Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 132 | Asking the Expert on Juiced Balls

Episode Date: April 17, 2020

Dr. Meredith Wills joined the program to discuss the way that MLB baseballs have been altered over the past few years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Talking Baseball. We've got a fun episode. Coming up, an interview with a scientist to tell us about the balls. What's going on, everybody? It is Talking Baseball, a little Friday episode. My name is John Boy. I got Jake. I got Trevor.

We got producer BBD with us. And we have a very fun interview coming up. How are you guys doing? Welcome to Talking Baseball, the podcast that we're all on three days a week. How are you? I'm great. How are you guys doing? Fantastic.

Fantastic. Left neck shoulder slash back area really hurting. Treb, if you've got some good stretches, I'm open to that. Otherwise, I'm okay. You should just get in your jacuzzi in your backyard. Yeah. Oh. Oh, dog.

That was a good one. Thanks, Trevor. I think we need to talk about Trev's tidbits. a second before we go into this interview because last last episode we did trev's tidbits no plan going into the episode right before we roll trev goes i got some tidbits turns out fantastic episode by us all your tidbits were right man you're first yeah you know it seems like this podcast is about a week ahead of the rest of the world as far as your baseball news so if you need if you need to be first with your baseball news you know where to find us boom we have a guest

coming up that Jake and I met at winter meetings in November. Plouffe, I don't know how many times you and Meredith interacted, but she is a data scientist who has been studying baseballs for two years, a whole long conversation all about the 2017 baseballs, the 2019 baseballs, what happened in the postseason and all of this stuff. Producer BBC, can you hit us with two of those stats to remind people how big of a difference the balls had on the effect of the outcome of the games? Yeah, it's BBD, first of all.

What I say. I say that sometimes. I say that sometimes. Yeah, it's happening. That's about the penis. Hey, don't worry about it, Dave. It's fine. It's not important.

Stat in 2019. Should I go the low number first or the high number first? number first. Low number first. Come on now. All right. 2014. There were 47 players that hit over 20 home runs. In 2019, five years later, that number jumped up to 96.

Jesus. In 2014, 11 players hit 30 home runs. That number multiplied by almost five. 53 players hit 30 home runs in 2019. And in 2014. That's almost two per team. One team hit 200 home runs. And one team hit 200 home runs in 2014.

Yes, that was the Baltimore Orioles. And in 2019, 24 of the 30 teams in the league hit over 200 home runs and two hit 300. Oh, man. So that's what we talked about with Meredith. Any final words before we throw out to the interview, Jake, Trev? Good. She was great. And there's a lot of more tidbits.

We're a tidbit pub. Here we go. Here's the classic intro sound. Whoa. We are joined now by Dr. Meredith Wills, data scientist, writer for the athletic and researcher extraordinary on the baseballs that have been bouncing around like crazy in MLB. Meredith, thank you very much for joining us. We appreciate your time.

Thank you for having me. You are easily the smartest person on this panel. Science scares me. Well, no. Oh, okay. We have to fix that. Yes. It makes me feel inferior and dumb,

but I'm so excited to learn everything that you have, that you have learned and poured into on this, because the baseball's last year were one of the largest stories in all of baseball. It was crazy. Sabre actually gave me a research award for it. So yeah, I'd say it was probably a big deal. Before we dive in, can you give us some of your background on becoming a scientist, becoming falling in love with baseball, or how did you land to where you are now?

It's the life story. Let's do it. It's not. If any of you guys know the story, it's actually pretty, it's, it sounds like fiction. So, yeah, so I was literally born on opening. day. And the day that I was born, which I have to understand my dad, I grew up a Milwaukee Braves fan. And for the entire existence of the Braves, he was a Braves fan. In fact, Joe Torrey is still like his favorite player ever, which I think is hysterical. Actually, no, it's lovely. It's not

hysterical. It's very sweet. So it means, of course, he watched Hank Aaron his entire career. Hank Aaron tied Babe Ruth's home run record that opening day, which was the day I was born. And so my dad, who is not, you know, a particularly religious superstitious person, whatever, he absolutely, though, was convinced that I was somehow going to be a big deal in baseball. He went out, he bought me a baseball bat the day I was born, which I still own. I'm a terrible ball player. But I don't remember how old I was when I first learned to keep score. I've been an official score at some level since high school, including I was actually, you know, as professionally I've done it.

I am in the Baseball Hall of Fame, I guess, from I think 2010. And I have some very strong affiliations with them now related to creating historical reproductions of a lot of it actually, and a lot of this stuff comes back to the fact that one of the, things I do is knit. And the knitting experience turned out to be critical for solving the home run searches, which is kind of cool. But that's my association with the Baseball Hall of Fame. As far as the science side, we can call my dad's side, the baseball side. And in fact, assuming we have a season, my cousin just got promoted to being an MLB umpire, which I'm really psyched about. So yeah, keep an eye out. You see, Will's is the last name. That's my baby cousin. as it were. So hopefully he goes on to have a long and storied career.

And we love him. We will grow to love him far more than we love Joe West. But anyway, Ryan's lovely. You'll love him. So my dad's side's baseball. My mom's side actually is the scientists. And that's not to say that, you know, my grandpa was a big baseball fan. I remember watching with him. But, you know, he worked for NASA way in the early days. And so I kind of always grew up with that. And, you know, I am a scientist. Like, you know, just personally as a human being, that's how I would describe myself. On the other hand, I didn't become an astrophysicist until college. You know, whereas, like, I have, oh, three weeks old when I went to my first ballgame,

can't leave that out. Steve Carlton was pitching. I finally have a baseball signed by Steve Carlton, although I still have the little helmet that they gave, you know, as like the giveaway for the kids. Nice. And it's in storage. And when I dig it out, I am absolutely going to get it to him to sign because that would be just awesome. So, yeah. Sounds like you were boring for kind of where you're at right now in this baseball world.

It's been a little weird especially because, like, I mean, here's the thing. I'm not actually, I'm a small ball fan. I'm not a huge home run fan. And yet for some reason, my life keeps. coming back around to that. I mean, I was even, for example, at the last game where Barry Bonds hit a home run, I have the scorebook, you know, and I keep score like every game. I have my own scoring system. I designed. I can go on and on about the baseball side. But I feel like home runs show up over and over and over in my life. Tank Aaron's fault. And if you guys know him,

he's like meeting him as the top of my bucket list. It hasn't worked out yet. I don't think I've ever met Hank, but I look, home runs. I met him, frankly. I just only got to talk him for about 15 seconds. So that sort of doesn't count. Well, maybe. So in 2017, MLB saw their first kind of, uh,

home run burst where people said, oh, what's going on with these home runs? And now I don't think it was comparable to 2019, but in 2017, you set out to find out what was different with those balls. and you came to a pretty solid conclusion. So quickly, can you just give us how that happened in 2017 and how you found that conclusion and then we'll dive into 2019 after that?

But what all went on in 2017 with the balls? Well, 2017, there were lots of people trying to figure out what was going on. Ultimately, MLB did have their home run committee, you know, figure out that it had to do with the drag or the amount of carry that the ball had. Basically, the ball had less drag, was traveling farther. therefore something had to be different about the ball itself, but they couldn't find the difference. I had also been looking into the actual physical construction of the baseball thinking that might be it. And what ended up happening was three days before the Home Run Committee results came out.

