Baseballs to be deadened this year

[Sour Masher]

Some big news today reported by the Athletic: https://theathletic.com/2375121/2021...all-deadening/

Highlights of the article, courtesy of rotoworld:

According to Eno Sarris and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, MLB is making changes to the baseball for the 2021 season which will reduce offense.
Big news. In addition, five unidentified teams are adding humidors for storage of baseballs, bringing the total to 10 (the Rockies, Red Sox, Diamondbacks, Mets, and Mariners already use them) across the league. The Athletic obtained a memo which was sent to teams last Friday detailing the minor changes. The ball produced by Rawlings will be slightly less bouncy, but the overarching goal of these changes seem to be one of consistency. While this is being pitched as slight alterations, there will surely be some unintended consequences we can't possibly account for right now. Player evaluation was already going to be tough after the shortened 2020 campaign, but this makes it even more difficult.

Really would like to know which five teams are adding humidors this year.

[chancellor]

Really would like to know which five teams are adding humidors this year.

The White Sox must be one of them. LaRussa will need the space to store his Cubanos that he smokes after the games.

[Sour Masher]

The White Sox must be one of them. LaRussa will need the space to store his Cubanos that he smokes after the games.

Ha, kill two birds and all. He is with the right team to get hooked up with those too.

[Gregg]

Some big news today reported by the Athletic: https://theathletic.com/2375121/2021...all-deadening/

Highlights of the article, courtesy of rotoworld:

According to Eno Sarris and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, MLB is making changes to the baseball for the 2021 season which will reduce offense.
Big news. In addition, five unidentified teams are adding humidors for storage of baseballs, bringing the total to 10 (the Rockies, Red Sox, Diamondbacks, Mets, and Mariners already use them) across the league. The Athletic obtained a memo which was sent to teams last Friday detailing the minor changes. The ball produced by Rawlings will be slightly less bouncy, but the overarching goal of these changes seem to be one of consistency. While this is being pitched as slight alterations, there will surely be some unintended consequences we can't possibly account for right now. Player evaluation was already going to be tough after the shortened 2020 campaign, but this makes it even more difficult.

Really would like to know which five teams are adding humidors this year.

Does this mean exit velocity will be more important than ever before?

[joncarlos]

Does this mean exit velocity will be more important than ever before?

I guess so? Go for the guys who hit bombs and avoid the wall scrapers. So I'd start looking at hitters' MaxEV more than their AvgEV, if you weren't already.

So far a lot of the humidor ballparks haven't made a HUGE difference just because the parks themselves are still hitter friendly (BOS, COL) but AZ definitely made a difference and I have no idea what happened in Citi Field or which was a pitchers' park before last year and got more offensive, or Safeco which was a pitchers' park and remained one.

[Todd Zola]

I guess so? Go for the guys who hit bombs and avoid the wall scrapers. So I'd start looking at hitters' MaxEV more than their AvgEV, if you weren't already.

So far a lot of the humidor ballparks haven't made a HUGE difference just because the parks themselves are still hitter friendly (BOS, COL) but AZ definitely made a difference and I have no idea what happened in Citi Field or which was a pitchers' park before last year and got more offensive, or Safeco which was a pitchers' park and remained one.

MaxEV is insignificant, it correlates to nothing. AEV doesn't become more or less important - it's always more important for power than average. Plus, aggregate AEV isn't as telling as breaking it into components (FB, GB, LD etc.). I recently wrote about this, MB subscribers should check it out.

The 2019 ball's changes were in flight, the AEV shouldn't have changed but this change affects the elasticity so AEV should drop.

[Hornsby]

This may be the most important development this off season...more than a few players blamed not being able mto look at take between AB's for their down years.

[Ken]

This may be the most important development this off season...more than a few players blamed not being able mto look at take between AB's for their down years.

Should be pretty simple to look at that objectively - do the stats agree? If that's the case we should see no change in 1st AB stats, and decrease in subsequent ABs for hitters.

[DMT]

This may be the most important development this off season...more than a few players blamed not being able mto look at take between AB's for their down years.

JD Martinez and Javy Baez will be happy...they were two of the biggest critics.

[chancellor]

JD Martinez and Javy Baez will be happy...they were two of the biggest critics.

I think it really got into JDM's head, too.