We’ve been seeing a lot of low offensive numbers so far this season, and it’s widespread … affecting teams playing in cold weather as well as the dome and fair-weather teams. And even though it’s early … at lot of us are wondering if the ball is at least part of the issue this year. MLB is trying to standardize the baseballs used throughout the majors …
Major League Baseball has adopted a shelf-life rule, MLB executive vice president, baseball operations Jimmie Lee Solomon said Thursday.
“We did send out a directive that teams are to use current year-purchased balls, not balls from previous years …” Solomon said.
First of all – I had no idea that MLB clubs ever used prior year model baseballs. How cheap would that be? But this makes sense – every team should be using the same baseballs.
Adding to the intrigue is that the Colorado Rockies have been storing their game balls in a Humidor the past 5 seasons to counter the effects of the dry air and altitude in Denver – and it sounds like there might be a forthcoming league-wide move towards the practice …
As for storage, Solomon said some clubs have humidity controls for the area where balls are stored, but he did not know how many.
Solomon said what the Rockies are doing “will be the industry standard in the not-too-distant future.”
Well now, that begs a question – what happened to offensive statistics at Coors Field after the Rockies started storing game balls in the humidor in 2002? Let’s find out …
| Year | Batting Avg | Runs/ Game | AB/HR | HR/ Game | ERA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | 0.315 | 13.54 | 21.55 | 3.3 | 6.40 |
| 1996 | 0.323 | 15.02 | 21.68 | 3.3 | 7.06 |
| 1997 | 0.317 | 12.90 | 23.73 | 3.0 | 6.07 |
| 1998 | 0.313 | 12.73 | 27.33 | 2.6 | 5.91 |
| 1999 | 0.327 | 14.79 | 19.61 | 3.7 | 6.97 |
| 2000 | 0.318 | 14.35 | 23.83 | 3.0 | 6.68 |
| 2001 | 0.310 | 13.37 | 21.53 | 3.3 | 6.36 |
| 2002 | 0.298 | 12.21 | 24.44 | 2.9 | 5.73 |
| 2003 | 0.292 | 11.94 | 24.67 | 2.8 | 5.63 |
| 2004 | 0.305 | 12.68 | 25.97 | 2.7 | 6.06 |
| 2005 | 0.297 | 11.07 | 33.78 | 2.1 | 5.27 |
| 2006 | 0.288 | 10.73 | 33.65 | 2.1 | 5.05 |
| 1995-2001 | 0.318 | 13.82 | 22.54 | 3.2 | 6.50 |
| 2002-2006 | 0.296 | 11.73 | 27.89 | 2.5 | 5.55 |
Offense certainly dropped at Coors Field since the introduction of the humidor. A drop of 22 points in batting average. A full run less every game. A five point jump in the AB/HR ratio. And over the past three seasons, Coors has dropped out of the top ten of HR ballparks. More like Coors Light (bleah).
Does baseball really want to push climate-controlled baseballs across the majors? Is baseball trying to negate the advantage some teams have over other because of their ballpark? Does Bud Selig think he can keep Bonds from breaking the HR record if he can only hit baseballs with a high humidity level?
By the way – when can I buy a MLB-themed humidor? I can buy one from the NFL …
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