New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge may have benefitted from a disproportionate amount of hitter-friendly baseballs while setting the American League’s single-season home run mark in 2022.
Judge, who agreed to a nine-year, $360million deal with the Yankees on Wednesday, is not accused of cheating. However, an Insider report claims that record-breaking outfielder faced a surprising number of ‘live’ or ‘juiced’ baseballs last season despite MLB’s efforts to deaden the balls to reduce home runs.
New York Yankees’ Aaron Judge gestures as he runs the bases after hitting a solo home run, his 62nd of the season, during the first inning in the second baseball game of a doubleheader against the Texas Rangers in Arlington, Texas.
The problem with differing baseballs began in 2021, when MLB first attempted to address surging power numbers by deadening the balls. However, pandemic-related production issues scrapped those plans, resulting in two varying balls for that season. Consequently, the heavier ‘juiced’ balls travelled further while lighter ‘dead’ balls typically travelled a few feet shorter on balls hit deep into the outfield.
This season, according to Insider, three variations were discovered in an analysis of 204 game-used balls from 22 different ballparks: the lighter ‘dead’ ball introduced in 2021, rare instances of the heavier ‘juiced’ ball that was supposed to be out of circulation, and the ‘Goldilocks’ ball, which weighed 1.5 grams more than its lighter alternative.
Wills and Insider contend that the variations in baseballs were not randomly distributed around the American and National Leagues, but concentrated in several areas instead.
By deconstructing and analyzing the 204 balls, Wills found that more of the hitter-friendly ‘Goldilocks’ balls were typically found in the postseason, the All-Star Game and Home Run Derby, as well as specific regular season games. The ‘Goldilocks’ balls found in regular season games commonly had special commemorative stamps, often identifying some sort of anniversary, like the Texas Rangers’ 50th season.
However, there were 11 ‘Goldilocks’ balls in the study that did not have any commemorative stamps, all of which were found at Yankees games.
The existence of more hitter-friendly balls at Yankees games in 2022 is significant because Judge hit 62 home runs last season to break Roger Maris’ team and American League record.
Aaron Judge’s record-setting 62 home runs for Yankees may have…
This season, according to Insider, three variations were discovered in an analysis of 204 game-used balls from 22 different ballparks: the lighter ‘dead’ ball introduced in 2021, rare instances of the heavier ‘juiced’ ball that was supposed to be out of circulation, and the ‘Goldilocks’ ball, which weighed 1.5 grams more than its lighter alternative
Insider cautions that this is not proof that certain balls were used in certain games for any particular reason, and it’s not known how many of the ‘Goldilocks’ balls were hit by Judge en route to his 2022 AL MVP award.
MLB could help Insider’s study by providing information that would help determine which balls were used in specific games but has chosen not to do so.
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Furthermore, Insider reports that the website was told by a player that one of commissioner Rob Manfred’s ‘top lieutenants’ warned union officials not to allow players to send balls to Wills for third-party testing.
Some of the balls for Wills’ research came from sources around baseball, while Insider also purchased some balls caught by fans.
MLB has blasted Wills’ findings as ‘just plain wrong.’
‘The 2022 MLB season exclusively used a single ball utilizing the manufacturing process change announced prior to the 2021 season, and all baseballs were well within MLB’s specifications,’ read an MLB statement. ‘Multiple independent scientific experts have found no evidence of different ball designs. To the contrary, the data show the expected normal manufacturing variation of a handmade natural product.’
Rawlings also released its own statement: ‘This research has no basis in fact. There was no ”3rd ball” manufactured and the ball manufactured prior to the 2021 process change was fully phased out following the 2021 season. All balls produced for the 2022 season utilized the previously announced process change.
‘While storage conditions during research can easily impact ball weight measurements, a one-gram difference in ball weight would be within normal process variation. We continue to produce the most consistent baseball in the world despite the variables associated with a handmade product of natural materials