What I discovered, and here we go. This is here. In fact, I'll do both. Ball number one. So this is a ball from, it's actually, the change happened in the middle of 2015, but the home run search was 20. was 2017. So this is a ball from before the home run surges started. This is a ball that's from the period. Take a look at the thickness of the laces. If you can see the ball on the bottom, literally the laces are slightly thicker. Okay. That turned out to be the physical difference

that the home run committee couldn't find. And I found it about three days before the home run committee report came out. They said, we can't figure out what's different about the ball. I'm thinking, Oh my God, I thought it was different. So I was able to publish that. And then... Is the home run committee people you're familiar with? Are people you've worked with in the past? Or who made up that committee?

I do know a number of them, not all of them. I've known Alan Nathan for a while. I've known Dan Brooks for a while. Well, Dan Brooks isn't on the second committee, but Alan Nathan was the chair of the first. They're really the people who I know best. I've interacted with others, but, yeah, so there's overlap, you know, and my degrees are as big as theirs, so. Okay.

Yeah. But, yeah, so it turns out the thicker laces were what made the difference, and I was ultimately even able to show that the ball, the thicker laces effectively kept the ball's rounder, and a rounder baseball will have more carry. It just literally travels further and better. And we also Sorry, we also had a lot of pitchers that were getting blisters in that year as well

which adds up with the laces That's exactly what they touch Yep, yeah And Rich Hill even called it You know, in 2016 saying guys, I think the laces are thicker MLB came back more than once Saying no, the ball

Actually what they probably said Was the balls are within specifications Or the process hasn't changed Or something like that When I think about the baseballs And I want to ask people about them I'd rather ask pitchers about it because they are so up close and personal with the ball. They know exactly what they

feel like how much they weigh, you know, are the, the laces thicker or thinner, hitters, if we start hitting the ball further, we're like, dude, I'm just feeling good today. Or maybe the wind's blowing out or something. Like, we don't, we don't, we're not that up close and person with the balls, but the pitchers, like this is their livelihood. They have to know exactly what to happen. So before we came on today, I sent out a few texts to, and, I didn't even ask any hitters. I asked the pitchers. And I think that's kind of an interesting thing.

I think people only think about hitters and how it benefits hitters having a turbo ball, trademark. But pitchers really, really have to deal with it. And I think it changes not only the flight of the ball, but how they pitch, what pitches work for them, what pitches don't work for them. And we've seen this before any of this came out, before they were. changes discovered in the ball. One thing that really, there's not a better word for it except for it was stupid, was the fact that the minor leagues and the big leagues had different balls. And they still do to this day, AAA now is using the same balls as Major League Baseball uses, but the other leagues use different balls. Why? Do you have an answer for that? I have, I played baseball my

entire life and I don't have the answer. Actually, no, it's, I think the answer is reasonable, which is that they're made in different places. The Major League balls are made in Costa Rica, and it's just the one plant. It's now expanded, of course, to include AAA, but it really, I think, is a question of sort of manufacturing capacity and honestly economics. The actual baseballs that are used to the majors are, you know, more expensive. I forget, percentage but you know enough the minor league balls and and you know I don't want to say

twice as much but you know maybe close to that one and a half times enough where you know you have to budget differently but based on what I've heard I don't think they're going to introduce the major league ball

down below double A the rest of the balls are made in China and I think it's just again it's cost more cost effective because don't forget every single baseball has to be laced by hand. That's another thing. This is just hard to find people to do that. No, seriously, every baseball in the world, down to souvenir balls, down to Little League, they're all laced by hand. That's insane. That doesn't make any sense to me either.

I have so many questions. I don't, like, when you are training, when you're a pitcher, and I've seen this happen, you go, you're in double A, you're doing hot, your pitches work a certain way. You're in AAA, you're hot, your pitches work a certain way. All of a sudden, they bring guys up to the big leagues and they wonder why their slider's flat or it's backing up or I can't control my two seamer or my two seamers different. It's because there's a different ball. And I am not a scientist. I am not a doctor. But I know when the ball is shaped differently or weighs differently, it's going to do different things. And so you're preparing these guys to help you at the big league level, yet you're giving them different equipment.

It doesn't make any sense. So before all of this with the balls being juiced or whatever, like that is something else that doesn't make sense with baseballs. Well, if they can't afford to pay the minor leaguers. They don't afford to pay those guys meals. They're not going to spend more money on the baseball's trap. Actually, one thing I will say is that, yeah, I mean, it's not something I guess I've discussed before. but yeah, the teams at all levels, you know, Major League, Minor League, they buy their own baseballs.

They literally pay for their own baseballs. I had one discussion, for instance, Rawlings had been preparing for the AAA ball for several years, you know, and their production was all set and all that. They didn't actually tell the AAA teams officially that they were going to use the Major League ball until the end of September in 2018. I talked to one GM from a AAA team. They'd literally, budgets go in October 1st. They'd already put in their budget for the 2019 season before they were told, by the way, you have to buy these more expensive baseballs. So, yeah, I mean, there you go, right?

I'm going to try to shed a little bit of light for people too on this because when you're, okay, this is something that every minor league or anybody that's watching this that's played and the line league is going to understand this. When you have a guy that's rehabbing and you're in a low-level minor leagues, you cannot wait to hit because you are going to hit a big league ball and it goes so much further

than your low-A-double-A ball. Wait, when the guys rehab, do they throw, they use the major league balls to rehab? Only the major league, only the major league pitcher gets to use him. So when he's out there, you're getting a Pearl Major League Base ball. So when you, if you're hitting, you're like, dude, I am swinging. I am trying to hit a home run

because the ball's going to go so much further. As we've seen. And that's why you get a lot of guys who go down in these rehab stints and just get banged because guys are out to get them because they know, like, I just got to touch this baseball. So you, you know that as a player, you know that the ball is going to be different as you move up the ladder. And then what they do is baseball in the big leagues baseballs they just they're easy to get you know you take BP with them

one day and they get a little green scruff on it from the grass you and I need to talk actually about the easy to get thing so this is what they do with them you hit BP with balls for a day two days max and those balls

they get put in a box and they get shipped to their minor league affiliates or to their spring training site because you're going to get pearls a majority of the time when you're in the big leagues. They want you to practice with those balls, whatever. But then, so now you're sprinkling all these big league balls throughout the minor league. So you're going to practice possibly with the major league ball, possibly with a low A, double A ball. The entire system is screwed up.

You should be using the same equipment as you rise through the ranks, but you're not. I didn't realize actually that major league balls got used in practice. I mean, as far as, let's put it this way, I've never seen, I believe all the game balls are game balls. You know, they're not used from something else. But yeah, it would make sense that you just conserve practice balls, which also ends up explaining a fair bit about the situation for the postseason. But yeah, I mean, I can see that absolutely being a problem. They do have practice balls. Like there are practice balls that are labeled practice on them.

But a lot of the times. times they're putting gamer balls in the bags as well you could go to find because if you just go into a equipment room there's just balls on top of balls cases of balls everywhere you know so they just they're just mixing them up like you know yeah there are practice balls but there are also gamers mixed in there and those like I said they trickled down to the minor league affiliates they trickle down to the spring training affiliates it's it's interesting there's no guidelines or tracking Trevor you and I after this we're going to like exchange info and we're like going to go and and hang out in the right place at the right time.

