Chicks dig the long ball! How a new baseball has forever changed AAA

When do the IL and PCL break their 2018 HR totals (choose two!)

  • IL-June

  • IL-July

  • IL-August

  • IL-September

  • PCL-June

  • PCL-July

  • PCL-August

  • PCL-September


Results are only viewable after voting.

soxhop411

news aggravator
SoSH Member
Dec 4, 2009
46,274
I put this on the baseball reddit after being home sick the past few days and just browsing MILB stats on B-Ref since I was quarantined in my room with nothing better to do.

As we all know AAA switched to MLB balls this year and the offensive change is staggering less then a year in.

So far in AAA the IL has hit 726 HR’s (1555 in 2018) and the PCL has hit 1060 HR’s (2097 in 2018) which is %46.6 and %50.5 of their home run totals from last year.


And this is before the weather even gets warm.

I wonder what it’s going to take for MLB to admit the balls are juiced.
 
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soxhop411

news aggravator
SoSH Member
Dec 4, 2009
46,274
Is this a follow up to the Are the balls juiced? thread?
Yes. Because we kind of have statistical proof now. We can now compare the amount of homers hit in AAA last year to the pace that AAA will be hitting homers this year. And if both the IL And PCL keep up the pace they may double the amount of homers hit compared to their 2018 total.
 

djbayko

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
25,894
Los Angeles, CA
Yes. Because we kind of have statistical proof now. We can now compare the amount of homers hit in AAA last year to the pace that AAA will be hitting homers this year. And if both the IL And PCL keep up the pace they may double the amount of homers hit compared to their 2018 total.
Forgive me if I’m missing something, but how does this prove that the MLB balls are juiced? I assume what we care about is whether or not the 2019 MLB ball is more juiced than it was in 2015, 2010, 2005, etc. I don’t see how switching out MiLB balls for MLB balls tells us anything about that. Maybe you would have seen a similar jump in HRs if they switch balls back in 1992.

I’m not saying the ball isn’t juiced. I’m just not sure this is an experiment which does anything to help prove or disprove the hypothesis.
 

effectivelywild

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 14, 2005
466
Forgive me if I’m missing something, but how does this prove that the MLB balls are juiced? I assume what we care about is whether or not the 2019 MLB ball is more juiced than it was in 2015, 2010, 2005, etc. I don’t see how switching out MiLB balls for MLB balls tells us anything about that. Maybe you would have seen a similar jump in HRs if they switch balls back in 1992.

I’m not saying the ball isn’t juiced. I’m just not sure this is an experiment which does anything to help prove or disprove the hypothesis.
All it would prove is that the major league balls are "juiced" relative to the ones the minor leagues were using. Still interesting on its surface.
 

soxhop411

news aggravator
SoSH Member
Dec 4, 2009
46,274
I put this on the baseball reddit after being home sick the past few days and just browsing MILB stats on B-Ref since I was quarantined in my room with nothing better to do.

As we all know AAA switched to MLB balls this year and the offensive change is staggering less then a year in.

So far in AAA the IL has hit 726 HR’s (1555 in 2018) and the PCL has hit 1060 HR’s (2097 in 2018) which is %46.6 and %50.5 of their home run totals from last year.


And this is before the weather even gets warm.

I wonder what it’s going to take for MLB to admit the balls are juiced.
Since I posted these numbers a week ago, there have been big changes.
IL went from 726 Homers to 904 homers (%46.6 to %58.13) and the PCL went from 1060 to 1236 Homers (%50.5 to 59%)
 

soxhop411

news aggravator
SoSH Member
Dec 4, 2009
46,274
Baseball America has done a bunch of articles on how the new ball in AAA is completely changing the game.

Today’s article is one of the best:

The leaderboards explain it as well.

There are six batting qualifiers in all of Double-A (30 teams) who are slugging .500 or better. There are eight batting qualifiers in all of high Class A (30 teams) who are slugging .500 or better. There are two batting qualifiers in all of low Class A (30 teams) who are slugging .500 or better. So, for the 90 teams in low Class to Double-A, there are 16 hitters who are slugging .500 or better.

In Triple-A, there are 43 qualified hitters in the Pacific Coast League who are slugging .500 or better and another 22 in the International League. There are 15 batting qualifiers in the Triple-A leagues who are slugging better than .600. No one below Triple-A is slugging .600.

One last crazy stat: The average Pacific Coast League hitter has a .480 slugging percentage. There is not a qualified hitter in the Midwest League slugging .480.

OK, one more: Seven different PCL teams have scored 20 or more runs in a game this year. Seven PCL teams have given up 20 or more runs in a game this year.

I lied. One more stat: There have been 15 PCL games where a hitter has hit three home runs. There were only six of those same occurrences last year.

OK, I just can’t stop: There have been four minor league teams who hit 200 or more home runs in a season this century (2001-2018). That’s four out of 2,160 team seasons. So, 0.19 percent of all teams playing in all 18 seasons of this century have hit 200 home runs in a season. This year, 14 of 30 Triple-A teams are on pace to top 200 home runs, or 46.66 percent.

To push this into overkill territory: The International League has averaged six hitters with 20 or more home runs in a season this decade. The decade high was 12 20-plus home run hitters in 2010. This year, the IL already has 18 20-plus home run hitters as August gets going, with another 20 hitters with 15 or more home runs who could join them. Last year, the IL had 14 pitchers who qualified for the ERA title who finished with an ERA under 4.00. That’s right in line with the league’s average of 15 sub-4.00 ERA qualifiers each year of this decade. This year, there are only thre
https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/the-new-triple-a-baseball-has-made-2019-a-season-unlike-any-other/?amphtml&__twitter_impression=true
It wouldn’t be surprising to see MLB over react and try and “deaden” the ball for next season.
 

BaseballJones

ivanvamp
SoSH Member
Oct 1, 2015
24,375
Why can't they just keep the ball at one standard? Why do they need to keep fiddling with it?