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1. SugarBear BlanksHow about Colorado's performance at home and away deviating quite a bit from established norms over the last three years?
NL as a whole, 2010: .726
NL as a whole, 2009: .739
I noticed you didn't comment on the Rockies' pitching improving.
MLB reportedly started monitoring the balls in Colorado last weekend, after the Giants filed a complaint.
Why assume the cheating began this year? The humidor has been around for awhile now.
How could the Rockies manipulate the balls to improve their pitching? All of the balls are supposed to come from the humidor. If non-humidor balls are mixed into the pot, then it would conceivably improve the Rockies' offense but it shouldn't have any impact on the pitching (well, actually, it would harm the Rockies' pitching because there's no way the schemers could control which balls were truly being used when the Rockies were at bat and when they were in the field).
Clearly, the system for controlling the humidor balls was suboptimal and fed the conspiracy theories, and MLB is right to make changes. But the difficulty of manipulating the system for any kind of meaningful gain makes those theories highly unlikely to me.
This explains his performance since he signed that contract.
Indeed, it seems to me that the umpires being in on the fix would be the bigger problem than what the Rockies are purportedly doing in the first place.
Yeah, I think this is exactly right. If the other teams suspect there's some chicanery going on, or even the potential for some chicanery, MLB should fix the situation. No one on the Rockies had any complaint at all about changing the mechanism for procuring the humidor balls.
And then next year, when the Rockies' fluky 2010 home/road splits return to their normal levels, all the conspiracy theorists can claim they were right all along.
Average HR distance (ft.):
Season COL Visitors
2006 417.4 418.1
2007 418.4 417.1
2008 421.6 418.6
2009 413.7 416.4
2010 413.1 407.0
You would expect the Rockies number to move more up and down than the visitors' number, as their personnel changes from year to year would be more significant than the overall changes in NL personnel who come to visit. The visitors' numbers are very steady, until 2010. That last number really stands out.
Edit: those numbers are for Coors Field!
If large, long-standing, well-respected corporations would engage in accounting "tricks" to increase their stock price, why is it so improbable that a baseball team would engage in tricks to win ballgames?
I'm not saying the Rockies are cheating; but I don't get why people think this is crazy, grassy-knoll type conspiracy stuff.
It isn't like well-respected corporations engaging in "tricks" - there are thousands upon thousands of those and the tricks you are talking about are certainly far more intricate. There are only 30 baseball teams in the national spotlight all the time. There is only ONE team in America using a humidor. ONE.
I know I've said that underestimating the stupidity of a group of humans is always a losing bet, but I simply cannot get on board with the idea that this has happened or is happening. It strikes me as insane to surmise without a shred of a whisper of proof, and nothing that's been said qualifies as that. This is all "pleased to meet you, prove you have stopped beating your wife" stuff to my ears.
I'm not scoffing at the idea that they might want to cheat, I'm scoffing at the idea that this particular form of cheating would work in any way, shape, or form. It's simply not possible to have the umpires giving only opposing pitchers rabbit balls, unless the umpires are complicit. And we'd be talking about dozens of umpires over the course of months. It's not credible.
I don't think it's crazy to think the Rockies would cheat. I think it's crazy to think that under the conditions in place here, that they could reasonably expect to effectively cheat.
Edit: Cokes to appropriate parties.
Again, how can the Rockies cheating in this case be expected to negatively affect the visitor's offensive numbers? As far as I know, they're not being accused of overhumidoring some baseballs - just planting in some unhumidored balls among the less jumpy balls. If the Rockies were really pulling this off, then Colorado's offensive numbers should be increasing and their opponents' numbers rising but to a lesser degree. I suppose it's possible that offense is down so far that this year that both team's numbers would be way, way lower, and the cheating has allowed the Rockies hitters to get all that back and their opponents unable to make up the difference, but that seems pretty unlikely to me.
