A More Imperfect Ball Creates a More Perfect Game

What type of baseball are we to expect in 2020?  I’m not talking about the Major Leagues in general, I’m talking specifics.  The “baseball” as in the “ball” used in the majors this year.  With historic offensive numbers in 2019, it was fairly certain that the 2019 ball had changed.  Pitchers complained about it.  Hitters loved it and the commissioner admitted that there was a bit of an issue:

“Our scientists that have been now studying the baseball more regularly have told us this year that the baseball has less drag.  We are trying to understand exactly why that happened and build out a manufacturing process that gives us a little more control over what’s going on.  But you have to remember that our baseball is a handmade product and there’s going to be variation year to year.” — Rob Manfred, August 2019

That last sentence is the key and the reason why many believe the ball was flying out of parks last year.  MLB did all it could to make the baseball more uniform and less handmade than it already is.  He didn’t say that, but it is important to understand that MLB took complete control of Rawlings in June of 2018 when they purchased the sporting goods conglomerate for $395 million.  The baseballs manufactured by Rawlings after MLB took control of the process were for the 2019 season.  The same season where 6,776 home runs were hit, 11% higher than the previous highest season total on record.  Though MLB has been very tight-lipped about the manufacturing process that they oversee, I suspected that the quality control process that they manage may have produced a baseball that is more conducive to being hitter-friendly.  I don’t think they attempted to create this result.  In fact, I believe they were simply trying to make the baseball more uniform in nature.  The result may be that removing human flaws in the baseball manufacturing process has resulted in a baseball that travels farther.

There was a time that the ball manufactured was a hand-tailored process from start to finish.  Now it appears that the only remaining hand-made feature of baseball construction is the stitching process at the end.  2019 probably had the most machine manufactured ball in the history of the game.  The result was a uniform ball that was flying out of ballparks.  It wasn’t always that way.

At the turn of the 19^th century, the ball in use was handmade without the current weight and size specifications in use today.  It wasn’t completely rouge, they were close in size and weight and MLB would attempt to ensure that balls used for games were uniform, but there wasn’t a close adherence to quality control.  Eventually, specific size and weight rules were put into place, but during the “dead ball” era, often a dirty smudged and marked ball would be used batter after batter, sometimes for what is estimated to be over 100 pitches straight.  The leagues were cost-conscious, so even a ball that was hit into the stands would be returned to the field of play for more use.  It wouldn’t be until a ball began to unravel (usually with stitching that was loosened or breaking apart), that it would be removed from play.  A game would use an average of three or four balls per game, compared to the 75 to 100 balls used in today’s’ games.

In the dead-ball era, the balls themselves would be tobacco juice stained, blemished, darkened, and smudged.  It could be difficult to see and it was the stark opposite of what we see today, where if the ball gets scuffed in any way, it is removed from play.  They called it the “dead ball” era for a reason.  Pitchers had the advantage.  Runs were harder to come by and generating offense was a challenge.  There is a reason that scruffy players like Ty Cobb excelled in that era.  Home runs were a rarity and by the late innings after the pounding the ball would take, it could often be quite abused and softened by the constant bashing it had received.

A crazy thing happened though.  This guy named Babe Ruth was a freak of nature.  He was a pitcher that had 20/10 vision and the strength of Hercules and he started hitting that dead ball out of ballparks in the 1918-1919 seasons.  His offensive prowess became the talk of the game and it was a sight to watch.  So much so that fans clamored for greater offensive output.  Suddenly the popularity of the game swooned.  MLB realized this and offense was encouraged.   Consequently, the spitball was outlawed, and the baseball used became livelier and shinier.  In fact, the balls were manufactured for the first time with machine winders that would spin the wool strands around the rubber-coated cork center “pill” of the ball.  This new process started in 1920.  Though handspun before, now they were more tightly wound and the result was a ball that was stronger and traveled further when hit. The A.G. Spalding Bros. Company had the license to make balls for MLB.  Their covers were made of horsehide at the time, and continued to be until 1976 when cowhide replaced it. 

There were minor changes made to the ball over the years, but many were cosmetic in nature.  Each league had a ball with their League President’s signature.  The National league ball had red and navy blue stitching up until 1934 when it switched to all red like the American League ball.  In that same year, both leagues agreed to standardize the size of the ball with the number of wrappings around the center pill that now had a coating of black and then red rubber.   The weight was to be between 5 and 5 ¼ ounces, with a 9 to 9 ¼ inch circumference. In the World War II years, synthetic rubber was used to coat the pill and has continued to be used to this day.

