’m disinclined to believe this explanation, but I should put it out there, in any case. Who knows? No one wants to have to pitch without their breaking balls. You try to make them happen. You try, and you cross your fingers.”
You don’t think this is very likely? I mean, let’s take another example. The strikezone in Game 5 was a joke. And it was very apparent an inning or two in that it was going to be a joke, and for both teams. Hitters still took the pitches that they believed were strikes, because that’s what they practice doing all year long.
This is a very flawed analogy, admittedly. But wouldn’t it be a little late (say, inning 2 of your start) to suddenly deviate from your plan? Especially if you have no other alternative — if you’re Kershaw, you’re not really in a position to just eliminate your slider. You just have to believe that you’re Clayton Kershaw and you are more powerful than a stupid ball.
“Nothing’s quite as certain as it SEEMS.”
What are you trying to say, Jeff???
Is the idea that there’s some sort of ball-juicing supervillain out there whose evil plan is threatening the integrity of the October Classic?
Because otherwise, this doesn’t make any sense. Why would MLB throw a new ball into play for the World Series when they likely have no solid prediction of its real-world results? There’s just no way that this theoretical conspiracy could be doing extensive testing on their new balls without the world finding out about it. And yet they’re just going to drop one onto the game’s biggest stage and hope it goes well?
I know MLB don’t seem to be the brightest bulbs in the bag most of the time, but this is excessive.
They are neither the brightest bulbs in the bag nor the sharpest tools in the outhouse. Manfred may even be a few bricks short of an atrium. Like the lights are on and nobody is cold.
2 things…
1st off- heard Buster Olney a few minutes ago. He was saying the batting average vs sliders in the world series is only like .167. Or about 50 points lower than in the regular season…. Is this accurate?
2nd off- if the ball were slick, wouldn’t we be seeing way more throwing errors? Had 6 errors in the series so far.
Even if Buster’s accurate, it doesn’t matter because of sample size. You’d probably be better off looking at things that stabilize faster, like exit velocity.
As for throwing errors, I think slick is still a far cry from slippery. Golf balls and pool balls are slick but you could still play a game of catch with them with no difficulty.
Four points:
1) MLB baseballs are inherently variable. They can legally vary by up to a quarter of an ounce (5.00-5.25) and a quarter of an inch in circumference (9.00-9.25). Pitchers may notice those differences. Other real changes in “feel” can be caused by temperature, humidity, how the balls were rubbed down, etc. Simply knowing that the ball CAN vary makes them more likely to feel a difference of any kind, whether or not one exists.
2) World Series conditions are objectively different in many ways. The ball has a WS logo, as do the uniforms. Pregame routines are different. Pitchers are used in unaccustomed roles. All of this raises suggestibility about other conditions.
3) All ballplayers, but especially pitchers, are geared to draw meaning from small samples. “This batter did that when I threw those pitches in this sequence the last time” — all of that MEANS something to them, even though randomness hangs over every result. They have to see a REASON for whatever happens. If they go through a week where homers fly at a record pace, they’ll look for a reason — even though nothing in this Series would ring alarm bells if it were just a week in the regular season.
4) Sports teams engage in groupthink, consciously and unconsciously. It’s a natural part of team-building.
I honestly think that if you took one team’s pitchers and fed them a phony story about finding some subtle change in their conditions — say, the mound had been lowered by one inch — several would not only believe it, but would say they had noticed the change and were affected by it.
… And if you told the other team’s pitchers the mound had been raised by an inch, you’d get the same reaction. It’s just how they’re wired.
Of course, it’s possible that the WS balls are truly different. But if you treat every such story as mere noise, you’ll be right much more often than not.
I feel like looking at spin rates would have been the better approach here. At this point of the season, pitchers have their approaches, and changing just because the ball is slightly uncomfortable would seem to be a recipe for disaster.
As you mentioned, these pitchers know the feel of a baseball better than anybody, so it could be possible that there is a very slight difference the we (or someone as blistered as Rich Hill) wouldn’t notice. So they can get a grip to throw the BBs and Offspeed, but are finding it difficult to get the same bite as they previously had.
Maybe over a season they would change their approach to the slicker ball, but for 7 games in the WS, you’re not going against what got you there.
The simplest experiment is to look at whiff rates and control for sliders in this series. When you look at Verlander, Kershaw, Keuchel, and Darvish, you’ll see all have had the same problems.