Yeah. You see where I'm going. Wait, now you're going to get me, you're going to get me in trouble here. I don't know what's going. He's my gummy source, your ball source. He's a guy. I'm a guy. Call him after 10 p.m. when he's had his medicine.

And that's when you get the real stuff out of him. But I, well, A, I want to thank you for coming on. First, first doctor in John. media history and talking baseball, so thank you. And I think we're showing our range going from you and Jason Kendall. Oh, I love listening to Jason. I listen to Jason. I'm going to give you Jake's number where he lives.

Phenomenal. Different approaches. Now, I can't speak from the playing perspective like Trevor kept referencing. Thank you, Trevor. But as the watching, you had us in 2017. we see a jump that year that's linked to the laces. And then 2018, we kind of come back down to Earth, which brings us kind of to 2019.

So I guess tell me what happens in that time frame to get us to the frenzy we saw last year. Did they accept your 2017 results when you beat them by three days? Does MLB at that point say, oh, actually, okay, Dr. Will's had it. Or is it? MLB has never directly acknowledged any work I've ever done. That's nice of them. They're about to.

It is what it is. I mean, I'm not the only one, though. Like, you know, it just doesn't come out officially. The closest still get are sometimes side allusions to things like sample size, although I think those go to a certain extent to me. They've also been directed at Rob Arthur. There are a few of us where we just sort of get used to it. and we have our own venues for getting information out there.

And as long as the players know and the teams know, then it doesn't matter as much, you know. But yeah, sorry. The question was about the change in 2019, right? Yeah. So what happened, depending on how familiar you are, with the Home Run Committee report, and that's what they based everything on,

was the Home Run Committee was really not happy with the level of ball to ball variation they were seeing. They wanted tighter specs. They wanted more predictability. And so as part of everything, MLB went in and purchased Rawlings. We sort of since heard that they purchased part of Rawlings, but as far as I can tell by part of Rawlings, that means the part that makes the baseballs,

as opposed to, say, where you buy your glove and it says Rawlings on the side, MLB doesn't care about that. They care about the baseball construction. So what has happened or what did happen was they went in and the whole point was to be more involved in oversight, more involved in the manufacturing process, decision making, all that sort of thing. And they did quite literally make a better baseball. I mean, it's again, here we go. I will do my, I think this should show up, I hope. So this is this is that my my 2017.

What is harder to see, I can get this. See how shiny that is on top? See that shininess? Yeah, you see the light reflecting on it, yeah. See the light reflecting off of it? See that one? See the less light reflecting off of it? Slightly duller, yes.

Yes. Yep. So these things, Noah Cindergarde referred to it as being like an egg. It's not just, it's literally the texture is so smooth. But it's also, to a certain extent, the leather almost feels harder. It's like if you wanted to dig your fingernail into it, it's not as easy to do. The other thing is that the balls also turned out to be not just rounder. Remember I said it was like the change in how much the ball stayed round that led to the 2017 home runs verge.

These balls, when you take the seams out of the equation, are basically perfectly round, which is astonishing. It blew my mind when I found that out. Plus also, and I think I should be able to. So can you see the seam heights? This is 2017. That looks, okay. This is 2019.

19 looks higher. Actually, 19 is, in fact, lower. So maybe it's not showing up as well. Or I'm dumb. No, it's easy. We just don't have the best camera right now. As most, Trevor can say for the pictures, feel as much easy. easier. Like I can sit here and feel them and in addition to the laces being thicker, the seam actually feels higher. Another way you can tell is you can just literally see how you can kind of see the line in between in the same way that like it just, it's sort of more pronounced. And in this case, it just isn't quite as much. I see that. And when you, you at winter meetings, I felt them. You get a little blind touch test with me and it was very clear. Like,

there was two different. That'd be the easiest thing to do is just, I mean, if you have played baseball at all and you rub your fingers on the laces, I mean, that's going to be show up and then you're going to be able to tell right away. Yeah, I could tell the difference. Yeah, even people who I've done this with who have never held the baseball in their lives can tell the difference. Now, can I ask you a question?

Yeah. Because I feel like I need to ask this. Isn't there something with that ball being two years older? Doesn't that have something to do with? You think they age? Well, I think they do. The color of the ball, the dullness of it, maybe like some of like some of the, like, where the ball has been, like, has it been humid?

Has it retracted, contracted, whatever? Does that have anything to do with it? Or am I just? The closest that I've seen to something like that. First of all, this was actually something that I looked into related to the 2017 ball. and the home run committee when they did their own tests actually looked at baseballs from say like 2015 they looked at the stat cast data that was taken in 2015 they then used like a wind tunnel or some kind of drag measurement on baseballs that had been stored that were 2015 baseballs and the drag

was the same in both cases so a few years doesn't actually seem to have a affected that much. The closest that I've seen is when you get to balls that are like, oh, 15 or more years old, the glue starts to dry out. And in that case, what you end up with is the cover, when you pull them off, the cover comes off more easily and it actually stays rounder, sort of because the glue has sort of forced it to be round. but by then, I mean, comparing like a 2003 to a 2019 isn't, like if you're looking at the leather,

that's probably not a valid comparison in the same way. There are other things you can compare, but the leather seems to be the only thing where I've noticed a difference, and that's just, that's literally because the glue dries out, and therefore the leather gets stiffer. So, so I've looked, if that helps. Yeah, I do want to say this, because we've got to keep it a little light on this show, because our listeners, Hey, go for it. One of the all-time great joys as a kid is opening up a baseball. And if you haven't done it, we're all on lockdown.

Go get yourself a baseball. Let your kids, or if you don't have kids and you just want to have some fun, go open up a baseball. It is. I'm going to say, I have baseballs in pieces all over my apartment, but I'd have to, like, walk away from the camera. to go get them. Yeah. I'm not sure a lot of people have done it and what they want to know what it looks like. Yeah.

How many, how many baseballs are in your apartment right now? 200. That's awesome. Varying degrees of taken apart or not. Some of them are completely disassembled. Some of them are, you know, I mean, in this case, obviously I'm showing the demo ones. Some I just haven't even had a chance to get to.

at this point I'm sort of trying to get as many as I can you know people joke about me needing like some kind of research assistant my cats I've tried and they just they're busy trying to play with the laces to like do anything

useful in fact one of them eats the laces which makes it really hard to do measurements that's man am I going to be your assistant yeah Trevor I absolutely yeah I mean like what's it I call you after 10 o'clock at night that's a different person

well but the point is if I get to sign on the dotted line you wake up the next morning you're what have I signed up for? She's friends with Dallas you can't scare her off okay Dallas challenged me to a

can I use Dallas's leverage? Don't do it Trevor, kick your ass in Wiffa Ball yes I will take Dallas if I can use Dallas as leverage you're screwed sorry I win I don't know what that means

I don't either, but I'll figure it out. All right. I would just say this again. I will take Dallas so far up top. When we met, when we met at winter meetings, Meredith, you were telling me about your findings and all of this. And it was actually the day of-

After you guys ambushed Dallas, by the way. Yes, yes, we were doing our trivia. We were, they were going to announce their findings, because MLB paid investigators or their own scientists to find stuff, and they conveniently found that there was no negligence or misuse of building these new baseballs. But it seemed like this was going to be the big story of the offseason. Now that got kind of, the Astros kind of taken away. But now you have another element with this postseason ball and the change.