The same year that the cowhide replaced the horsehide, 1976, Spalding was replaced by Rawlings as the MLB manufacturer.  The different stamped balls for each league became one uniformed Major League Baseball with the Commissioner’s signature in 1999.

Over the years, there have been accusations that the ball was juiced.  Especially during the steroid era.  For the most part, those accusations were not well-founded.  Haiti manufactured the baseballs from the 1950s up until 1990 when civil and labor unrest caused Rawlings to move their manufacturing process to Turrialba, Costa Rica where it continues to this day under very tight security.  When MLB purchased Rawlings in 2018, they took complete control of the baseball manufacturing process.  Their intentions were good.  They wanted to streamline quality control and the manufacturing process to make sure the balls made would be completely uniform.

There is a Dodger element to this, though quite remote.  Peter Seidler, the grandson of Walter O’Malley and Peter O’Malley’s nephew was appointed by MLB to oversee the process.  Peter is currently a General Partner in the ownership of the San Diego Padres.  He was groomed in the baseball business under the thumb of his uncle Peter, who had him learn it from the ground up in the minor leagues along with his brother Tom.  In July 2018, a month after the purchase of Rawlings by MLB, Seidler said: “We’re going to methodically analyze every step of the (manufacturing) process.”  By the time the 2019 balls were put in place, it was evident that any changes MLB had made were resulting in the balls flying further.

What has resulted is a ball that appears to be more pill centered and tightly wound and that flies a greater distance, more so than the balls of the past.  Physicists have studied the balls for the past two years and come to these conclusions.  Dr. Meredith Wills, a baseball fan and physicist has worked for the Baseball Hall of Fame and studied balls from different eras.  Her conclusions found that the 2019 ball is slightly smaller, specifically around the seams with seam heights ranging from 0.23 millimeters to 0.41 as opposed to 0.45 millimeters to 0.68 with the 2018 ball.  Though the changes in seam height are something that is difficult to see with the naked eye, these changes are significant in influencing the aerodynamics of the flight of the ball.  Dr. Wills claimed that these changes probably occurred because of MLB’s attempt to streamline the manufacturing process and make a more perfect sphere.

MLB admitted that they have attempted to center the pill of the ball for uniformity purposes.  The result is a ball that flies with less wobble, with smoother aerodynamics.  With the pill more perfectly centered, Dr. Wills identified the 2019 batted ball as traveling with a near-perfect spherical deviation.  It is close to zero when in the past, it wouldn’t approach that.

Lastly, Dr. Will’s study found that the 2019 ball had smoother leather that resulted in less friction while the ball was in flight.  Her findings referred to that measurement as “static friction.” The more static friction, the more air impediments to its flight.  In the case of the 2019 baseball, the smoother leather was providing lower readings of static friction.

Tighter seams, less static friction, and a spherical deviation at zero equals a more aerodynamic baseball with less drag.  In other words, a swing with the same bat, same force and same angle with the 2019 ball produces a ball traveling further distances than previous iterations that were not made with so much uniformity and precision.  How much further?  I guess it depends on who you ask.  Some are saying 5 to 6 feet.  It all depends on the bat speed, launch angle, level of contact.  There are a lot of factors.

MLB will not give the public any detailed information on the manufacturing process and/if any changes were implemented when they took over Rawlings.  It appears that MLB attempted to streamline the process and in doing so, removed the human flaws that handmade balls often have.  I believe those flaws kept the balls in the ballparks.  An imperfect ball provided a more honest ball.

Why can’t MLB correct these issues mid-season?  Well, it’s not so easy.  Manufacturing batches of baseballs is quite time-consuming.  In fact, the quota for workers at the Turrialba factory is approximately 156 baseball per week for each worker.  That is about 4 baseballs per hour completed by those working in the stitching process at the final stage where 108 holes are sewn together to produce the completed product.  The Costa Rica factory produces the batches of balls for the season well before April hits, so the batches of balls used for the season are in stock and ready to be smothered in Delaware River mud by then.  Changing the ball production process in mid-season would be very difficult.  There was talk from Seidler of starting a second manufacturing plant back in 2018, and minor league balls are made in China, so that possibility exists, well at least it did until Coronavirus issues surfaced in China.  I suspect that option is probably remote at the moment.

So, for the 2020 season, the questions are out there.  Has MLB uncentered the pill and gone back to handmade methods in doing so?  Will the wobble be back that will impede the near-perfect aerodynamics that we witnessed last year?  I guess we’ll find out around April.