The 2012 Cape Cod League and the Juiced Ball Theory

More evidence for the "juiced ball theory" provided by the 2012 Cape Cod League. It's not just for tin-foil hat wearing, crack-pot, conspiracy theorists any more. (H/T to Deadspin.com for some of the coverage on this developing story)

Remember, there is so much more that we "know" that we cannot prove. 

The facts on the ground keep showing us that testing is not the answer. Guys are apparently still reaching for performance enhancing substances in spite of the penalties. And yet the performance numbers have gone down in MLB. 

So the question becomes, if the usage of performance enhancing substances is continuing at or near the same rate, but the actual performance numbers are down significantly, then how significant is the correlation between the usage of performance enhancing substances and the actual delivery of performance on the field?

Just asking.... because apparently the Cape Cod League just demonstrated how significantly the numbers can be moved by a simple adjustment to the ball. Now we leave it to the scientists to actually "prove" to us what our lying eyes are "telling" us is obviously true.

from Capenews.net

http://capenews.net/sports/news/2019

Cape Cod Baseball League Commissioner Paul Galop has been with the league for over 30 years now, in a variety of capacities, and he too knows that things have gotten a little bit wacky when it comes to offense. The good-natured official has seen some of the best players college baseball has to offer do some amazing things on the diamonds up and down the peninsula from Orleans to Bourne. This year he saw something he’d never seen before, and it made him a believer.

“I was at Harwich, and I saw a ball hit out to center field that cleared the fence and was halfway up in the trees. I’ve been around a long time, and I’d never seen a ball go out there before,” Galop said. “I’ve been with the league for a long time, since 1980, and I’ve seen some balls that didn’t go that far with aluminum bats...obviously something’s going on.”

......

Explaining The Explosion Of The Long Ball

The onslaught of offense began from the start of the CCBL season and never waned. Longtime Cape League insiders could not shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. Some said that the pitching wasn’t as good as last year. Others said that the NCAA’s switch to BBCOR bats, which are less forgiving than the previous aluminum bats, had the hitters more prepared for wood. It seemed that there were plenty of theories as to why the ball was flying but no hard answers.

The most popular theory, though, is that the ball is juiced, altered from previous seasons in a way that produces more velocity and lift off the bat at impact.

......

Alan Nathan, a noted physicist and professor emeritus from the University of Illinois, specializes in the science of baseball and said that the jump in offensive statistics in the Cape Cod Baseball League is certainly worth further evaluation.

Nathan said that as a scientist he is skeptical about juiced baseball theories without scientific data to back up the hypothesis. “It’s certainly not unreasonable (that the ball could be juiced), but it hasn’t been proven. I’m skeptical because there’s a right way to (test) it...you need to determine the coefficient of restitution (COR).”

Nathan explained that even a small change in the ball’s COR could dramatically change offensive output. “Changing the COR from .5 to .55 could account for the statistics,” he said.

The retired professor, who was a part of the committee that spearheaded the NCAA’s switch to BBCOR bats a year ago, said that the burgeoning batting numbers are worth investigation. “That’s a pretty big jump (on Cape Cod) and way outside what I’d expect out of normal statistical fluctuation,” he continued. “It would not surprise me at all if the ball was juiced. If I was a Major League team I’d want to know...they need to know that information.”

from Beyond the Box Score:
A Sabermetric Review of the 2012 Cape Cod Baseball League - Beyond the Box Score:

The CCBL is typically known as a low-scoring league that is dominated by pitching; mainly because of the adjustment that has to be made from metal to wood bats. The result of the 2012 All-Star Game, a 1-1 tie, would lead one to believe that has been the case again this season.

Ironically, the run scoring environment is at a record-breaking high. With nine games left in the 2012 season, more runs have been scored (1792), than in each of the last two full seasons (2010: 1580 runs, 2011: 1704 runs).

There are a few possible explanations for this rise in run scoring. The CCBL switched baseball manufacturers before this season and I've heard that a change in stitching has led to a "juiced" baseball. College baseball also changed their metal bat regulations to allow only bats with less pop; which could have made the adjustment to wood bats much easier for hitters. Also, the talent-level of pitching is down. As seen by the schools that the All-Star game starters represented, some of the best collegiate starters aren't at the Cape, this summer.