So I think for the common fan, it was clear the 2019 ball was different. We had APO home runs where guys were just flicking the bat and it was just, you had outfielders, you know, just playing like it was going to be a catch and then there's a home run in the first early months of 2019. All of 2019 up through September 30th. It was so bad that. Or 29th. Yeah. In the London series, Manfred went on air to address the baseballs because, I mean, that was only early June, I think, like halfway through the season.

That was a funny interview. Not even the All-Star break, but it was like, hey, buddy, address this. So he had to go on air and talk about it, which I'm sure he didn't want to do and probably wasn't informed to do or, you know, had to really like have a committee help him. So what was that like for you? Because you did this on the 2017 balls and you're thinking, okay, that was fun. And now here 2019 comes, are you like strapping on your equipment? Like, all right. I'm getting called back in action.

It was actually kind of funny because, again, real job. I literally do this on my own time. This is just like something because I think it's cool and I think it's important. Thank you. But my real job, hey, you know, I live and breathe baseball. Come on, you know, what else would I be doing? You're in the right spot. Thank you.

I appreciate that. But yeah, so my real job actually relates to working with my, minor league player data. And so I was caught up enough in the start of the minor league season where it took until, you know, oh, I don't know, maybe around April 10th or something. And my editor calls me, it's like, yeah, it looks like the 2019 ball is different. And she sort of thought this might be something that'd be hard to do. Now, me being sort of like foolishly optimistic, I'm like, nah, I got this. Not a problem. I just need to get baseball. In retrospect, don't ever overpromise quite to that extent.

I did okay, but you probably want to catch a little differently. It turned out actually the hardest part in this case because, you know, once the ball was clearly so different. And back to your point, Trevor, one of the things that I do that a lot of the other researchers don't is I started from what the players had to say. even if I wasn't talking to them directly, I was reading every player interview it was following all of that just so I already had an idea

of what to look for. It was talking to journalists who'd done interviews with players where it was either an off-the-record thing or a quote that didn't get used. It was not easy to get baseballs because I guess

I don't know if it was the people knew what was up or because I was trying to do it so early. I mean, most of the study for 2017, how would I put it? Because before the Home Run Committee report came out, before it became like an official thing to look at the ball, getting a hold of baseballs wasn't really as hard. Once it became a thing, suddenly I had to figure out how to get baseballs such that I could do the studies and ideally do them fast. asked because, you know, I didn't want it to be like my 28th or my 2017 results came out in 2018. I wanted to answer the 2019 ball question while we were still in the 2019 season.

And I think the article came out June 25th. So just before the All-Star break. But, but yeah, so, you know, I was able to get baseballs and you will never hear who any of my sources are ever. Except for me. knows, I'm your source now. This is... I never said you were my source. You might be in future, but we don't know that. And if you never are, people won't know that either. I'm going to be your source. I'll get you baseballs. I'm not scared of anybody. You know, and I can get baseball is pretty... I got a bunch

to my garage right now. I got a whole, like, two or three buckets full. I don't know what you're there from. But if you need new balls, Doc. I will tell you, actually, um, you even old ones at this point are useful because I, one of the things that came up, particularly with the postseason, was I managed to crack Rawlings batch code designation, at least as far as dating them. So even old baseballs become useful because then I'm hoping to do something historically, and that requires baseballs, but to a large extent, no one's going to know ahead of time what year they are. And so it's not until I open them up that I can figure out when they were made. but the point is I think I can figure out when they were made, which is kind of cool. All I'm saying is if you need a baseball from a season in the future, I got you. I like looking at the batch codes that you were posting on the athletic article and how you found out.

You can basically like tree rings, you can date, you find out how old a tree is, these batch codes. Now, basically if you, on the inside of the leather, there's a big stamp with a random, serial number of letters and numbers or whatever. Yeah. This is a 2014. I'm literally the other ones I would show you again. Even the batch codes I am not sharing because I don't know how good they are at tracking where the balls go.

But it's so important to me that stuff doesn't get back on my sources that you're not even going to see exactly what the batch codes are from any balls. I got through anonymous sources. Can I ask you a question about your sources? That's a batch code, for example, for 2014. What do you mean sources? Like, just people that are giving you baseballs? Is that a source?

Or is it people that are? Basically, yeah. I know we don't want to go too far into it. That's right. The way that I say is I say personnel who have access to on-field balls. Oh. And that's as far as I'll go. Yeah, that's.

Trevor wants to be a source. Trevor wants to be a source. Trevor wants to be a source. Treve just offered to give you all the balls in his garage and then you're protecting sources and he's like, oh shit, I just, you're just on everyone's radar now. You didn't protect yourself, Treve. It's just crazy to me because. Oh, but I want to say which balls are from him.

Okay. Yeah. So no one will know. I'm just saying, in my experience, like as a player and just knowing how many baseballs are just like out, like just, they're just there. Like, I could go in and grab a zillion baseballs and just toss them to the stand. in the sands, whatever it is. So to me, it just, in my little bubble, getting a baseball is not a big deal.

But it's crazy. Like, you are working to get these baseballs. And now... Some of it was that I, because of the nature of the problem, it was very important to me to make sure I had game balls. And those were easiest... Because don't forget, authentication is a really big deal now.

Yeah. So what I really needed were ones that were essentially packaged unused game balls for the most part. And you know what those boxes look like where it's literally like the dozen box where each of them's wrapped in tissue paper. And, you know, there's a barcode on the outside that, you know, actually says pro. And so like those were really the best way for me to get something where I could verify that they were game balls. I mean, obviously they hadn't been prepared for games. They weren't rubbed up. So, and I do have some that I've gotten directly from people who literally like, let's put it this way, even though they were prepared, I can attest the fact that they're game balls, I can't tell you who gave them to me or how they got them, but they were going on open, brand new white pearl in tissue paper, or would you rather have one that's rubbed up and actually been used in the game? Like, what's the difference there?

like is besides like color and there's only one one major difference which is that if i am trying to measure the smoothness of the leather the non-rubbed-up ball is more useful the pearl is more useful because the the reason that the balls get rubbed up is essentially to help increase the grip that's sort of the point. The problem actually with, you know, said super shiny. And this one, it was not prepared, but, you know, shiny baseball is, um, and, and Trevor, maybe you've seen this, even when these balls get rubbed up, uh, the mud doesn't stick. So it doesn't matter that much. If you look at like authenticated game used balls from 2019, they don't look that different than this. They look at them going to be maybe, but that's it. Doc, it depends who's pitching.

and since we're talking about baseballs I'm going to tell you who are the biggest I'm not going to call them cheaters I'm not going to call them cheaters I'm not going to call them cheaters because it's not cheating actually what I think of them

as doctors I like that joke I like that one that was a good one the biggest offenders of rubbing the balls up too much too much they make them

too dark you can't see them the Yankees Well, you don't mean the Yankees. You mean C.C. Sabathia. C.C. is one of the guys. C.C. had retired by 2019. You wouldn't be able to tell the difference. No, I'm saying.