But I thought the idea was simply that they'd try to make sure the umps had more balls that were "juiced" when the Rockies were batting than when the opposing team was at the plate. That they were trying to, for example, get their team 30% juiced balls, while the opposing team only got 10% juiced balls. I agree, the 100% juiced balls theory is preposterous, but you don't need 100% to have a noticeable effect.
I simply cannot get on board with the idea that this has happened or is happening. It strikes me as insane to surmise without a shred of a whisper of proof
A couple of pitchers who've pitched at Coors this season seem to think they've been given juiced balls. Now, this could all be crazy witch-hunting, but if anyone is equipped to tell the difference b/w a juiced ball and a humidor ball by feel, it's a pitcher.
That doesn't settle anything, but there is more than "a shred of a whisper of proof". There's just very little proof.
Again, I'm not saying the Rockies are cheating. I'm saying, its not batshit crazy to think that they might be.
And therefore?
..there is more than "a shred of a whisper of proof."
I just don't agree with this at all. "Seem to think" is not "more than a shred of a whisper of proof" to me.
I mean, I don't think it's batshit crazy, but I think it's certainly not sound reasoning in the slightest.
I still don't know how this is possible. I would like to see a point at which someone who knew how the system worked described a plausible scenario by which the Rockies would be getting umpires more juiced balls when the Rockies were at bat than when their opponents were at bat.
I don't think they'd be any more qualified than Uri Gellar.
I don't know if the Rockies are cheating. I don't know how likely I think it is that they are cheating. I do know that Coors field is behaving differently for the Rockies than for any other team.
The Rockies are hitting 60% better at home than on the road (some of that is likely hangover effect). All visitors are hitting 2% better at Coors Field than at home.
Okay, some of that is because teams just hit better at home:
2010 NL: .751 OPS at home/.702 OPS on the road. So we'd expect teams to hit around 7% worse on the road than at home. Visitors are actually hitting around 2% better, so we'd say that Coors is inflating offense by around 10% for visitors.
It's inflating it by 60% for the Rockies. That's a lot. I don't know if the Rockies are cheating, but people come up with theories to explain statistics. The other explanation: random chance, seems odd, since Coors has established a certain level of offensive inflation over the last few years. Even if we grant the Rockies that their baseline for comparison shouldn't be their own road numbers, but the league average numbers at home, the Rockies are getting 16% inflation from Coors, when everyone else is getting 10%
This might be just a statistical outlier, but the Rockies gaming the humidifier is also a possibility, and the loophole should have been closed by MLB a long time ago.
It seems much more plausible to me than anything else I've seen posited as a possible cause. Sometimes, #### just happens.
Stroke them? Maybe use a little tongue?
Because nobody, not even the basest criminals of the baseball community, could even imagine the sort of depravities perpetrated on a near daily basis by the inhuman creatures who engineer high finance.
I completely agree with this last part... which is one reason the conspiracy theory is so dubious. Any pitcher who feels like he's gotten a lighter, more resilient ball can immediately toss it out of the game. For the conspiracy theory to work, the pitchers have to be completely unable to tell the difference between the two balls.
Sure, that would work. That would also mean we can ignore all the evidence based on the Rockies' home/road splits, since both teams would always be using the same balls.
Yes, it's been at least two years since I heard 2 ex-big leaguers greet each other: "Hey, 12-1 Rocks in the 3rd inning, what do you think?" "They've got their sinker baller pitching today and are using the old balls."
The opportunity and speculation has been around for a while now.
Why are we assuming there is any cheating anyway
Not sure we are, but baseball and human history suggests that where there is an opportunity . . .
there's no way the schemers could control which balls were truly being used when the Rockies were at bat and when they were in the field
How often does the ballboy replenish the ump? This weekend I saw him do it in the top of the first in Coors. I'm not saying new balls arrive every half-inning, but each time the ballboy goes out there an opportunity is presenting itself. Both 2 outs, top of the 4th, pitcher up and 1 out, bottom of the 8th, bases loaded, Tulo up could be times to get some non-humidor balls into a mix and believe that the Rockies will get more meaningful hacks at them. And one would also believe that they'll be largely gone before the opposition gets equally meaningful hacks. It's getting your chips into the right pots with the right hands.
if the Rockies had the complicity of umpires
Don't see this point at all.
