MLB has to address the “juiced-ball” elephant in the room

Major League Baseball needs to address the obvious elephant in the room — the ball is juiced.

Scooter Gennett has a four-homer game under his belt. Brett Gardner will hit the All-Star break on pace for 30 home runs despite never hitting more than 17 in a full season. Yonder Alonso has hit more home runs this season than he did in the three previous seasons combined and is slugging over 150 points higher than his career average. Logan Morrison is on pace to make a run at 50 home runs this year despite slugging .396 combined in 2015 and 2016. In the Bronx, Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez have topped records held by Babe Ruth in back-to-back years.

It doesn’t take an advanced physics degree and an ability to sift through mountains of data to come to the logical conclusion that something is up in Major League Baseball. In the Statcast Era, balls are flying farther and out of the park more often than ever before. MLB’s offices in New York City would love all of us to believe that the spike in dingers is the result of hitters paying more attention the angle of the swing and the trajectory of their contact (which is a very convenient angle when the league is shoving its Statcast data down our throats in every broadcast).

Despite not one, but two studies that indicate the baseballs in play this year are wound tighter and have smaller seams than in the past, MLB continues to deny, deny, deny that the baseballs are to blame for the surge in home runs and the soaring ERAs around the league.

"“The baseball in use today tests well within the established guidelines on every key performance metric. Furthermore, there is no evidence that the composition of the ball has changed in any way that would lead to a meaningful impact on on-field play.”"

We are now going on two years of suspicious baseballs, and Ben Lindbergh of The Ringer and Rob Arthur of FiveThirtyEight have continued to chronicle the juiciness of the rawhide. The spike in home runs is dramatic and obvious. People are starting to talk, and not just writers and analysts. Pitchers are starting to notice, and the lower seams on the baseball have been blamed by multiple pitchers for their blister issues.

Marcus Stroman of the Toronto Blue Jays was forced to leave a recent start with a blister. Teammate Aaron Sanchez, who led the AL in ERA last year, has been on the DL most of the year with his own blisters. Rich Hill of the Los Angeles Dodgers has hardly been without a blister in over two years. Noah Syndergaard left early on Opening Day with a blister.

Here’s Hill on the connection between the baseball and his blister issues. Keep in mind that Hill throws his curveball more often than almost any pitcher in the league and is constantly spinning the ball off his fingertips. Sanchez’s blister issues also stemmed from his decision to throw more curveballs this year.

"“There’s got to be something, right?” he said. “There’s more evidence this year than there ever has been of blisters in pitchers.”Hill said he has thrown enough with this year’s baseball that his previously blistered finger has become used to it. Still, he sees balls flying out of the park, and he couldn’t help thinking about the juiced-ball scandal that forced the resignation of the Japanese baseball commissioner in 2013."

Baseball has always dealt with controversies surrounding the materials or design of its most principle piece of equipment. Home runs began soaring in the 1920s when the league was forced to use a different, springier wool in the core of its balls during World War I. The 1930 season and many records set that year are also suspicious because Australian wool was used. Hack Wilson drove in 191 runs, including 53 in one month. Lou Gehrig drove in 173 in 1930 and 185 in 1931. Players routinely drove in over 170 runs in the 1930s before run totals eventually evened out when the mound was raised.

As a sport, baseball must always dance a tricky tango back and forth between favoring pitchers or hitters too much. The Dead Ball Era was slanted entirely to the man on the mound. The Roaring Twenties and Thirties were all about the hitter. The mound was raised, and it was impossible to hit for the better part of three decades. The 1980s ushered in the golden era of turf fields and speedsters who stole over 100 bags a year. Then, there was the Steroid Era that ended abruptly with a dramatic rise in strikeouts and decrease in runs with year-round testing and suspensions.

MLB is in danger of going too far in the opposite direction now with their new baseballs. Pitchers’ careers are being affected across the league. It’s impossible to get by as a fly-ball pitcher anymore. Hell, Clayton Kershaw, who could go down as the greatest cross-generational pitcher in MLB history, is yielding 1.2 homers per nine this year. From 2008 to 2016, the three-time Cy Young had allowed 0.5 homers per nine.

The data is there to back up the easy conclusion that the balls are somehow different. Players are starting to speak out. It’s just too obvious. If the ball is truly juiced as it appears to be, pitchers will make the necessary adjustments. It hitters are adjusting their swings so much in an effort to hit the ball in the air at any and all costs, you’ll see more sinkers, more sliders, and more fastballs at the top of the strike zone. Pitchers almost always win if given enough time to figure things out, but the combination of a juiced ball and an emphasis on hitting the ball in the air could be too much.

Next: MLB trade rumors: Top 25 trade chips for the deadline

Everyone loves home runs, but no one hates uncertainty and tainted records more than baseball fans. That’s exactly what the cloud of a streamlined baseball brings. How excited should we all be about Aaron Judge obliterating everything that comes near the plate. Can we buy into Joey Votto as an elite power hitter or Ryan Zimmerman as one of the greatest comeback stories of the past 20 years? Does this make Alex Wood’s 10-0 start and sub-2.00 ERA that much more impressive?

We won’t be able to know the answers to any of those questions until MLB stops hiding behind its shroud of secrecy and vague denials and fully addresses the rampant speculation that the baseballs are juiced in a way that artificially alters the state of the sport.