Verlander not digging long ball
Justin Verlander reiterates his belief that the baseballs are juiced and the resulting home-run boom hurts the game.
CLEVELAND — Back on May 5 in Monterrey, Mexico, after Justin Verlander allowed three home runs in a small ballpark with unfavorable elevation, the blunt righthander broke off on another tangent about juiced baseballs.
“Did (Major League Baseball) do it again? I don’t (expletive) know,” Verlander said then. “The balls don’t lie. This game has been around for 125-odd years. We’ve had the dead-ball era. Now, we’re past the live-ball era, we’re in a different generation.”
So the thoughts Verlander shared with ESPN on Monday are not new. He told the network that, “yes, 100 percent” he believes the league juiced the balls for more offense. After his start in Tuesday’s All-Star Game, Verlander revealed he spoke with MLB officials about his comments earlier that day. The pitcher declined to reveal specifics of those conversations.
“I think, myself personally, I’m a purist of the game,” Verlander said after the All-Star Game. “Whether you like homers or like it the way it was, that’s not necessarily on me, but I prefer not small ball but a different brand of baseball. That’s why I said something.”
It was a scaled back reaffirmation of his stance, something the outspoken pitcher has reiterated multiple times this year. After at least three of his starts this season, the 36-year-old Astros ace either outright criticized the league’s baseballs or slyly wove in a jab toward them when addressing his outing.
Rarely did they feature expletives. Nor was there an outright, on-the-record accusation against MLB and commissioner Rob Manfred of intentionally juicing the baseballs for more offense.
Record home run pace
Though he chose not to address Verlander’s comments specifically, Manfred categorically denied the accusations during a meeting with the Baseball Writers Association of America on Tuesday.
“Baseball has done nothing and given no direction for an alteration in the baseball,” Manfred said. “As a matter of fact, we commissioned an independent study to make clear that there has been no intentional alteration of the manufacturing process.”
He later added that “manipulation of the baseball is a great conspiracy theory. How you manipulate a human-dominated handmade manufacturing process in any consistent way, it’s a smarter human being than I.”
Major League Players Association executive director Tony Clark, who spoke before Manfred, said unequivocally “the game has changed (and) the ball is different,”
Manfred acknowledged the baseballs this season have less drag due to the pill in the center. Verlander does not accept that is coincidental. The league purchased Rawlings — the baseball manufacturer — last June.
“We all know what happened. Manfred the first time he came in, what’d he say? He said we want more offense. All of a sudden he comes in, the balls are juiced? It’s not coincidence. We’re not idiots,” Verlander told ESPN.
Verlander has allowed a major-league high 26 home runs. He remains one of the game’s elite pitchers but is still on pace to shatter his career-high of 40 he yielded in 2012. Thirty-three of the 42 earned runs against him this season have come via home run.
The first half of the season produced 3,691 home runs. The record for one season is 6,105. If the pace continues, that record will fall. Manfred denied, as Verlander asserted, that the spike is at his behest.
“The biggest flaw in that logic is that baseball somehow wants more home runs,” Manfred said. “If you’ve sat in an owners meeting and listened to the way people talk about our game being played, that is not the sentiment among the owners for whom I work. There is no desire on the part of ownership to increase the number of home runs in the game. To the contrary, they’re concerned with how many we have.”
Manfred promised transparency, but Verlander has voiced his doubts such candor can exist. The pitcher tweeted on March 1, 2018 that “I don’t care if balls are juiced (seriously). We’re all using the same ball, so it’s a fair field. My issue is I don’t like being lied to.”
Kind of a drag
Manfred commissioned a study in August 2017 to analyze the baseballs. The findings were released last year. The baseballs were flying farther due to a “reduced drag for given launch conditions, as opposed to a change in launch conditions,” according to the study.
It said no change in the materials or manufacturing of baseballs, intentional or unintentional, was detected to have contributed to the raise. What caused the decreased drag remains unknown. Manfred said MLB has gone back to scientists and told them “we need to figure out why” the drag is decreased.
“If they genuinely want to reduce the drag on the ball or put it back to the way it was, then we can work together,” Verlander said Tuesday. “Obviously, I’ve got some inputs or whatever. I’ve thrown a lot of different baseballs in my career. I actually talked to some guys yesterday here in the locker room about it. I know they have sort of an oversight committee and they would be welcome to hear some of my opinions. I’m all aboard.”
Changes to ball’s specification are a “topic under discussion,” the commissioner said. If a decision is made, Manfred said “you’re going to know about it before we change the baseball.”
“Justin has thrown more baseballs in this room (aside from) maybe CC (Sabathia), if they haven’t thrown the same amount,” teammate Gerrit Cole said Tuesday in the American League clubhouse.
“If anybody is going to be an expert on how the baseball feels or acts, it’s going to be one of those two. Justin isn’t afraid to speak his mind, and he believes what he says. I have no reason to believe that he isn’t correct. He knows what he’s feeling.”