'via Blog this'

from zealby.com
http://www.zeably.com/Juiced_ball_theory

The "juiced ball" theory suggested that the baseballs used in Major League Baseball (MLB) during the 1990s and early 2000s were altered in order to increase scoring.

It was claimed that a "juiced" ball bounces off the bat at a higher speed. Johnny Oates observed hits being made off pitches that should not have been elevated.

In 2000, Jim Sherwood, a professor at UMass Lowell, was hired to test the baseballs manufactured in the Rawlings facility in Costa Rica. The tests and regulations for MLB baseballs were described in detail. He said that he did not expect to find any change from the manufacturing process that had been used for the previous 16 years or more. Various baseball manufacturers in the United States also agreed that the theory is nonsense, as there are many quality checks in place. The stitchers interviewed did not even know what a juiced ball is. On the other hand, there is an argument that their livelihood depends on baseball sales, which may increase if the balls are juiced.

Many pitchers felt that the balls became harder and traveled faster. Some pitchers performed their own tests. Kenny Rogers found that the ball in the center of each baseball was made of rubber, rather than the old cork. Billy Koch found that when dropped from the same height, the rubber balls from 2000 bounced 2 to 4 inches higher than rubber balls from 1999.

In 2000, Frank Deford, a writer for Sports Illustrated, interviewed Sandy Alderson, an MLB vice president, to discuss the possibility of a conspiracy by MLB to doctor the balls. Alderson denied this possibility, and Deford also discredited it as a conspiracy theory.

from Scout.com
http://sbb.scout.com/2/1217488.html

The buzz around collegiate leagues this summer was that there was clearly something going on with the baseballs. The Cape Cod League served as the most prominent example, as home run numbers exploded in a league typically defined by its pitching dominance. Scouts began looking closer at the issue, and articles began to discuss it. Were baseballs used in 2012 summer collegiate leagues "juiced"?

 The answer is yes, the baseballs used in the Cape Cod League, and other summer leagues in 2012 definitely were more lively or "juiced" as oppose to past seasons. I've personally spent many years scouting the Cape and kept many baseballs from previous summers. When comparing them to the baseballs used in 2012, the difference truly is massive. 

The impact during game action was obvious. Yes, there was a better crop of power bats in the Cape Cod League than there had been in many years, but when you see almost every player in the league capable of hitting the ball out of the park, you have to consider the idea that something has changed. Home runs in the Cape Cod League were once reserved for only the elite power bats. That changed in 2012. And, there's one statistic that tells you all you need to know. 384 home runs were hit on the Cape in 2012. 317 home runs were hit over the course of 2010 and 2011 combined. That type of difference goes beyond just noticeable; it's downright startling. 

But, make no mistake, the baseballs played an enormous role. 

Rich Maclone of The Enterprise, who first brought this to light last month, did an outstanding job of investigating the issue and his article quoted noted physicist Alan Nathan from the University of Illinois regarding the most effective way to test the difference between the 2012 and past versions of the ball. That method is determining the COR (coefficient of restitution). Physics is certainly not my field, but my understanding is that COR is essentially a calculation of "bounce" or elasticity. Obviously, there is significantly more detail that could be touched on, but to make a long story short, this is the best way to get to the bottom of our matter in question. 

Since the conclusion of the Cape Cod League season last month, I've conducted a number of tests on a 2011 baseball and one of the 2012 baseballs in question. Being that this field is a bit foreign to me, I suspect the tests weren't flawless, but the consistency of the results says a lot. To calculate COR of an object being dropped onto a stationary object (a floor), you divide the height of the bounce by the height you dropped the ball from. 

I conducted these tests and made these calculations sporadically over the course of a couple weeks to be sure the results were consistent. My answer? They were very consistent. Before I began to specifically use COR, I simply calculated the height of the bounce when dropped from the same height. The difference in bounce height between the old and the new baseballs was anywhere from 4-7%. The results when I calculated the Coefficient of Restitution fell right in the same vicinity. 

After averaging out dozens upon dozens of tests and calculations, I found the difference in COR from a 2011 Cape Cod League baseball to a 2012 baseball to anywhere from be 2.2-5.1. As I understand it, this means that the altered Diamond baseball retains anywhere from 2.2-5.1% more of its kinetic energy than it did the previous season. (Edit: Earlier calculation in article did not take square root portion of COR formula into account) 

As I said, my earlier calculations led me to believe that these new baseballs were traveling 4-7% further. That falls in line with the COR calculation. It could be studied much more thoroughly, and I'd like to see someone more qualified than myself study it further. My study is primitive and likely not anywhere near perfect. I am, however, pretty confident in saying that all of the evidence makes me just about positive that the baseballs in the Cape Cod League and other summer leagues went 4-5% further than they've gone in past summers. 