So just to our listeners. No, I understand in general. I'm just saying I don't know how Cici would have rubbed up a 2019 ball because he wasn't. No, what I'm saying is there's just that's one. We're talking about baseball is kind of right now. Yeah. A lot of the game used ones, the Yankees, they rubbed the, them up a lot more than other teams because they don't want people to be able to see the ball

when they pitch it. I'm just throwing that up there because there's a lot of Yankees fans out there listening. I do have one 2018 game ball that is incredibly heavily rubbed up, much more so than any of the others I have. I might be able to go back to my source and see if that did come from a Yankees game. yeah i mean it's it's trebbed up and he's the source we got it don't don't worry about Trevor's anti-y

stuff right now i'm not anti-y i love playing it you guys know i love playing the yankees i love hitting homers there okay mered for me for me um and where where this story i feel hits its most important part and and maybe this is a generic baseball line you've heard a lot and maybe it's not but for a lot of fans, and I guess I'll, I don't need to be the voice of this, but I feel like a lot of people say, as long as the ball is the same for everyone, like, we're okay with that. And I feel like when we hit the postseason, there's some problems with that, because were there, did they go back to a different ball? Was it a mix of balls? Or what happened there? And if you'd like to,

that statement I just said, because there are important factors that go. into the baseball being changed, including player value. I mean, it does start branching off into very different things. But I guess bring me to the playoffs and what happened, because you said September 29th pretty firmly, and how did that all play out? Yep. Well, first of all, I like your statement about everybody playing with the same ball.

And that was kind of an excuse that was used in the postseason, except that was wrong. Because, in fact, Hello. Everybody was not playing with the same ball. The, you know, I did actually write an article on this. It came out April 6th that's in the athletic. There are no graphs, by the way.

I encourage you to read it. It's not, you know, that bad. Okay. Which is mostly pretty pictures. Although it's long, I apologize. I got pretty deep into it. Yeah. I was enjoying it.

Thank you. So anyway. And I did originally try this with balls I bought from Rawlings, which they said, no, they're memorabilia balls. That became a whole interesting thing, but, you know, because they authenticated them, even though, they were memorabilia balls. Again, let's talk about the actual postseason. So these are game balls. This one, by the way, is back to that unused deal.

See, it says World Series backwards. This one is clearly, so this is the one that I want. I want to make sure they do this right. Okay. This one is, see, postseason there. This one was actually rubbed up and prepared as a game ball. Having taken them apart, the same way that I do, and between, the lace thickness did change for 2019. They went back to thinner laces, which is pretty cool. So pitcher blisters went away, which is nice.

Yay, MLB. So MLB did read something because the laces got thinner again, blisterers. went away. Kudos to MLB for helping the pitchers. Yay. Good job. You know, I'm good with that. Yeah, no, anything that helps the players is great.

Or at least helps them from not getting injured, Jesus. Yeah. But, yeah, so anyway, this one and any ball that I got that's a 2019 postseason on it, dated as being a 2019 regular season ball. I'd love to have gotten more than I did. If somebody has, you know, old ones lying around, say. What do you need? Anything that was a post-season baseball from 2019, even if it's just going back after the fact.

Now, have you teamed up with Zach? Have you and Zach Hample ever gotten in touch? Yes, we have. Yes, we have. Okay. Don't be exposing things. Okay, this is not. I didn't say he's provided me anything.

I just said that he and I have teamed up on stuff. If he hasn't provided you balls, come on, Zach. Ball hoarder. Yeah. I don't reveal my sources. You know that. So anyway, so this one, World Series ball. This, and I actually, this was from a box.

There were seven of them, but clearly one of these game ball boxes had seven balls in them. I took five of them apart. They all dated both with the thicker laces and the batch codes on the inside to being 2018 regular season balls. now every statement that's been made by MLB says that well there's two versions one is that every ball used in the 2019 postseason was made first they said during the first quarter of 2019 then they amended the statement to there were all balls from the 2019 regular season there was a vaguer statement that came out that said all balls used. in the postseason came from regular season batches, which is in fact technically correct. These are from regular season

batches. They are just from 2018 regular season batches. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. I got to clear this up. So 2019 postseason ball. Regular postseason, not the World Series. That was a 2019 ball.

This is a 29. Well, here's the thing. These are just the ones that got. They were both. They're both. These are just, I don't. have a ton of samples. That's why I'd like to get more that's a 2019 postseason because there's clearly a mix

and if you look at, again, Rob Arthur's done some great work, what he looked was he saw that the drag varied game to game, not just like, it wasn't just that the ball didn't carry as well. It was literally how the ball carried on average in a given game

varied. And I've since also talked to postseason pitchers and this is at all levels, of all different series, not just for the World Series, was that balls they were being thrown by the umpire, like back to back,

would feel different. They would clearly be 2019 or something else. And if you remember from the postseason, Garrett Cole and Verlander would get the ball from the ump, they'd shake it in their hand like they were shaking up a can of Nesquick, and then they'd either say,

nope, or yes. And they were discarding balls before they even threw them because they could they were feeling for a difference. So you so the batch numbers and your research told you that in the 2019 postseason there were the turbo balls, the 2019 regular season balls, but they were also 2018 regular season balls that are so different than the 2019, which is why we get that Will Smith home run that wasn't a home run and so many things where the camera guys, the announcers, the pitcher, the batter, and the outfielder all act like it's a home run and then it falls short. So that's super interesting.

So the batch numbers that you're looking at, does Rawlings know exactly what they mean? Like, they have to. Oh, they know exactly what they mean, yeah. And they just won't share? No, I've asked several times and they won't. In that case, they won't even respond. in some cases I have been told like for instance I wanted to learn more about the number of winding machines they had on site I was told the number of winding machines was intellectual property that they couldn't share which I thought was interesting

did you know that that was that important yeah and um it's I didn't know what that is I mean but as far as batch codes I've asked both Rawlings and MLB and nobody will even acknowledge that the questions so they don't want anyone looking into this, which is like sign number one that something weird's going on. But the other thing is the conversation that we had at winter meetings that I think is the important important to let listeners and everyone know this is you're not saying, at least you weren't in winter meetings, that MLB went out of their way to like really do this. Like they didn't design the turbo ball. It was more negligence and just happenstance.

Like this happened. This was they fucked this up. But they won't admit that. Instead, their reporting, they keep saying, no, we didn't find anything. People are just changing their swing and it's this and this. But it's not like they, not like Manfred assembled a team. It was like, let's make a Super Bowl. It just kind of happened, right?

That's what you found? Yeah, that's one of the things that, and I guess this is one of the reasons that I find the entire situation strange is that every single change we've seen, including the whole, yeah, let's randomly mix baseballs together for the postseason, is related to some kind of economic decision. The thicker laces that led to the 2017 home run surge look like it was just a supplier change. And I've since gotten sort of anecdotal confirmation that, yeah, they did change their laces supplier around them. So there you go.

the 2019, the turbo ball, the reason it looks like that that became that sort of rounder ball with these like seams that didn't exist because they were so flat, that looks like they actually changed the drying process. Before then baseballs were air-dried because if you think about the leather has to be made wet so that it will conform to the ball. And air-drying takes days. Well, if you suddenly have to make a, you know, a couple hundred thousand more baseball. balls for AAA. If you actually speed up the drying process by using, say, the equivalent of a

blow dryer, that might make it easier to make that many more baseballs. So again, reasonable economic decision. It gave you a ball that the problem is that it's like throwing your t-shirt in the dryer so that it shrinks back to normal. And the problem became them that the laces that normally would have stretched didn't. So everything stayed round. And the, Those laces stayed literally by not stretching kept the seams flat as well. So you got the turbo ball. What ended up happening for the postseason, and I was able to find numbers that were really, it was kind of, it was pretty cool that I was able to track them down.