It's simply not possible to have the umpires giving only opposing pitchers rabbit balls, unless the umpires are complicit.
I've never seen an ump take a ball from his bag, inspect it and toss it out of play of his own accord. Umps put the balls in play that they are given. Now 30 years ago, they prepared the balls before the game and, I suspect, did some inspection and culling then, but that does not happen today.
There is only ONE team in America using a humidor. ONE
I don't think we know this. I'd think it more likely that the introduction of the humidor showed 30 teams that manipulating baseballs has a sizable impact on the game. I'd be surprised if other teams weren't engaging in humidifying or dessicating baseballs to their benefit. I don't know why they wouldn't given that today umps don't handle the balls until they're standing behind home plate.
the pitchers have to be completely unable to tell the difference between the two balls
We are talking about (what?) a quarter-ounce difference; a miniscule circumference change; a difference in texture, if former-Rockies are to be believed. And the skill to notice the difference or not has not been selected for throughout the pitcher's 15 years of ball-playing before he arrives on a major-league mound. There's probably large variation in pitchers' ability to notice and ability to learn to notice.
All you really need do is mix the rabbit balls into the bag and trust your starter/reliever to "feel" them out when he's pitching. Lincecum did that himself last week.
Wouldn't an opponent become suspicious if the Rockies pitchers were routinely weeding out new balls on the mound?
And wouldn't the former Rockies pitchers, such as current Washington National Jason Marquis, reveal this systemic cheating scandal the moment he signed a deal with another team, or at least upon his new team's first visit to the Mile High City?
I suspect there's a difference between following industry-wide protocol and remaining mum on systemic cheating. And all it would take is one former pitcher, perhaps who left on bad terms, to expose it.
And Tom, the grounds for suspicion is the huge home/road split for the offensive players versus roughly none for the pitchers.
Now unusual parks often produce weird splits. The old Metrodome used to play as a hitter's park for Minnesota hitters and a pretty good pitcher's park for the Minnesota pitchers on a fairly regular basis. But it never produced the range that we're seeing this year in Colorado (at least not to my knowledge).
Don't get me wrong though. I'm inclined to think that this is just one of those $%#^ happens moments.
If Rockies pitchers were routinely rejecting many, many balls, not only would it be suspicious, I doubt umps would tolerate it. After a while, the ump's just going to say, "Play ball, quit bothering me," especially if it's a pattern.
Yes, I know. But how would they be given the rabbit balls? Do the Rockies have two bags in their dugout, one of which is full of good balls, and another full of bad balls? Are they sending the ball boy into the clubhouse to get "extra" balls when the Rockies are due up? How many balls are used in a typical half-inning? Four? Ten? Twenty-five? I am as yet to see one single plausible explanation as to how this works without the umps taking notice. Not to mention that (A) this whole system is relying on the ball boy to execute all kinds of skullduggery, and (B) players who left the club would almost certainly blow the whistle.
Furthermore: If the Rockies' system is to use the rabbit balls and hope just get more of them into the bag when they're at-bat, would we not expect both the Rockies' and their opponents' numbers to go up on the year, even relative to league? Because that's not what's happened. The Rocks' numbers have remained essentially the same, their opponents' have gone down significantly, relative to league performance as well as in absolute terms. It just doesn't make any sense to me.
Denver Post, May 2002:
USA Today, 2007:
That's not to say the Rockies are definitely cheating now. But it's pretty silly to dismiss the idea out of hand as impossible.
So? Nowhere in the bible will you find "Thou shalt not give thine opposoing pitcher a juiced ball"
This just has to be one person. The entire Rockies organization need not be complicit in the scheme. It just has to be one person who decides that they're going to "help out."