If we use 4.5% as our figure, a ball that would normally travel 350 feet would theoretically travel approximately 366 feet with the "juiced" baseball. And, a ball that would normally travel 370 feet would travel 387 feet in 2012. That should paint a pretty decent picture of the difference this new baseball makes. There's a big difference between a 370 foot fly out and a 387 foot home run. Even if we use the lowest figure found in my experiments (2.2%), that's still a difference of about 8 feet extra distance on a 350 foot fly ball. 

So, what has caused this difference? The manufacturer, Diamond, has not commented on this issue yet so we're left to examine the ball ourselves for now. For one, the leather exterior of the ball has a noticeably different feel and texture. It's harder, thicker, and less pliable. But, it's what is deep in the interior of the ball that's making the difference. I cut open a 2011 and 2012 version of the baseball to illustrate these differences. 

 

The 2012 ball and "pill" are on the left. Besides the irrelevant color difference, this year's pill is much harder, as others have pointed out. The 2011 version has the feel of a typical rubber bouncing ball. 

 

As we cut into the ball even deeper, you can see the difference in width of the layers. The 2012 ball is on the right in this photo, and the outer layer is much thinner and more densely packed. THE BOTTOM LINE Most people that spent time around a collegiate summer league in 2012 suspected an issue with the baseballs. We don't have to just wonder anymore. There was a major problem with these baseballs and it has to be addressed in 2013. One of the most important services these leagues provide, particularly the Cape Cod League, is the ability to easily and accurately showcase the best young talent in the country. When there is an outside factor that's impeding scouts' ability to accurately evaluate these young players, it needs to be rectified for the benefit of everyone involved. Scouts are more than skilled and intelligent enough to sift through inflated offensive statistics and get a feel for who the most talented hitters are. But, this sure doesn't make their job any easier. And, leagues like the Cape Cod League give us some of our most accurate looks at how these players would perform in a professional environment. There's also no league in amateur or professional sports that means more to me than the Cape Cod League. I now make my home on the Cape and the league is one the biggest reasons why. As many games as I've been to on Cape Cod, it was obvious to me that something was different in 2012. And, while the home runs may be exciting for some, I'd like to see it return to a time when the long ball was a rare, unexpected treat from a future big league star, and not a regular occurrence that seemingly just about anyone in the league could achieve routinely. This is certainly not the fault of any of the leagues, however. They believe they were getting the same standard ball as every other season and that simply wasn't the case. Let's hope Diamond Sports can do something to swiftly address this problem and bring the baseballs back to normal standards in 2013. The baseball world is better served when the Cape League is a treacherous gauntlet for hitters rather than a hitter's paradise that makes it more difficult to discover the big league stars of the future.

BONDS TO THE SAWKS??

FROM THE SPORTS LAW BLOG:
http://sports-law.blogspot.com/2008/06/will-red-sox-sign-barry-bonds.html

Will the Red Sox Sign Barry Bonds?

With David Ortiz out at least a month with a wrist injury, there is speculation that the defending World Series Champions Boston Red Sox might consider signing the still-unsigned Barry Bonds to be the team's designated hitter.

If the move happens, it would almost certainly signal that the Bonds collusion conspiracy--that MLB teams tacitly agreed to not sign Bonds this season--was untrue.
----------------------------------------------------
“If the move happens, it would almost certainly signal that the Bonds collusion conspiracy--that MLB teams tacitly agreed to not sign Bonds this season--was untrue.”

Even better, take the counter argument. If the move does NOT happen, does that then not provide at the minimum, prima facie evidence that the collusion conspiracy theory WAS true? Can’t have it both ways my friends.

The Yankees need LH power hitting help badly and sign Ben Broussard??? Are you kidding me?

The Tigers and Mariners would rather see their pre-season playoff hopes go down the drain then sign B-POPE??

The Rays and the A's would rather see their surprising chances to make the playoffs this year melt in the summer heat than pad their roster?