Baseball usage just went way up. You know, all those extra balls you're talking about, Trevor, that ended up, you know, going to batting practice or to spring. training or getting sent down to the minors, those just didn't happen. Normally, usage would have left by the end of the season, something like 300,000 extra baseballs, and those were literally would have been surplus. The usage went up so much, and Molly Knight actually wrote about this. This wasn't even, these are her numbers, not my numbers, that instead of having 300,000 extra baseballs at the end of the season they had 60,000. So they somehow went through an extra

240,000 baseballs. Zach Campbell. And these are these are her numbers yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there you go. It's all Zach's fault. I'm trying to think why that would be like there's got to be well she was able to track that down actually because it obviously couldn't have just been home runs. It couldn't have just been the Garrett Cole discards. What she found was that the whole game ball authentication thing. Yeah. I was just that. again, awesome, cute little sticker there, got just, they just basically did as much of it as they could, or they really upped it. And the way it was described was that every ball that left a pitcher's hand that made it back to the dugout.

And it heard what Trevor was saying, you know, those are balls that would have ended up being used somewhere else in a lot of cases. Instead of going into some bucket to then go somewhere else, they were literally being taken aside. labeled, authenticated, and removed from circulation entirely. So we have like a Ronald Serenus, bun ground out, authenticated ball. Some of them are really funny, actually. Like, there's one picture in the article, and it's just one that I took that was related to the Astros fan fest,

and they'll label, like, you know, what happened to the ball. And in that case, it literally just has that the ball was thrown two or three times, for a ball. Yeah. And was then removed. Yeah. If you just, like it wasn't even

probably part of an at bat. Yeah. Just, yeah, thrown from the pitcher to the catcher three times and then got pulled them authenticated. Yeah, if you watch a baseball game,

they're constantly throwing balls out. And what used to happen before there was, there's an authenticator at every single field, every single night. They started doing this with bats too. Before, whatever,

2014, I'll say. You were responsible for buying your own bats. The team might buy you like six bats, maybe a dozen bats. But now what they started to do was they wanted to buy your bats for you and they'd buy you whatever amount of bats you wanted because they knew they could sell those for a profit. So if you broke a bat, it's not your bat anymore. They authenticated gets it, they put a stick on it. They sell it up in the concourse. Same thing with these balls. If the umpire throws a ball out or catcher throws a ball back, the bat boy is going to go get those balls now. And before you'd be like, hey, bat boy, give me that ball.

and what started happening was he would just take these balls and the authenticated would be right next to him. So all those balls that, you know, were brought out of circulation and the reason we're probably using more balls now, we don't have as much of surplus is because they want to sell them. They want to make a profit on it. And they, that's what Molly reported was, I mean, once you run the numbers, what it worked out to was they were literally, and again, this is an on average number. They were going through an extra hundred baseballs per game. Yeah.

What? And that sounds like That's nothing, no. Crazy number, except that, again, 15 games a day. Molly reported. Yeah, based on what Molly reported, it was the idea of a team selling

up to 50 balls, you know, just on the concourse, it seemed like those little stands now almost. They sell bases, they sell everything. Well, and it's not just that, but the balls in particular, like they'd have, you know, say up to 50 balls that would be out there during a game

and they'd sell out every day. every single thing. So they were very, very popular. So, you know, in terms of the economics, yeah, you can sort of see. Or if you go to the auction site for MLB.com, there's a buy now section, which is remarkable because it's not just that there are authenticated game balls available. It's that you can pick the year, the month, the park, the actual game. I think there may be situations where you can pick the picture.

And it's not like there's a sign that says, you know, we've only got five left, you know, limited numbers. They're just there. There's a lot. There seems to be a lot of them. I mean, I don't have the numbers on how many MLB are selling directly. But, you know, I've also talked to, you know, people for like, who've done like a fan fest and they'll be handed, you know,

dozens of balls that are somehow associated. with them and be asked oh yeah here sign a whole bunch of these so we can sell them so I mean it gets back into that economics thing where these are popular they're selling but all I're at least net neutral

on those balls they're at least net neutral they might even be net positive on them because I don't know what they sell them for but it's not they sell them for on the concourses well let me see on the website the low end I've seen is 50 bucks for buy now

high end is a hundred. They don't cost. They're net positive. They're net positive. They can afford to get the double A guys some good balls. Yeah. I guess, except that they force the teams to buy their own baseballs. But it's, it's the economics is actually kind of interesting because I mean, as far as I know the teams themselves.

And again, I hope I'm quoting Molly's article correctly. The teams themselves do get to keep the profits from whatever. Because don't forget, they've already bought those baseballs. Yeah. So it's almost like, you know, it's sort of just free on top. And I think they do get to keep the money from those. So there was some discussion in her article about the fact that the players who actually pitch those balls or were at those at-bats didn't get that time. It depends.

It might be a shared revenue type thing because usually if there's something with an Major League Baseball logo, then that becomes shared revenue throughout the league and with the players as well. That's typically, I don't know how they do baseball. Well, I know that the, the player she interviewed specifically said they were not getting revenue. Oh, well, it wouldn't be like if my bat sold for a hundred bucks, like $20, it'd be like they pull all that money together along with everything else with the majorly baseball logo. And then that's the shared revenue. Licensing is called your licensing check. But what the final thought or the thought is that MLB was selling so many of these balls and the authenticated. went so through the roof that the dots were kind of connecting is they ran out of baseballs in 2019

because of this and there go, shit, we need some baseballs. And they reach back into that 2018 extra ball bag and put those into the postseason. And now we have Garrett Cole discarding balls and balls dying at the track and other balls going crazy. And just a wild gambit of balls. That's the connected dots that they're kind of. Right. And then there's the further remaining 60,000, and, you know, we don't have to go into a ton of detail on this. But because the ball was introduced into AAA, it turns out that major league baseballs don't actually stand up very well.

At least the 2019 balls didn't stand up very well to minor league conditions. And so AAA ran through a lot more baseballs than they were projected to. It was like 30% more or something, which is insane. In the end, so you've got MLB, they've got their extra 60,000 as their surplus. I kid you not, the numbers that come out for what AAA ran short by were 60,000. Now, obviously, that's plus or minus a few thousand in there. You know, you can only get the numbers so exact, but it does suddenly make sense that, you know, it sort of came out to zero at the end of 2019.

Another one, I'll show this real quick, because this is, actually turns out to be relevant to 2020 is take these are both again game balls from the postseason see the direction of the laces yeah I was real when you this this was blown my mind in your article so you see the V of the laces because see if they go in opposite directions this is probably an easier way to look at yeah yeah so the right now the top one is going to the left and the bottom is going to the right right so what you're seeing sorry let's do it that way is just see now that's the same yeah now It's the same. So they stamped it on the wrong side.

They stamped it on the wrong side. So what happened was this is still a game quality ball, even though it's stamped on the wrong side. But as far as I can tell, they were just running so short that they took anything they could get, even though it was normally that would have failed quality of control. And Trevor, you can correct me if you've seen something different, but for as long as I've been doing this, I have never seen a game ball that didn't have stitches that looked like this. So, I mean, it's the way they... I just do my mind a little bit.

