How well will the Magic of Pinstripes travel?

How well will the Magic of Pinstripes travel?

Since he won't have the special "Judge balls", I'm going to guess he'll hit much closer to his 2019-21 numbers than what he did for a bit over a month last year.

I am surprised there hasn't been more talk about the tainted record of Judge thanks to the special balls used for him which were shown to be more lively than the rest of MLB used iirc.

now john,

judge is our Pure and Untainted HEEEro. he's got the Real True something home runs record unlike Those Others. we IGNORE any kind of not testosterone advantage that he had because only testosterone like chemicals are Bad and any other advantages/cheating are cute/wink/everone else was doing them/it too so it's not REALLY an advantage and besides he's a yankee like babe ruth and therefore his True Successor unlike that other guy who came up in some other organization unlike Da Babe and

um

oh yeah

nevah mind

I am surprised there hasn't been more talk about the tainted record of Judge thanks to the special balls used for him which were shown to be more lively than the rest of MLB used iirc.

The reasons it’s a non-issue is that it’s a non-issue. Putting aside the small sample size of the various balls in that study, most of the commemorative balls overlapped the so-called deader balls MLB recently introduced. They weren’t that different, and if one didn’t know they were a special batch they’d be viewed as part of the normal manufacturing process, since they were all within MLB specifications.

Judge balls or no, Carpenter didn't play after Aug 8. That was the date of Judge's 44th HR. The Goldilocks balls supposedly made their frequent appearance in Sept. Unless you think they were using them in July, they really had nothing to do with Carpenter's HRs and 6 of his 15 HRs were on the road anyway.

Note Judge hit 32 of his 62 on the road. ELEVEN of his last 14 HRs came on the road. Just 6 HR at home after July 31. According to statcast, his last 3 HRs at NYS would have been out of 30, 25 and 30 ballparks. Juiced baseballs don't travel 50 feet farther, they travel like 10 feet farther. People talk about this like Judge would have hit 45 HRs with the dead balls. Anyway, until somebody can provide evidence that the Goldilocks balls followed Judge on the road, this "conspiracy" is weak sauce ... and even if MLB did try to tilt it in his favor at NYS, their plot failed.

There is more mostly-verifiable public information showing that the Yankees got easier HR balls than the rest of the league on average than there is that Barry Bonds ever failed a test for any banned substance. The commissioner's office being part of the scam doesn't make it better.

There is a reason MLB is making threats at people who have collected and examined MLB played balls to see if they're uniform.

Note that there is a chart showing the Yankees in general got one of the two non-dead variants, along with the post-season as a whole being played with it.

"It is unclear how Wills collected the game-used balls to study, but one player says MLB tried to keep them out of her hands. San Francisco Giants outfielder Austin Slater, a union rep, told Insider that MLB discouraged him from sending any baseballs to Wills for testing. Slater says he was told that any MLB employee found to be sending balls to nonaffiliated organizations for testing could be fired."

https://www.insider.com/mlb-used-two-balls-again-this-year-and-evidence-points-to-a-third-2022-12

There is more mostly-verifiable public information showing that the Yankees got easier HR balls than the rest of the league on average than there is that Barry Bonds ever failed a test for any banned substance.

In other words, an iota more than nothing? All the balls were within MLB specification; the so-called ‘Goldilocks balls’ performance substantially overlapped the new ‘dead ball’, and there is no indication that any of the balls tested were actual Judge HR balls; or that the type of ball would have made any difference on his HRs - Judge doesn’t hit many wall-scrapers.

How well will the Magic of Pinstripes travel?

Very poorly, unfortunately.

Anyway, until somebody can provide evidence that the Goldilocks balls followed Judge on the road, this "conspiracy" is weak sauce .

Maybe I need to re-read the story, but I didn't think the alleged connection to the Yankees was ever implied to be a home ballpark thing.

Contrary to the hype, the study actually indicates that Judge (and every other hitter) hit their 2022 home runs under more difficult conditions, since MLB mostly used the new ‘dead’ ball that carried a bit less. The so-called Goldilocks ball carried a bit more, but still less what the study calls the ‘juiced ball’, which is just the standard ball from prior seasons, which apparently was still used in some games. Judge set the AL record with a mix of balls, none of which were more lively than those used in prior seasons, although many were less lively. Some scandal, eh?

There is more mostly-verifiable public information showing that the Yankees got easier HR balls than the rest of the league on average than there is that Barry Bonds ever failed a test for any banned substance.

Didn't Bonds fail an amphetamines test?

If MLB made an effort to provide livelier balls for Yankee games in Sept then sure, of course, it would be a scandal regardless of whether, over the whole season, Judge had a harder time than previous years.

The study was 204 game-used balls collected from 22 parks. It's not remotely a proper study design but I'm happy to ignore that. It is correct that they say the non-commemorative Goldilocks balls came from "Yankees games" not necessarily home games. But then they could also tell us specifically which games they think they came from (how could they prove it?) but they choose not to. Not having any idea if Judge saw any Goldilocks balls, they don't bother doing any work to estimate what effect it might have had.

But it's all moot. What does this have to do with anything we care about? Does it matter to us that Judge only "really" hit 60 HRs last year rather than 64? Sure MLB had incentive because a bunch of jackasses cared about some "real" record ... but that's not us right?

Still, without question, MLB should have PWC or somebody in charge of distributing baseballs. And they should be open about any decisions to change the target specs and should publish testing info on each batch. There is no excuse it should be possible for them to play games with baseballs, especially during the season. Batch to batch variation is unavoidable (although this appears to be a large difference) so be upfront about it and ensure balls are distributed randomly and maybe that all unused baseballs are disposed of at season's end.