Sport Science: NCAA Baseball
http://youtu.be/hYDDaFK_z4Y
According to a survey by the American Baseball Coaches Association:
The coaches were also asked questions pertaining to game excitement and home runs. Seventy-two percent thought the game needed more excitement and 69 percent believe Division I college baseball needs more home runs.
“Even the coaches of programs that have traditionally strong pitching were in favor of going to the flat-seamed baseball.”Let that last one sink in for a moment - EVEN THE COACHES OF PROGRAMS THAT HAVE TRADITIONALLY STRONG PITCHING understand that CHICKS DIG THE LONG BALL!!!
So, we can conclude that as far as baseball goes, long-term
Offense = Excitement = Higher RatingsWe can also conclude that small changes to the ball can produce pretty significant results. Now the NCAA is doing this as a planned process to produce more excitement to the game. I don't know why it's such a leap to speculate that MLB didn't do much the same and just implemented it surreptitiously. They didn't want to admit that they even needed a fix. At least the NCAA took a hard look at their product and publicly admitted they were making the change so that both pitchers and hitters could make the appropriate adjustments.
Defense = Boring = Lower Ratings
- The ball will travel farther,
- Pitches can expect a slicker feel to the ball and initially the"feel" pitches, curves and sliders, will react differently.
- The recent changes to bats due to the BBCOR standards penalized fly balls and rewarded grounders more. That dynamic will shift back.
from NCAA.com
DI committee changes to flat-seamed baseballs for 2015 championship | NCAA.com:
DI committee changes to flat-seamed baseballs for 2015 championship
Greg Johnson | NCAA.com
Last Updated - Jan 10, 2014 15:28 EST
The Division I Baseball Committee will move to the use of a flat-seamed baseball for its championship, starting with the 2015 Division I tournament.'via Blog this'
Currently, raised-seamed baseballs are used in the Division I Baseball Championship.
Committee members made the decision to change to a flat-seamed baseball after research conducted this fall by the Washington State University Sport Science Laboratory showed that flat-seamed baseballs launched out of a pitching machine at averages of 95 mph, a 25-degree angle and a 1,400 rpm spin rate traveled around 387 feet compared to raised-seamed baseballs that went 367 feet.
On the NCAA’s behalf, the Washington State University lab evaluates and certifies baseball bats used in NCAA competition for compliance with bat performance standards.
In the flat-, raised-seamed baseball research, the speed and angles used in the testing were chosen because they are the conditions when typical home runs occur in Division I baseball competition.
Due to variables (individual bat speed, wind direction, whether the ball is stuck on the bat’s “sweet spot,” etc.) that can impact the distance a baseball can travel, not every trajectory hit with a flat-seamed ball will travel exactly 20 feet farther than a raised-seamed ball, but a 20-foot average difference is an approximate representation of what can be expected.
The NCAA’s official supplier of championship baseballs, Rawlings, also conducted testing of the flat-seam balls in its own research lab. That research was consistent with the findings in the WSU lab.
“We anticipate that this will moderately increase scoring but not take it back to the days where we were dealing with outrageous scores that looked more like football scores,” said Dennis Farrell, who is the committee chair and the commissioner of the Big West Conference. “We want to get the game back to what is a reasonable amount of scoring and defense.”
While the distance the baseball travels is increased due to less drag on the baseball, the health of and safety of the players will not be compromised. The core of the ball and the bat-exit speed will not change.
“We are always sensitive to student-athlete safety issues,” Farrell said. “According to the data we were presented with, those concerns are alleviated. The rationale behind making this change is hoping it will allow certain balls hit at certain trajectories to carry farther.”
Committee members were spurred to look at the research after becoming concerned with diminishing offensive numbers in the Division I Baseball Championship, particularly at the Men’s College World Series site in Omaha.
In the 2013 MCWS, there were only three home runs hit in TD Ameritrade Park Omaha, which opened in 2011. The first year of the new home of the MCWS also marked the year that the bat standards changed to make metal bats perform more like wood bats.