I don't even think about it. The way they stamp them is the laces are going to the right, right? The V is going to the right or left. Yeah, normally the point of the V, I tend to think of it as the point of the V goes clockwise on what's considered a typical game ball. Okay. And yet for the postseason, it just sort of didn't matter.

And I've since even seen pictures that people have sent me from authenticated game balls. that were stamped upside down. Doc. What's, sorry, yeah? You're blowing my mind a little bit right here. Sorry. Because we got to like,

we got to put some real world scenarios for our listeners here. When a pitcher has a ball in his glove, he puts it pretty much the same way every time. So if the laces are running one way in one ball and another way on another ball, I'm no physicist but that's going to do different things that's going to fuck with it badly if he's looking

that's going to do things with his hair in your pressure oh god did you say the F word? I love that we need some conviction in that fuck oh yeah and that is I can get worse do it because this is really you don't feel like you have to

no if you hear me really pop off on something it gets much worse trust so yeah like I said a guy puts a ball in his glove and he grabs a two seer he knows exactly where his fingers are going to go. But if the ball is stamped on the opposite side, he puts his fingers in the exact same place,

the friction coming off his fingers is going to be completely different. The ball is going to move completely different. The pictures that I've talked to, I don't know how many of them look at the stamp, but if that's something people do, then yeah, this is a problem. And in fact, here, spoiler, problem going forward.

So again, this is game ball. I realize it says spring training. It's mostly just that it's my prettiest example that the rest got taken apart. So that's a game ball, and you can see the direction of the laces. This is a 20 training game ball. Wrong way. Take a look. What?

Opposites. And of the, I got four of these. three of the four were stamped upside down. So what I think is going to happen is they figured out, okay, it doesn't matter. You know, like, it's still a game quality ball, regardless of the stamp. And maybe if we keep all of the balls that were stamped upside down

and just chuck that as a quality control standard, we weren't out of baseballs this year. Because, in theory, they could switch back to, they could switch back to the same, like, having the laces like this. However, they make a lot of game balls for spring training, meaning they have to stamp a lot of balls that, like, specifically stamped as spring training game balls. Because it's not just four weeks worth of games

when you compare to the regular season and split squads, it's probably closer to six, which is like a quarter of the season. so that's even if it's not that many it's still a huge percentage of what you would be doing for the regular season and so it seems like if you had your quality control inspectors and okay yeah you can ignore you know which side it's stamped on for spring training and yeah for the regular season yeah but we want you to switch back overnight they're not going to be able to do that yeah i mean i can't see why they would do one and not the other. I think that the whole

laces or side on which something is stamped has just been checked entirely for quality control. Here's where this really gets crazy for me. You watched the World Series last year. There was a big home run hit by Howie Kendrick to the opposite view.

Now before this interview, I posed a question to two of my buddies who are still pitchers who played in the postseason last year. I said, did you notice a different between regular season and postseason balls. One guy said, no, I didn't notice a difference. And look at Howie Kendrick's own run. It still didn't seem like that should have been a homer, but it was.

So he was saying that the turbo ball was still in playing the postseason. The other one said absolutely completely different balls from the postseason to from the regular season. So that's just laying even more claim. It sounds like they're both right in a way. Exactly. There was just a pool of balls. Some of them were from the regular season. Some of them were from 2018. If Howie Kendrick or Will Harris, who was the pitcher, if he was like, I don't like the way this ball feels, let me throw a diff one. And he ended up getting a ball from 2000, whatever, 2018, that one that's more dead. I did hear, I was not able to get even pictures on this, but I did hear anecdotally that there were even 2017 balls used.

So they just went into old inventory. If he picks up a ball and throws it and that one's dead compared to the one, how he hits, maybe that's a double and it's not a home run and the Astros win the World Series. Like that's the kind of shit that's going on here that's making me kind of crazy. Yeah, I've gone through and looked at a couple games. I mean, for instance, the double thing because I just, I did an interview with Milwaukee TV station last week. and there was a double that Eric Thames hit that Juan Soto played terribly. And the reason he did was because it should have been a home run and bounced off the wall.

And the thing is that was the wild card games. He was the first time anyone had seen that. He was kind of coasting to it because he thought it was a home run. Exactly. And I mean, if you remember it bounced off the wall. He had to run in for it. I mean, the idea that Thames had only, I mean, he probably could have beat out. I don't know it was a triple if he'd been really booking.

I don't remember even if there was I didn't see video of how he was running but possibly with the exception of the A's just because they really didn't have that much offense during their game sorry and I believe it or not I've been out in the Bay Air I mean come on Dallas Dallas

Dallas will forgive me like I went to more A's games last year than any other I even love Oakland Coliseum No no no no short list of people No, no, no, this is an aside. The reason I love the Coliseum is because of what it's like now, because the only people who go to those games die-hards die-hards. Really, really want to be there.

Exactly. I agree with you there. And so the games themselves are so much more fun because everybody loves them. Yeah, I do agree. Nobody's there just because it's like a work social or whatever, and those people make me insane. I mean, so, yeah. I'm going to back to differ on that one, but, uh, I see Sue is coming up through the drains and the visitors dog out.

So a couple notes. A, you're going to be happy. Now that you have this in Trevor's head, he's going to go talk to his little birdies and see what comes back. B, next time you need to get any souvenirs from Astros fan fest, bring John Boy with you, and see, how does this documentary end or how should it end? does it end with the MLB saying we we screwed up we dug into some old batches we were trying to make some extra coin

uh dr wills is now commissioner how should how should this wrap up um god that's a tough one i'll tell you what it would be nice to to a certain extent i kind i kind of think that's flown in that i'm not really sure the only thing that thing I can think of that MLB might be able to do going forward to fix this because, I mean, it's all, it's done. And it would be nice that they acknowledged it. One one thing that does sort of disturb me is that, you know, when, and this is when we, during the winter meetings, and then they were going to do that press conference, they made it very clear that all these balls were from 2019 to the point of the home run committee had all those postseason balls. And they

got, you know, like, what, 20 dozen postseason balls, and got results that looked like the postseason. But meanwhile, they had been told by MLB that they were all 2019 balls, which meant that the results made no sense. And so instead of this, oh yeah, by the way, MLB made the best, or Brownlings made the best ball in the history of baseball, you had Morgan's sword saying, actually, ball-to-ball variation is so difficult to control that we almost can't do anything about it, which is exactly the opposite of what happened during 2019, and it almost feels like it was cover for the postseason. So I guess some of it is I'd like to understand the rationale because they didn't do anything wrong, but another obvious thing, and since the CBA is coming up, it's doable,

is right now the only piece of, the only type of equipment that isn't approved by the rules committee, you know, for instance, your bats or whatever, you want a two-tone bat. It has to be approved by the Rules Committee. The one piece of equipment that's exempted is the ball. All you need to do is add a rule or change that rule such that the ball is also required to be approved by the Rules Committee. Now, that opens a cool can of worms because it does mean that suddenly Rawlings has to open their doors and people with the PA and whoever is part of the Rules Committee actually has to be allowed in on the process and know what's going on. They should be able to be allowed.

