MLB Deadening Baseballs? But why?

Major League Baseball announced that they are taking steps to "deaden" the baseball in an effort to cut down the record breaking home run rates around the league. While pitchers across the league complained about the ball feeling "different", MLB continued to state that nothing had changed with the ball. 

        AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill 

Before I dig into why I think "deadening" the ball doesn't make much sense, let's take stroll down memory lane. During the 2014 season, many people were complaining about offense being down and hitting being at historical lows around the league. Pitching was dominating and batters seemingly had no answer at the plate. Not only were hitters around the league slumping, but fans were growing more and more frustrated with the product on the field. At the time, analysts blamed strikeout totals (which is interesting due to baseball folks now blaming launch angle and a focus on analytics, but we can save that for another discussion.) A "Grantland" article from 2014 did a bit of a deep dive into the offensive woes of that season  and while I don't want to rehash the entire article, it's interesting to see their arguments and they're mostly the same things people blame nowadays (most notably: shifts and strikeouts). 

Let's face it, modern day baseball has evolved into a data and scientific driven sport. The most efficient way to score is by hitting home runs (and taking walks). Batters can now see their swing and launch data in real-time and have become much better at not only fixing their swings, but also improving their approach at the plate. Just a few seasons ago, fans and analysts were clamoring for more offense, but now that we have a more offensive driven league, they suddenly want to go back to having pitchers dominate? Isn't that counterintuitive? We can say the previous ball was "juiced", but MLB continued to state that wasn't the case. While I personally think the balls were a bit juiced, it doesn't change the fact that the rise in offense was brought about by a change in player training and the new emphasis on embracing technology (Edgertronic cameras literally changed everything about player development.) Training, development, and technology organically drove the offensive advances in the sport. 

It's no shock that MLB feels the need to cut down on the amount of home runs. If you watch a baseball broadcast, you're likely to hear out-of-touch commentators lambasting "launch angle" and "defensive shifts" etc. You may even hear a few commentators pushing for more bunts and wondering why teams aren't playing "A-B-C baseball." 

To me, deadening the baseball is just another attempt by MLB to artificially bring change to the sport. Much like the Wild Card "one-game playoff", which was brought about by the organic energy of Game 162 back in 2011, we are seeing a push towards a man-made change that'll accomplish exactly what the "old-school" folks want to see and not what new age fans want to see. MLB has already eliminated bullpen specialists and imposed a three batter rule for relief pitchers, which I feel takes late game strategy away to improve pace-of-play by a whopping fifty seconds! In addition to that, during the time before folks claimed the ball was "juiced", pitching stats were a bit inflated, but the great hitters still put up their numbers, albeit with a few less home runs. Now, with the offense being boosted a bit, the best pitchers in baseball (DeGrom, Kershaw, Cole, etc.) have all continued to dominate. Which brings me to ask, why do we need to change? If a few scrub hitters slap a few more dingers, is it any different than some scrub pitchers having career seasons due to a dead ball? I'm sure things will once again level out, but do we seriously need to change the ball to cut down on home runs? Who asked for this? 

MLB continues to fall flat in appealing to new, and younger, audiences. Will a change back to more bunts and fewer home runs really bring in new fans? Instead of deadening the ball, why not fix the archaic blackout policies? Why not work on bringing down ticket prices? Why not stop teams from moving from the city to the suburbs (looking at you, Atlanta...)? Why not punish owners who tank the franchise for a tax write off? There's plenty of ways to improve the sport, but "deadening" the baseball will only set the sport back. 

Bullpen Heros for the Mariners

Since moving to the bullpen, Maurer has become a new pitcher. Posting ridiculous stats: 0.00 ERA 1.45 FIP 2.52 xFIP while striking out 31.6% of all batters he has faced. Things weren’t working out for him in the rotation, but moving to the bullpen has allowed him to use his two best pitches (fastball and change-up) and he has done an amazing job in his ten innings of work. Small sample size or not, anyone who watches the Mariners can tell you Brandon Maurer has looked infinitely better as a reliever. 

Brandon Maurer showing great fastball command.

Dominic Leone has been equally impressive this season. His 1.83 ERA isn’t a fluke either as he has posted a 2.73 FIP and 2.85 xFIP, so even if he regresses, it shouldn’t be so severe. He’s striking out 10.30 batters per nine innings and his groundball rate is at 51.5%, so he is a tough match-up with runners on base as well.

Dominic Leone freezes B.J. Upton with his slider.

 The Mariners are currently the second Wild Card team in the American League and their bullpen is a huge reason why that is the case. They lead all of MLB with a 2.39 bullpen ERA and given the injuries to James Paxton and Taijuan Walker (and Iwakuma early on), they’ve really stepped up to the challenge and kept the Mariners in the playoff race. While Chris Young continues to use smoke and mirrors to succeed (4.95 FIP & 5.38 xFIP) and rookie Roenis Elias begins to fade, the bullpen has stayed consistent. If Walker and Paxton can make any impact on the rotation with this bullpen in place… The Mariners could be a dangerous team come playoff time.

The Success of Scooter Gennett

 Why do people act like Scooter Gennett has come out of nowhere to play well?

 

 

(Source: Mike McGinnis/Getty Images North America)

He had a lot of minor league success: .297/.337/.371 .745 OPS and it's carried over to the majors: .317/.353/.481 .835 OPS. His numbers have been better in the majors, but he's been excelling in a platoon role with Rickie Weeks. He essentially kills right handed pitching, but struggles with lefties: .349/.386/.540 vs .143/.167/.324 against lefties. This is also allowing Rickie Weeks to bat primarily against lefties and he's doing a pretty solid job in that role: .262/.347/.464 which is good for an OPS of .812. If you've followed the Brewers over the past few seasons, you'll know that Weeks was entering Dan Uggla territory in terms of production, so this platoon allows the Brewers to get the best out of Gennett and Weeks.

Some of the success Gennett is having can be attributed to pure luck and his .389 BABIP against RHP would make that very obvious, but he's been producing at this level for nearly two seasons. One final stat of notice to me, his total percentage of contact made when swinging at all pitches is at 85.1% and that ranks higher than Miguel Cabrera 81.3% and Mike Trout 81.0% for the 2014 season. For reference, Jose Altuve is even higher than Gennett at 90.8%... Maybe it's just a short player thing? *Yep, just checked Pedroia and he's been around 89-90% for his career.*

So, Gennett may be the product of a successful platoon, but there's no denying that he's a great contact hitter. To me, he's right in line with guys like Jose Altuve and maybe even in the same realm as Dustin Pedroia. Altuve may have more speed and Pedroia might have better power numbers, but Gennett is right with them both in terms of their contact rates. I've seen some other writers claiming they've been "wrong" about Gennett and while I think he's doing a great job, his splits do point towards his success being because of his platoon role. I would like to see him get a chance everyday soon, but why break up a good thing between him and Weeks? In the meantime, the Brewers keep on winning and Gennett keeps on hitting.