Remember the story that came out a while ago about the Twins maintenance guy futzing with the air conditioning in the Metrodome?
If it's just one guy, then it's simply a mathematical issue, with the Rockies determining how often the balls are requested by the umpire, the rate in which they go through them in a typical half-inning and banking on the team getting more of the good balls to hit than the opposition. That would reduce the effectiveness of the strategy, (since Rockies pitchers wouldn't know to toss out the rabbit balls) but also reduce the chance of getting caught.
I still don't think it could be a one-man operation though, since I doubt the guy charged with handing the balls to the umpire during ballgames is either a) in enough of a decision-making capacity to effect a cheating program; and b) necessarily the guy who would be in charge of the balls throughout the entire humidor process.
Work into your equation "throwing balls out" by simply throwing pitches in the dirt. That pretty much eliminates them from play these days.
I don't understand the logic either, but if it bounces it's almost automatic to toss it out at this point. If the Rox are gaming the humidor system and they don't want to be obvious about throwing out rabbit balls, all the pitcher needs do is bounce a slider off the plate for ball one.
Sam, read the exchange again, slowly this time to allow for any big words. If only one person is in the know, as tshipman posited, then the Rockies pitchers won't know enough to throw the ball in the dirt.
This could be a big scheme, known by all in the organization, and thus much more likely to be effective (but also much more difficult to keep secret).
Or it's a small-time operation, known by a scant few and thus less effective but more secure.
It can't be both. It can, however, be neither, and exist only in the minds of delusional Giants fans and Braves fans with too much time on their hands now that the club's only hope is the unpalatable wild card. That's the direction I'm leaning.
I'm pretty sure that giving the hitter ball one is worse than using a juiced ball.
Look, I dunno how likely it is, my position is only that something weird is going on in Colorado, and either this season is a big outlier, or there's monkey business.
I don't think the monkey business option is ridiculous on the face.
Right. Because sports teams would never bend the rules into pretzel shapes to gain an edge. Next thing you'll tell me the Phils might be running a sign stealing operation out of their bullpen and the Patriots are videotaping opposing teams signal calling.
I know it's 50 years ago, but there's the example of Al Worthington. Worthington was a pretty successful pitcher for several years with the Giants, who in September 1960 was sold to the White Sox (by the Red Sox, with whom he'd spent some of 1960 after spending most of it at AAA).
After pitching four games for Chicago, he learned that they were using a spy in the centerfield scoreboard to steal signs. Worthington was a born-again Christian, and felt he couldn't play for a team that was blatantly cheating, so he told the White Sox he wouldn't pitch for them under those conditions. Worthington therefore spent the 1961 and 1962 seasons pitching for Chicago's AAA team - he was 15-4 in 1962, so you couldn't say he wasn't a MLB-quality pitcher. He was left unprotected in the rule 5 draft after the 1962 season, and taken by the Reds. He spent the next seven years pitching well in the majors, becoming a key member of those very good Twins teams of that era.
But the point is that Worthington spent two years in the prime of his career under exile, and didn't go public as to why he was pitching in the minors. In the era before free agency, he had to rely on the White Sox to eventually get rid of him. I don't know if it is still true that it is considered a no-no to spill the beans publicly on cheating, but I would suspect that a player who went public with certain knowledge after leaving a team would be treated harshly by other players...
I firmly believe the Rockies, like other organziations, would cheat to gain an edge. I don't think it's happening here, because I think it's a difficult to make work, and none of the theories I've seen proferred have changed my mine (though, to be fair, the idea of tossing the ball intentionally in the dirt is a nice way of getting the ball out of play, even if it does put you behind in the count). Then again, if that was happening, that too could be tracked by opposing teams hell-bent on proving the Rockies' cheating ways.
I can go along with this. I could also see a team doing something like trying to fluff up a distracting scandal surrounding a divisional rival in the heat of the pennant race, simply to gain an edge.
Interesting, though slightly different in that he wasn't willing to rat out the incident while he was still on that team. Moreover, when did he come clean?