It has to be a big secret. It's so ridiculous. They wouldn't even tell me the number of winding machines. That's stupid. I've been saying for years, I mean, really? I've been saying for years, we've got to have the same ball throughout all of professional baseball. Really, it should be the same ball, no matter what. It should be a baseball. Baseball is a baseball. But I understand the economics of it. So, but once you get into a problem, got to be the same ball throughout

all the levels. My second point on baseball is which I've made forever. The Mississippi mud, sorry, guys, we got to get rid of that. It's so irregular in the way that they rub up balls that you're going to find some that are dark, some of that are light, some are going to feel this way, some are I thought, let's get rid of that. Let's have a machine that rubs the balls up with a clear liquid, a clear substance that holds the grip. They're trying to do that in Japan. Yeah.

I have a question for you. I have a question for you, Trevor, about this. Just thinking about the Yankees thing. I know umpires who I've talked to and the process for rubbing up the balls is umpire dependent, not team dependent. and so I'm I look at I mean like

I've never heard it they're probably off the record but I think they have to no they don't rub the balls oh no excuse me the assistance to the umpire's rub up the balls let me rephrase that

the point is it's the umpire's responsibility not the team's responsibility I want to say this and I don't know 1,000% for sure or whatever 100% but I don't think the empire see the balls it's a guy if you go if you go to a major league stadium

them before the games. There's going to be a guy, a clubhouse guy. He's going to be sitting on a bucket. He's going to have a bucket of mud, and he's going to be rubbing up the bean. Now at like 16, 17 dozen balls before the games. And they're just sitting there rubbing them up, and they put him in a huge bag. Or a couple bags. And then all it is is they put that bag next to the bat boy.

And then when an umpire calls for balls, he brings the balls out. I don't think the empire see the balls at all before the game. Maybe they're supposed to, but I don't think they do. And apparently there's one pitcher. This is a discussion for another time. But after this, there is an umpire who I am going to personally get you in touch with. Your nephew? Because she's, what?

Was your relative? No, she's not. Not, no. As a matter of fact, as a matter of fact, it's because she's retired that we can do this. Okay. But, yeah, she's actually even offered to teach me the rubbing up process. Oh, it's not hard. You just rubble the balls.

A little bit of water, a little bit of mud. But the point is it's actually a fairly exact thing. And so if you're interested, I will absolutely put you guys in touch. I'm telling you right now, I want it to be exact. It is not exact. I've been saying that for years. There should be a color chart. There should be something because you're going to get such variation with these balls

depending on who the starting pitcher is or who's rubbing at the ball. So not every pitcher is going to be like, hey, rub up the balls this way or that way. Some guys will. Those are pretty close, yeah. But there's, I'm trying to find covers that are, um, it's the least exact thing in all the baseball. And I don't know who. Well, we've heard, it's not.

We've heard that there's a pitcher out there who has his own bag and the ball boy supplies the ump with his bag during his inning and a different bag during the other. 100% it happens. Yeah, that's... For sure. Let's put it this way. There are absolutely ball issues out there

that are not even necessarily associated with rubbing up. But that's not part of this discussion. That's something you guys are probably perfect for looking into, and I'll leave it at that, but it's not related to doing that process.

The umpires do not pretty much always or never, they never see the balls before they go up. Because they're just rubbed up, they're putting a bag. You don't even think they see them crossing the plate. You think they just call balls and strikes blindly. Isn't that what you always say? Oh, sometimes.

Sometimes. When a guy's pitching that has a ball rubbed up and it looks the exact same color as the dirt that you're playing on so you can't see it. I mean, you're getting to be fired up right now. I have heard of irregularities, even with the rubbing up thing. I've heard of other irregularities.

I can't go into more than that on the second. But yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if there are balls getting in there as game balls that are somehow not being prepared by the empires. What I can say is the rules dictate that the umpires prepare the balls. So maybe that's the way to think of it.

If the, no, they do. I know, I know, but they don't. They don't prepare the ball. Well, just, my point is if that's happening, it's breaking the rules. That's all I'm saying. Are we cool with that? Yeah, no, I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm not saying you're wrong.

I believe 100% what you're saying. And I'm not saying you're wrong either. I'm just saying that the idea of the point is the umpires are supposed to be rubbing up the balls. And if that's not happening, that's clearly a problem. They're not. And if there's one thing you guys are good at uncovering, it is problems in baseball. so, you know, once you've got all this sorted, you have more challenges, right? Yeah.

There's a lot of things we can go into that are not supposed to happen. Oh, yeah. We're talking about baseball specifically. Yeah, we appreciate you joining and shedding light on the funny business with the baseball. I think it's incredibly interesting that, you know, we played a full season with turbo balls. And it was everyone knew it and no one can do anything about it. Pitchers just had to live with it. And you get to the postseason, it felt like a crapshoot.

and according to all of your research, it was a crapshoot. Yep. Yeah, it was, it's, it's, it's, it just, it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to the players. It wasn't fair to the fans. It wasn't fair to the teams. And, and, and to this day, nobody, I mean, MLB, not only will MLB not admit it publicly. I mean, I was talking to, you know, just right before, you know, everything kind of came crashing down and, you know, spring training and everything, talking to, you know, you know,

a very high level front office person. And I had my stuff out. I showed him. He had no idea. He's somebody who, I mean, if you're getting to the very, very top in the front office levels, I mean,

maybe the owner's new, but certainly nobody with the teams did. Yeah, crazy. And I don't really get that. Well, thank you for joining us. We really appreciate it. Well, thank you. Thank you.

Thanks, Doc. we'll have you on next scandal next time we'll see what these 2020 balls from see if we get you in 2021 oh yeah that's true all right thank you very much and i'll talk to you guys great be good thank you that was awesome never deal all right that was meredith doctor Meredith Wells smarter than me and Jake combined surely I think probably easy

it's not really a discussion yeah it's easily okay she was she was great she had a ton of info stuff that you know I kind of followed her on Twitter but I feel like she kind of revealed some other stuff that she'd been working on

and basically MLB is just dropping the ball. Yeah. Wow. Literally. Double and thunder. That's pretty good. And there's, like Trevor hyped himself after the episode. It is interesting to think about the ripple effects that this has when you started talking about the postseason in the one game playoff and the Howie Kendrick ball and how that could have affected baseball history. It's insane. And the one thing I love that it came out in like some, a lot of the midseason trade deadline articles. It was like, people don't know how

to evaluate players because a turbo ball guy could hit 35 homers. A non-turbo ball guy might be an 18 or year. So it's, uh, it really is interesting how it ties into the game. And, uh, I mean, Meredith is in. Dr. Meredith wills is in deep. It's crazy to me that they're so secretive about it all. Yeah. And people just think home runs or non-home runs, but this really affects pictures as well,

what their pitches are doing. We, we know about the blisters. I mean, it affects the entire. teeth both sides of the ball. Well, hopefully you guys enjoyed that. You definitely did because it was interesting and I enjoyed it. And I think it's wildly interesting. Fascinating.

Good job by Meredith, Dr. Wills. We'll be back on Monday for another episode of Talking Baseball. Outra music, once I have it, cued up, will play. And it's about to get queued up soon. Got my phone, not my laptop, and kaboom, we're out. We appreciate it. We love you. Go tell everyone to listen to talking baseball because you know stuff before they do.

Treves tidbits.