Not sure who the front-runner is anymore but this leaves the following teams with both the baseball need and the tactical reason to sign Bonds:

Red Sox
Yankees
Rays
A’s
Tigers
Mariners

And nobody has signed him yet? When has that ever happened in baseball history, when a proven player is available and multiple teams with a reason to sign the guy and yet he still went unsigned?

If the Sawks are in such a dire position that they would consider THE MOVE, then doesn't that at least require that the Yankees go into their "I'll take Charlie Weaver to block mode"?

Further, you could almost make the same argument about the Angels if the A's were a serious suitor. And if the Cardinals stay within shouting distance of the Cubs or within serious range of a wild-card spot, why wouldn't Tony LaRussa go back to Cardinals management with a personnel requisition form with BLB's name on it?

KEEP YOUR DRUG TESTS, I'D RATHER HAVE SOGGY BALLS

Again, from the wonderful world of "You can't make some of this stuff up" sports, the Floyd Landis controversy bring up what I've been saying about drug testing in baseball for years.

People don't trust the testing to catch the cheaters (except if it's Bonds). If a popular player like Derek Jeter ever tested positive we'd hear, as we are now with Floyd, how unreliable the tests are, how they can be manipulated by anyone with an agenda. And let's face it, who doesn't have an agenda today?

So we have everyone and his cousin rushing to Floyd Landis defense with a myriad of reasons why he could have tested positive and still not cheated. THEN HOW THE F_ _ _ CAN ANYONE EVER BE EXPECTED TO TRUST THE TESTS AND THE TESTERS AGAIN? WHY HAVE TESTING IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Keep the tests, I don't trust them or the people administering them anymore. It's a joke and it always has been. Look at the Olympics over the past twenty or thirty years and the world of cycling and track. That's the path these idiots want to lead baseball down.

So this week, in walks Jeff Cirrillo with his "Soggy Balls" theory as to why offense is down in "Coors Canaveral". A stadium that in the past made the "Launching Pad" in Atlanta look like a pitcher-friendly ballpark in comparison,.

Runs in Colorado are way down, shutouts are way up since the club was granted permission by MLB to manipulate the composition of the baseballs via the humidor. I wonder how baseball knew that this would correlate to lower, more reasonable numbers. Of course, we have to have our statistical integrity, or the game will die.

They knew it would happen because MLB is the old pro at manipulating the consistency of the baseball to either raise offensive numbers or lower them. They did it before to raise the attendance level. They could also decide to raise the mound or lower it further, if they so desire.
All in the interest of manipulating offense to effect changes in fan interest and therefore attendance and TV ratings. That translates into dollars.

If you wanted steroids out of the game, make the consistency of the ball more like a bean bag and you could tell your steroid jackers, "Go ahead, swing for the fences, you muscle bound retard". A couple of warning track flyouts and a .230 average later and these guys will be looking for jobs as bouncers at Studio 54.

You can thank me later for solving the "Steroid Crisis" without involving Congress (they should be busy what with the Middle East crisis, Korean Missile Crisis, Terrorism, to say nothing about the myriad economic issues at home they should be dealing with), the media, WADA, USADA or any other group of idiots you can name who have been overly involved in the issue recently.

They're not going to move the fences back, that costs seats, expensive behind the plate box seats. And that's revenue students. So that's not going to happen. But it would be the easiest solution.

Devalue the HR a little bit, if you must. But then don't complain when fans vote with their wallets and attendance comes down after a plethora of 2-1 and 1-0 games unfolds. Or when teams start to value speed and the SB again. Remember the early 80's, the St. Louis Cardinals of Vince Coleman and Willie McGee and 70 HR's as a team? And four and a half-hour games because pitchers had to hold runners on so much. Gosh, who didn't love that style of baseball??

As always, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.


Other Interesting articles:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...section=si_mlb
Cirillo suggests balls at Coors Field are waterlogged

Coors Field is tied with Comerica Park in Detroit for the most shutouts in the majors this year with 10, including six by Rockies pitchers.

Cirillo, who played two seasons in Colorado pre-humidor, agreed the Rockies have better pitching now, "but at the same time, does that mean the rest of the league has better pitching, also?"

"It's pretty dramatic, wouldn't you say? Most shutouts in Coors Field, in the National League, when you take into account Petco, Dodger Stadium, where Washington plays. Those are huge parks," Cirillo said.