The bat standards were designed to protect pitchers and fielders from increasing bat-exit speeds and to bring balance to the game that was trending heavily toward the offense.
In 2011, there were nine home runs in the MCWS, and in the second year in the park, 10 homers were hit. By contrast in the last year at Rosenblatt Stadium in 2010, 32 homers left the park. Similarly, across all of Division I regular season baseball, offensive performance – batting averages, runs scored and home runs – has been on the decline in recent years.
The difference in the height of the seams between the two baseballs is small. The flatter-seamed ball has a seam height of .031 inches compared to .048 inches for a raised-seam ball. This flatter seam height is consistent with the balls used in minor league baseball, yet still higher than what is used in major league baseball.
The flat-seamed baseball may make it more difficult for pitchers to throw breaking pitches, but college baseball coaches feel their pitchers will be able to adjust over time.
A survey conducted by the American Baseball Coaches Association showed 87 percent of the respondents wanted to change to the flat-seamed baseball. Around 80 percent of the nearly 300 Division I baseball coaches responded to the survey.
The coaches were also asked questions pertaining to game excitement and home runs. Seventy-two percent thought the game needed more excitement and 69 percent believe Division I college baseball needs more home runs.
“The numbers from the survey means the coaches are making a strong statement,” Farrell said. “Even the coaches of programs that have traditionally strong pitching were in favor of going to the flat-seamed baseball.”
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P.S. - Early season results from CheckSwing.com:
from College Baseball Daily:
FROM NCAA.COM
INDIANAPOLIS – The NCAA media coordination and statistics staff released today statistical trends for NCAA Division I Baseball comparing 2014 with 2015 through the first three weeks of the season.The trends compared the use of the raised seamed baseball that was used by institutions in 2014 to the flat-seamed baseball used in 2015. The biggest statistical change from 2014 to 2015 is an increase in home runs that is up more than 40 percent from 0.33 per game in 2014 to 0.47 per game in 2015. Additional home runs have not led to more total runs. As of March 1, runs scored in a game are up only four percent, and the batting average went from .263 in 2014 to .264 in 2015. This season, strikeouts have risen from 6.81 per nine innings in 2014 to 7.66 per nine innings in 2015.Weather has also impacted schedules more this year than last year. On average, each team has played about one fewer game than the same point last year as weather has caused 252 fewer games played in 2015 compared to the same time last year. The complete trends report is below.
2015 NCAA DIVISION I BASEBALL EARLY SEASON TRENDS Through March 2, 2014 Through March 1, 2015 Final 2014 TEAMS 296 295 296 Avg. Number of Games Played Per Team 9.72 8.90 54.8 BATTING Batting Average .263 .264 .270 Runs Per Game 5.07 5.29 5.08 Home Runs Per Game 0.33 0.47 0.39 * Slugging Percentage .352 .368 .364 Stolen Bases Per Game 1.08 1.09 1.02 Sacrifice Hits Per Game 0.71 0.64 0.76 Sacrifice Flies Per Game 0.39 0.36 0.40 Percentage of RBIs from Sac Flies 8.79% 7.65% 8.74% PITCHING Earned-Run Average 4.06 4.36 4.22 Strikeouts Per Nine Innings 6.81 7.66 6.48 Shutouts 192 156 1034 Pct. of D1 shutouts per D1 games pitched 6.67% 5.94% 6.37% FIELDING Fielding Percentage .964 .962 .966 ** Averages are per game and per team. | * — Record low for full season. | ** — Record high for full season.
• As of March 2, 2014, there were two teams that had not played any games (Brown, Central Conn. State). The 0 games for those teams is calculated in average games per team.• As of March 1, 2015, there are five teams that have not played any games at this point (Central Conn. State, Fairfield, Massachusetts, NYIT, and Yale). The 0 games for those teams is calculated in average games per team.• March 1, 2015, statistics also do not include three games involving Alabama A&M and Mississippi Valley which were not reported until well after the deadline. Those numbers are not calculated into the averages.• Statistics do not include six reclassifying members.
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