MLB looking at ways to change to the ball, commissioner Rob Manfred says

Tom Gatto

MLB looking at ways to change to the ball, commissioner Rob Manfred says image

MLB is taking another look at the ball in response to home runs being hit in record numbers.

Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred told Forbes.com's Maury Brown that a new study of balls is underway and that a report will be submitted "shortly after the World Series." 

The study is being conducted by the same scientists who examined balls in 2017 and 2018 in response to a spike in home runs that began in 2016. The main conclusion of their May 2018 report was that reduced drag on balls in flight may have contributed to the increase.

MORE: MLB batters break strikeout record for 12th season in a row

Manfred couldn't say how the ball would change for the 2020 season once the report on the new study is issued.

"The only thing I'm prepared to say at this point and time is I do think that we need to see if we can make some changes that gives us a more predictable, consistent performance from the baseball," Brown quoted Manfred as saying in an interview. Brown posted Manfred's comments about the ball online Wednesday.

Multiple MLB pitchers maintain that the ball feels slicker and harder than balls produced in years past, and the results of a study by astrophysicist Meredith Wills seem to back up those claims. Wills told DAZN's "ChangeUp" on Sept. 15 that the balls produced for 2019 are unlike anything that has been previously produced. She also identified four key areas where this year's balls are "substantially different" from the balls produced from 2016-18:

— The ball's leather cover is smoother.

— The ball's laces are thinner; in fact, they have returned to the thickness of laces on balls produced in 2014. 

— The ball's shape is rounder and "physically more spherical."

— The ball's seams, which are held in place by the laces, are "substantially lower."

"Particularly for things like the seam height and the roundness, it's unprecedented," Wills said.

Manfred has insisted that specifications for baseball production have not changed. He denied Astros pitcher Justin Verlander's claim in July that Manfred directed MLB and Rawlings, the ball's manufacturer, to "juice" the balls. MLB owns Rawlings.

"Baseball has done nothing, given no direction, for an alteration of the baseball," Manfred said at the All-Star Game, per ESPN.

Whatever the cause, MLB shattered its home run record again this year, with 6,590 having been hit prior to Wednesday's games. The previous high was 6,105 home runs hit in 2017.

Tom Gatto

Tom Gatto Photo

Tom Gatto joined The Sporting News as a senior editor in 2000 after 12 years at The Herald-News in Passaic, N.J., where he served in a variety of roles including sports editor, and a brief spell at APBNews.com in New York, where he worked as a syndication editor. He is a 1986 graduate of the University of South Carolina.