Runs have never been harder to score at Coors Field since the stadium opened in 1995. The average game now features a combined nine runs -- down from 15 runs that were scored a decade ago. Of course, the Rockies don't have the Blake Street Bombers hitting home runs all over the place as they did back then.

It was pretty well agreed by most in the know that PHDs were more rampant then, but perhaps more importantly The balls were juiced, too! Bug Selig all but admitted that the material used to wind around the pill was changed "around 1996" to a new synthetic that allowed 20% longer, thinner material, much tighter winding of the syntho-wool, and therefore a livlier ball that still conformed to the weight and diameter rules. The folks at Rawlings will only say all the MLB balls were once stitched in the Dominican Republic, then Haiti, and finally now in Costa Rica, but would offer no details as to the winding process or materials.

Evidently the Rockies can do anything they choose with the balls once they've been unsealed, but only if they are supervised by the umpiring crew. All conspiracy crybabies should be aware that the homeplate ump is the guy that puts balls in the pitchers hands, and likewise takes them out of the game.

Do you think the guys in blue would actually allow "heavy" balls to be used in the games they work? Cirillo just might be a few french fries short of a happy meal on this one.

and some excerpts from a Baseball Prospectus Article by Joe Sheehan
http://baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=5386

If you’d told someone in June of 2004 that two years hence, one of every six or so games at Coors Field would end in a shutout, you would have been laughed out of the room.

How is this happening? Those close to the Rockies will cite a crop of young pitchers developing in concert, a younger team featuring an improved defense, higher grass and even a grand design before they’ll mention the humidor.

The humidor was first used in 2002 in an attempt by the team to control scoring in one of the greatest run environments in MLB history. According to the linked story by the Denver Post’s Mike Klis, the Rockies began storing their baseballs in a climate-controlled room at 40% humidity to keep the balls from drying out in Denver’s thinner, drier air. The idea wasn’t to make the balls dead, but to make them more like the ones used at lower altitudes. There was a great hue and cry over the issue, but Coors Field remained a great hitters’ park, the best one in baseball from 2002-2005, albeit not quite as extreme as it had been before. The Rockies, set astray by The Great Change-up Experiment in 2001 (Mike Hampton and Denny Neagle were signed to $170 million worth of contracts and proceeded to implode), weren’t any more successful in those years than they’d been in the previous four.

In any given season, one park or another might have been better for some event than Coors Field was--81 games isn’t a large enough sample to overcome variance, which is why most analysts use multi-year park factors for rigorous work—but no park was consistently in the top five of all three categories. You can see a drop in the home-run factor in 2005, a dip that may have foreshadowed things to come.

This year, the changed used of the humidor has made Coors Field, at more than 5,000 feet above sea level, a pitchers’ park. There’s no question, none at all, that Jeff Cirillo is onto something here. Coors Field has become a below-average place for run scoring, despite the thinner air at high altitude, and with no change in the park.

For years, Coors Field was the best place in baseball to make contact. You hit the ball, good things happen, more than they did anywhere. There was a wobble last season, which might well have been written off as a personnel matter--the Rockies had improved pitching and a wretched offense--if it hadn’t been followed up by this year’s line. Coors Field is now average in turning batted balls into extra-base hits and homers, and slightly above when it comes to doing the same with flyballs. For the first time I can recall, it’s also not the safest place for a ball in play. Even conceding that the above are park stats and not park factors, the extremes listed make a compelling argument that the natural order of things has been badly upset.

Think about why Coors Field is such a good hitters’ park. The air in Denver is thinner than it is at sea level, so it provides less resistance, less drag, on struck balls. Robert Adair, author of The Physics of Baseball, estimated this effect at 9% for an average fly ball. This is the biggest reason why Denver is such a great place to hit. Another reason is that the same thin air makes it harder to throw good breaking stuff, because breaking balls need that same resistance to do their dancing. Finally, a common complaint by pitchers was the dry Denver air made it hard to grip the baseball, adding to problems with command, especially of breaking balls, as the baseballs become slicker, harder and, according to some, smaller.

Now, soaking the baseballs in milk, or whatever it is they’re doing, addresses the first of those problems and the last. Heavier baseballs mean more resistance, which is one reason why there’s a cap--5 ¼ ounces--on the weight of a baseball. But they shouldn’t have much effect on the second other that some improvement in pitchers’ ability to grip the ball. The thin air is still not going to mix real well with breaking pitches.

