Yankees making it seem as if the balls are quite lively (Mets, not so much)
Aaron Judge #99 of the Yankees hits a home run against the Chicago White Sox during the fourth inning at Guaranteed Rate Field on May 13, 2022 in Chicago. Credit: Getty Images/David Banks
The next time Rob Manfred is interrogated about the composition of the 2022 baseballs, as he was again this past week, the most favorable evidence in the commissioner’s defense could be wearing pinstripes.
The navy-blue ones in the Bronx, anyway. The Flushing version? Not so much.
If the baseball truly is dead this year, meaning it’s not flying as far off the bat, are the Yankees using their own secret stash from juiced-ball seasons of the past?
We’re joking, of course. Got to be careful making such statements in the wake of things such as the “Yankee Letter” and cheating scandals of recent vintage.
But the Yankees possess the most effective antidote to whatever has made ballparks a no-fly zone through the five weeks of the season: Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, two of the biggest (literally) reasons why their team led the majors with 48 home runs (in only 32 games) through Friday.
Judge had 12, the most in MLB, and Stanton’s 10 was tied for third with the Twins’ Byron Buxton. (Anthony Rizzo was tied for fifth with nine homers.)
It’s also no coincidence that Stanton and Judge sit 1-2 atop the majors in average exit velocity, at 98.4 and 96.7 mph, respectively, according to baseballsavant.com. Stanton also has the hardest-hit ball this season, as he typically does, at 119.8 mph — Shohei Ohtani is next (119.1) — and Judge ranks third in most balls hit at 95-mph-plus with 54.
A year ago, through 32 games, the Yankees were tied for second in the majors with 44 homers (Atlanta had 45). Stanton was on a similar pace with nine and Judge had seven.
Rangers manager Chris Woodward tweaked the Yankees last weekend for having a “Little League” park after Gleyber Torres' walk-off homer sailed over the short porch in rightfield (never mind that it would have cleared the fence in 26 of 30 parks, including the Rangers’ home field). After experiencing the fallout from that comment, Woodward said it was made in jest, but the lame excuse isn’t exactly a new revelation. As unfair as rightfield plays in the Bronx, the cavernous Death Valley in left-center tends to level things out a bit. Besides, the Yankees and a given day’s opponent play using the same dimensions.
Mets manager Buck Showalter mentioned something similar Friday when discussing the 2021 baseball, specifically in regard to Pete Alonso’s frustration after hitting what he thought was a tying home run in a 2-1 loss to the Mariners at Citi Field.
Alonso has been skeptical about the baseball going on two years now — he’s definitely not alone — and the Mets as a whole voiced their concerns to Newsday’s Tim Healey last week, going as far as to suggest that MLB uses different, livelier balls for nationally televised games.
With MLB cashing in on more streaming services, adding NBC’s Peacock and Apple+ this season, it’s not the craziest of conspiracy theories to suspect they’d want to make select broadcasts more like video games while trying to keep offense contained overall. And Manfred has left himself open to such thoughts since MLB’s purchase of Rawlings in 2018, giving the sport greater control in the manufacturing process. As such, the complaints about the ball’s performance — from pitchers as well as hitters — can vary depending on whom you ask.
“I’m not going to start getting into all the things that are going on all over baseball,” Showalter said Friday night. “The numbers are what they are, what normal exit velocities dictate. It’s the same for both teams. I think it’s pretty obvious that it’s been a challenge all around baseball. We’re playing with the same baseballs from team to team. Whatever’s going on, we’ve won our share of games the way it is.”
In the big picture, sure. The first-place Mets were 22-12 after Friday’s loss with a 5 1/2-game lead over the Phillies, and it’s not a stretch to say their excellent pitching could be helped by a dead ball, too. But offensively, on an individual basis, it’s been a head-scratcher, particularly for Alonso, who held his head in disbelief Friday night when his eighth-inning blast was chased down at the warning track in centerfield.
The 383-foot flyout had an exit velocity of 103.4 mph with a launch angle of 32 degrees, and according to Statcast, no ball previously hit by Alonso at that velocity/angle had traveled that short a distance. Was that due to a loosely wound baseball? Or the cool, drizzly atmosphere that tends to knock balls down in Flushing until Memorial Day?
“Off contact, and the sound, absolutely I thought I had what it took to go over the wall,” Alonso said. “But it just didn’t, unfortunately. Whether it’s the ball or bad conditions, it is what it is. An out’s an out. I tagged it pretty good. On contact, it felt excellent. And for me, I thought that should go over the wall.
“But the conditions were pretty unfavorable. Not a good night to hit the ball over the wall, and every once in a while, it’s better to hit the ball on the ground. But I did my job, hit the ball hard. It just didn’t go for me.”
For a slugger like Alonso, that ground ball comment came across as dripping with sarcasm. He doesn’t make his living by finding holes, and the Mets have been forced to rely on everything but home runs in ruling the NL East. Through 34 games, Alonso is responsible for a whopping 30% of the Mets’ home run production, hitting eight of their 27, which ranks 22nd in the majors.
Of the eight teams with fewer homers than the Mets, none has a winning record and they’re a combined 96-163 (.371). For comparison, here are the Mets’ home run totals though 34 games in each of the previous four seasons, starting with 2021 and counting backwards: 28, 42, 37 and 34.
Maybe when the weather improves, the Mets will have greater success going deep. That’s typically what happens during the summer months. But it doesn’t sound as if they should expect any help on the ball-supply side from Manfred, who has stood by the “handmade product” defense regarding any inconsistencies in the baseball.
“Let's remember this is a handmade product,” Manfred said Monday at a meeting hosted by the Associated Press Sports Editors. “Sometimes I read these things that are written and it's like we have a dial downstairs on the fifth floor, and we turn the dial and we get a different baseball. Getting the baseball to do something, given that it is a man-made product, is not the easiest thing in the world.”
Cano or cannot?
The Padres' signing of Robinson Cano on Friday was not exactly a stunning development. With the next team owing him only the prorated part of this season’s $700,000 minimum salary, he was bound to latch on somewhere. And for the win-now Padres, looking for a lefty bat, he’s virtually a no-risk roll of the dice.
In Flushing, however, the residue of Cano’s release earlier this month isn’t entirely erased yet. Ideally, the Mets would have been better off if Cano, 39, didn’t find a landing spot so they wouldn't be paying him roughly $38 million (through 2023) to potentially help another team — especially one in the National League. Also, the controversial decision to cut him loose, mostly praised in these parts, now will be reopened for further debate, depending on Cano’s performance in San Diego. Not to mention, the Mets have six games still to play against the Padres, starting with a three-game series that begins June 6 at Petco Park.
“I’ve got a lot left in the tank," Cano told reporters Friday at Truist Park in Atlanta. “I know I can still play this game and just go out on top."
Are the Mets fearful of that happening? Probably, to some degree. It’s tough to say cutting Cano was a mistake while they’re sitting atop the NL East. But even though Cano was a non-factor in 12 games (.195 BA, .501 OPS), it was a gamble going the DFA route with the popular eight-time All-Star so early in the season.
As for the players the Mets could have optioned to keep Cano around, Dominic Smith is hitting .056 (1-for-18) with a double after the 4-for-4 game on the eve of cutdown day that may have saved his roster spot. Luis Guillorme is batting .250 (4-for-16) with a home run. Overall, the Mets are 6-5 since Cano was designated for assignment on May 2.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
