Commissioner says no plot with ball to increase homers
Faced with a record onslaught of home runs that has convinced many pitchers that baseballs are juiced, commissioner Rob Manfred said Major League Baseball has been unable to find any changes in the manufacturing process.
A May 2018 report to MLB by professors specializing in physics, mechanical engineering, statistics and mathematics concluded there was less drag on the ball, causing more home runs. MLB still has not figured out why, and Manfred denied accusations by American
League All-star starter Justin Verlander and other pitchers that baseballs deliberately had been altered.
“Baseball has done nothing, given no direction for an alteration in the baseball,” Manfred told the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on Tuesday. “The biggest flaw in that logic is that baseball somehow wants more home runs. If you sat in an owner’s meeting and listened to people talk about the way our game is being played, that is not the sentiment among the owners for whom I work.”
Batters have hit 3,691 homers in 1,345 games, on pace for 6,668 over the full season. That would be 19 percent above last year’s 5,558 and 9 percent over the record 6,105 hit in 2017.
The balls have become baseball’s hot topic, especially among players who handle them the most.
“I’d probably say the ball feels a little different,” said Chicago White Sox right-hander Lucas Giolito.
Astros ace Gerrit Cole maintains the feel is “tighter, smoother, compact.”
Labor: The players’ association has outlined goals for the sport’s unprecedented midterm collective bargaining, objectives likely to meet resistance from management unless the union is willing to make trade-offs.
Baseball’s five-year labor contract expires in December 2021, but the sides agreed March
8 to open negotiations early. The sides are exchanging dates for possible bargaining sessions.
Following decades of growth, payrolls have remained in the $4.1 billion range since 2017, according to figures compiled by the commissioner’s office, and players have complained about two straight slow free-agent markets.
Rays’ future: Giving the Rays permission to explore playing part of their home schedule in Montreal is seen by owners as “a way to preserve baseball in Tampa,” Manfred said.
MLB’S executive council last month told Rays owner Stuart Sternberg he could explore the two-city possibility but did not specify a time frame. The Rays have been unsuccessful in gaining approval and financing in place for the new stadium they want in the Tampa Bay area.