Tim Lincecum and Heath Bell: delusional Giants fans who know the division-leading Giants have no hope for the division title.
I'm not 100% sure about this, but my understanding is that it wasn't until after he retired that the story came out.
Huh? The Braves fan is the one whose team has no hope for a division title. You know, because they don't.
Tim Lincecum reads a story about those awful cheating Rockies and two days later he's finding offending baseballs. Color me skeptical.
Seriously, if this pattern has been going on for as long as being suggested, surely there's some evidence.
Yep. Sabean was asked about the humidor thing yesterday and he essentially said the same thing. Teams have been 'doctoring' the infield grass, or the dirt around first base, depending on who was coming to town since time immemorial. This would really be no different, except that it garnered enough attention to put Sabean in a comfortable PR position wrt putting pressure on MLB to step in and assume oversight of the ball-washing at Coors. Which he said he did, and they did, and now the issue is closed, for this year at least. He was very careful not to impugn the integrity of any individual or organization, but said he felt it was simply something that should be looked at by MLB if only to avoid the appearance of impropriety.
It's a given that the Rockies (not being special) would absolutely cheat to get an edge, just like any other MLB team would.
It also SEEMS to be true (I have a pretty strict evidence threshold) that humidifying the balls DOES affect their properties and decreases offense.
I will further assume that this process was put in place in 2002 (not earlier or later) BUT that the Rockies would not truly *know* for a year or two that it was actually working. That may or may not have prevented them from immediately trying to cheat.
I think we can also assume that if they can humidify a ball, there are actually >2 "states" of a baseball (pre-2002 Coors and humidifier Coors), and in fact, the Rockies could have a whole SPECTRUM of balls being humidified or even dried out!
We must further assume however, that it's not trivial to detect ball doctoring (without a scale or something), because the umpires and opposing players would immediately know. That does not mean that it's *undetectable*. If fact, if I was the cheater I might try to *mark* the balls in a subtle but detectable way. Maybe a slight embossing/debossing on the logo, or a pin-sized indentation/outdentation. Something like a magician uses to mark cards. Heck, since pitchers are allowed to lick their fingers and touch the ball (off the mound) - I bet you could put a TASTE signature on the ball.
So, that's the easy part, doctoring the balls. How to use them? (this is repeated by others above) Probably the best way is statistical, although this would require someone fairly math savvy (for being employed by a MLB team) to realize. If you can get the live balls in when you are behind, and the dead balls in when you are ahead, then you can use variance to increase your expected W%. This is probably a very small effect, and would presumably have nothing to do with the Rockies 2010 HFA (which is large, but not extremely large relative to Coors's life time... it's about 1.5SD)
More potent, but more difficult would be to hand the ballboy balls at the proper time. The ballboy would have to either be in on the grift, or be told a yarn that he believes.
I think key in this is that your pitchers can detect differences in the ball, and the opposing pitcher cannot.
The catch is - I don't believe that anything in the Rockies 2010 (or 2009 for that matter) stats would reveal any ball shenanigans. This is especially due to the fact that you might just open every game with humidified balls, then keep them there if the home team opened up with a lead, or the game was close. You probably really only want to switch to juiced when you need a comeback, unless you really do have detailed control over which side pitching gets which balls (which seems unlikely, but not impossible).
Fill the bag half full with juiced balls. Top off with humidor balls. Tell the ball boy. "If during the top half of the inning you take balls to the umpire take them from the top half of the bag. For the bottom half of the inning take them from the bottom half of the bag. I'm superstitious and you're just a ballboy so do as you are told. Also if you ever tell anyone about my superstitions you'll be fired." In that scheme only one person really has to know, and you have to assume the ballboy likes working for a major league team and will keep his mouth shut.
Might be interesting to see if the Rockies home-road discrepancy varies by inning at all?
I'm pretty sure that if anyone alive has the power to look into this extremely thoroughly, it'd be you.
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