A Baseball Conspiracy?
“Baseball has always had a culture of data collection and analysis – called sabermetrics. It is amazing in and of itself that someone can throw a baseball over 100 mph, but what makes it even more interesting is that we know the exact day, pitch number, windspeed, and ambient temperature when Jordan Hicks threw a ball for 104.2 mph earlier this year – and how that compares to every other pitch thrown in the modern history of the game. What does all that data tell us? It points to a conspiracy.”
People who follow the stats closely, noticed something strange in the middle of 2015. There was a massive spike in home runs.
Figure of spike - Data accessed at Baseball Reference
The 2015 season saw the largest ever increase in the rate of home runs per batted ball between the first and second half of a season [1]. For the data miners this does not go unnoticed, nor does speculation remain at bay. People have guessed the spike was caused by changes to the bats, the angle of batting, steroids, to faster pitching, and more. But none of those things seem plausible to have happened mid-season across all clubs.
So what changed?
The ball.
The problem with this story is that there is no documented statement that the ball changed. No new ball roll-out that players and coaches knew about or prepared for. No media release. The ball’s change was quiet and unannounced to fans, players, coaches, managers, owners, umpires, investors, sports media, and who knows who else.
The question is why? It could be that with baseball attendance declining [2] Major League Baseball may have been looking for a way to subtly make the game more exciting without making a significant change? I think so. Interestingly, Major League Baseball has only recently disclosed that, in fact, the balls did change, but did not say what the change was [3] or why a change was made.
The incredible amount of baseball data has been able to tell the story. Utilizing data from Statcast, researchers have measured the rate of velocity change from the pitcher to the home plate. With this data the coefficient of drag can be estimated. The researchers and sports enthusiasts found that the coefficient of drag is lower for balls in the post-2015 era. A lower coefficient of drag means that the ball is more aerodynamic and will carry farther.
![Image Courtesy FiveThirtyEight [4]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d6700e799e03b0001e82f2b/1572405969490-7Q9XFU6RTUQCCYZD49WB/Baseball2.JPG)
Image Courtesy FiveThirtyEight [4]
From a product design and development point of view the interesting question is: How can such a major design change be made without input from any or all of the major stakeholders? I see four possible (though not necessarily probable) scenarios:
Rawlings (the manufacturer of the ball) made a deliberate change to the ball without telling Major League Baseball.
A design change was made that had unintended consequences, by either Rawlings or Major League Baseball.
An accidental change was made to the design and/or manufacturing of the balls.
Major League Baseball quietly directed a change in the design but will not admit to what it was.
Let’s investigate each of those choices. Rawlings would almost certainly not make a change to the design of a product from one of its top customers without extensive communication with Major League Baseball. If a design change did happen that had unintended consequences, it would most likely be changed back to the previous design once the unintended consequence was noticed. An accidental change would also likely be changed back to the previous design once noticed. Unless of course, Major League Baseball liked the accidental change or unintended consequence and decided just to keep it. Nevertheless, these are all improbable.
To illustrate why Major League Baseball directing a change to the ball is the most plausible reason, let’s look at how designs in general change. In a large company with large manufacturing volumes, the manufacturing process is tightly controlled and will undergo numerous quality checks before the product is shipped. In order for a design change to be implemented a change order is made to clearly indicate what the design change is and why it is being made. This is an important document because it will not only lay out the change but it will also have approvals from the stakeholders involved in the design and manufacturing.
For the baseball, it is extremely unlikely that a change, resulting in a lower coefficient of drag, would be done without a change order from Major League Baseball. If such a change was accidental, it is fortunate that it resulted in more home runs instead of less, and for such a regulated sport, would have likely been changed back once noticed. The truth is that the new ball has been used for four years without reverting back to the previous design.
Another interesting question is this: Why did Major League Baseball commission a panel of researchers to investigate the new more homerun-prone balls? It might just be an act, or maybe they really don’t know what is going on with the balls. It does seem suspect that the group of researchers commissioned by Major League Baseball did not investigate the surface conditions of the ball more closely [5], since this is known to affect drag.
The most likely scenario with such an important product is that there was a deliberate change to the design as part of an effort to make the game slightly more exciting.
