How will Giants handle MLB’S new deader baseball?,
How will Giants handle MLB’S new deader baseball?
As soon as the Giants finally figure out how to hit with authority at Oracle Park, Major League Baseball introduces a deader ball to the mix.
Tough break, but the Giants need to deal with it.
“I don’t really have concerns about that because our messaging doesn’t change,” manager Gabe Kapler said Thursday. “We’re going to really focus on the places that we can move the needle. I know where we can make the most impact, and that’s in the messaging with our players, and our messaging hasn’t changed and won’t change based on the baseball.”
MLB is slightly altering the ball in 2021 after years of offensive explosions and home run barrages. Whether it’s noticeable, that’s to be determined. Memos recently were sent to clubs saying an independent lab found the new ball would fly 1 or 2 feet shorter when hit more than 375 feet.
Oracle Park was long considered a pitchers’ park, at least following the Barry Bonds administration, but the Giants in Kapler’s first year enjoyed an offensive spike at Third and King by averaging 5.5 runs per game, up from 3.3 in 2019.
Their OPS in home games was .841, up from .652. And their homer-per-game average was 1.55, up from 0.78.
It wasn’t just the fact the outfield walls were moved in. Balls jumped off bats like it was the early 2000s. Credit a lively ball. Credit the covered archways in right field. Credit the new hitting coaches. Credit the approach taken by hitters. Whatever it was, the ballpark played smaller.
The word from Scottsdale Stadium, where the Giants’ pitchers and catchers had their second workout Thursday, is the hitters will take the same approach as last year.
“My take is, especially from a hitter’s perspective, the goal is always the same independent of the ball, and that goal is to hit the ball on a high line-drive trajectory,” Kapler said, “because that will give you your best chance.
“When you strike it your best, it’s got a chance to beat outfielders, over their heads. When you don’t hit it your best, it has a chance to fall in front of outfielders.” From the pitcher’s perspective?
“I could see it providing some confidence,” Kapler said. “Maybe a ball that would have gone out the last couple of years doesn’t, but I don’t think we’ll know a whole lot until we see the trends and how the new ball plays over a longer period of time, not just the first 10, 15 or 20 games.”
In a recent Chronicle-hosted Giants Splash podcast, Kapler detailed his philosophy about the new ball.
“I just can’t imagine that we’re going to tell Brandon Belt or Brandon Crawford or Yaz (Mike Yastrzemski) or any other player to go up to the plate and do anything differently,” Kapler said. “Now, what this might do is make certain profiles more valuable than others.”
In particular, Kapler said hitters who swing only at pitches they can drive and lay off pitches they can’t — strike or no strike — could benefit the most.
“With those two things, without looking at any other metrics, we have proven we’re going to maximize our chances to do good work with a ball that’s super lively or a ball that is not quite as lively.”
In baseball’s last full season, 2019, a record 6,776 homers were hit. The Giants hadn’t joined the power parade in recent years at least until they muscled up in 2020.