As you can see, Coors Field has been a terrible place for pitchers to get results on their own. If the humidor is tuned to cancel out the effect of dryness--a problem that was only raised to crisis levels once the humidor came to be--it shouldn’t be enough to turn Coors Field into a pitchers’ park. Adair’s 9% should still be affecting things. The humidor is overcorrecting for the dryness, having a minor effect on command, but the real driver of run prevention is that the humidor is producing baseballs that simply don’t travel.

Now, the Rockies don’t want any part of this. They want to point to Jeff Francis and Aaron Cook and Jason Jennings and say that the lowered run scoring is the end result of having good pitchers. If this is about personnel, then the Rockies’ pitchers should be showing improvement at home and on the road, and in their peripherals as well as their ERAs.

HOME

IP ERA BFP/K BFP/BB K/BB BFP/H BFP/HR BFP/XBH
2006 494.0 4.03 6.44 12.95 2.01 4.23 37.04 12.87
2005 735.0 5.18 6.56 12.61 1.92 3.86 39.48 11.55
2004 733.0 6.27 7.02 10.32 1.47 3.78 31.15 10.57
2003 737.0 5.07 6.92 14.52 2.10 3.86 27.93 10.61

ROAD

IP ERA BFP/K BFP/BB K/BB BFP/H BFP/HR BFP/XBH
2006 451.2 4.32 6.52 14.12 2.17 4.20 56.05 12.58
2005 683.2 5.07 6.45 10.69 1.66 4.15 33.73 11.08
2004 702.1 4.77 6.77 11.06 1.63 4.27 35.33 12.29
2003 683.0 5.35 7.86 11.22 1.43 3.96 37.30 11.86

We’re on to something here. This is an improved pitching staff. Look at the road numbers: Rockies’ pitchers have cut their ERAs, improved their command and dramatically improved their home-run rate from one season to the next. You can see the effects of the humidor at home in the vastly decreased hit rate and extra-base hit rate, but it’s clear that this Rockies’ staff is not entirely the product of wet baseballs.

Over two years, the difference is even more stark. The Rockies allowed a .501 slugging and .194 isolated power at home in 2004. This year, those numbers are .420 and .155. Some percentage of that is the pitchers, and how you assign credit among the hurlers and the humidor depends largely on your proximity to Blake Street.

Earlier this year, I wrote about how the use of the humidor was a mistake because it homogenized the baseball world. While conceding that playing at altitude presented challenges for the Rockies, I lamented the loss of a unique environment. At the time, I didn’t think that Coors would play neutral all season long, and I was right; it’s become a better pitchers’ park as the year has worn on.

I don’t blame the Rockies at all. They’re convinced that their best chance to win is to deaden the baseballs and create a nine-run environment. That they had their most success as a franchise when they hit the snot out of the ball--while getting adequate starting pitching and great relief work--hasn’t registered. There’s nothing wrong with them asking for permission to alter the baseballs in a manner that fits their needs. However, they shouldn’t be able to turn a ballpark one mile high into what it’s become today, a slight pitchers’ park. MLB, which approved the humidor plan to begin with, has to step in and restore order. There’s no way--no way--that Coors Field should play neutral. You want to bring it with a certain distance of the other parks, that’s fine, but you can’t mess with the baseballs so much that it cancels out all the run-enhancing effects of the altitude.

In the case of the Rockies, they’ve implemented a solution that has radically changed the way the games are played at home. If the massive effects of the humidor are acceptable to MLB, then I believe it opens the door for teams looking to make less-radical changes. What I’d prefer, though, is for the league to step in and take a stand on how wet is too wet. Well, what I’d prefer is for no tampering with the baseballs at all, but I don’t think that will happen.

What I do know is that Jeff Cirillo is right. The baseballs in use at Coors Field have been modified in a way that completely changes the game played there. Where batted balls used to go for hits, extra-base hits and home runs, they now become outs. If you want to give some credit to the Rockies’ pitchers, you can, but the primary reason is the humidor. Cirillo’s conspiracy theories are wrong--there’s no swapping of dry and wet baseballs depending on the Rockies’ situation--but he’s right to point out what should have been obvious all along.

Joe Sheehan is an author of Baseball Prospectus. You can contact Joe by clicking here or click here to see Joe's other articles.