What Kind of Season Does MLB Want?

Because it can have what it wants

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We are five years out now from the most absurdly over the top home run season in the history of Major League Baseball. If you don’t remember that far back, I understand. The year 2019 was pre-Covid, after all. It’s like there’s a giant wall separating now from then, and that’s only partially because of your recurring brain fog.

But way back then, in the spring and then the summer of ‘19, baseball players suddenly started parking baseballs over baseball fences at rates that either entertained, amazed or alarmed baseball people. Also, fans.

It was a wild ride. Pete Alonso, who had never played a single inning in the big leagues, bashed 53 home runs and drove in 120. (He also struck out 183 times, but nobody cared.) Cody Bellinger hit 47 homers; he hasn’t hit more than 26 in a season since. Gleyber Torres hit 38 in 2019, and he’s never topped 25 in any other of his six years in the bigs.

I could go on. Wait: I will. Eugenio Suarez has never hit more than 34 homers in any year except 2019, when he hit…forty-nine. Christian Yelich hit 44 that year; Yelich’s highest total in any season since then is 19.

Something was up. The MLB total for home runs that season was 6,776 — by far the highest tally in the sport’s history. Not only that, but the number represented an increase of more than 17% over the year before. You’d have to go back to a historical development like the end of the dead ball era or the lowering of the pitcher’s mound to see anything like that.

In all, 58 big-league players bashed 30 or more homers in 2019. So what gave?

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The folks over at MLB Messaging had a rough go in 2019. The ball was clearly juiced, but league officials could not figure out how to proceed to actually comment on it, so they mostly said nothing, which begat wild independent investigations that involved things like astrophysicists cutting open baseballs and looking for clues.

Nobody found any bottle rockets packed in there. But the consensus expert view became that the construction of the baseball itself was definitely different. Eventually, even the commissioner of the game agreed.

“We need to make a change to the baseball,” Rob Manfred said — after the massive home run records had been set and the ratings-driving attention been duly paid.

After the season, MLB reported that its own internal study had concluded part of the reason for the home run explosion was “inconsistent seam heights” and greater launch angles taken by hitters. Inconsistent Seam Heights would be a decent name for a scrappy alt-rock band, but invoking it in this case didn’t actually answer any questions; it only suggested more of them. After all, MLB makes the baseballs. It controls those seams. Right?

Yes — but also no. Allegedly.

All baseballs that are used in MLB games are manufactured at a Rawlings Sporting Goods plant in Costa Rica, and have been since 1987. (Affordable labor and such.) The league can tell you everything about this particular factory, because its people are there all the time. Its reliability of quality over the decades is one reason the place is still used by MLB despite the fact that 80% of all baseballs in the world are now made in China.

Yet despite the obvious truth that MLB exerts strict control over just about every facet of its sport, from how many seconds a pitcher has to throw a pitch to how far out of the way a fielder needs to get from a baserunner before making a tag — despite all this, the league’s top brass wanted people to believe it really had no idea how these baseballs suddenly developed weird seams or lower seams, which reduced the drag coefficient once the ball was in the air by depressing friction. (I studied.) Less drag equals more distance.

Home run. Boom, baby.

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But why revisit 2019 now? More to the point, why do it on Opening Day 2024?

Well, one reason is that the bash-ball season of five years ago didn’t turn out to be such an outlier. Instead, home run totals over the ensuing years — and a few years before 2019, too — suggest something less random at work.

Throw out 2020 (pandemic). In 2021, home runs totaled 5,940, and the next season they decreased further to 5,215. Then, last year, they took off again, reaching 5,868 by season’s end.

That’s a bit of up and down, but the context is missing. Here’s the bigger picture: Six of the seven highest MLB home run totals of all time, including 2021 and 2023, have been recorded just since 2016. (The 2022 total ranks 12th.)

Launch angle doesn’t explain that. Nor does poor pitching; the league-wide batting averages in 2020, ‘21 and ‘22 all rank among the 15 lowest of all time. The pitching was fine-plus.

No, the baseball itself has been jacked up, rewarding that ball in the air with greater carry and less resistance. And again, every baseball used is coming from the same Costa Rican factory, which is basically controlled by MLB.

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So where are we this year? Among other things, we arrive at the season very confident that Major League Baseball has more control over this process than a casual observer might imagine.

This has always been true, by the way. The league has all sorts of levers it can pull in order to adjust the sport to its needs or desires.

It can choose, for example, to lower the mound and make it harder for pitchers to deliver top velocity and maximum angle throws. MLB did exactly that after the 1968 season, attempting to give hitters a better chance at the pitchers who were murdering them.

MLB can create the designated hitter. (It did that.) It can encourage umpires to tighten up their strike zones. (It has done that.) It can ban extreme defensive shifts that turn what used to be sure hits into sure outs. (Just did that.)

That’s the puzzle: Figuring out how to drive enough offense into the game to keep fans talking, without being so incredibly obvious about it that folks cry foul or think the thing is rigged. (Not gambling rigged, just offense rigged.)

Lately, MLB’s adjustments have led to home run totals that blow away almost everything that’s ever been done in the sport. So what does the league want this year? We’re about to find out.