Confirmed Through Andrew McCutchen And Now A Report In The Athletic, MLB Once Again, For No Reason At All, Messed With The Ball, Causing It To Not Travel As Far As It Should

Evan Yu. Getty Images.

You won't believe it, but MLB messed with the balls again. Why? No one has the slightest clue. I've honestly lost track at this point with how many times they've gotten away with this shit, but Andrew McCutchen asked a league rep the other day and got his confirmation —there's more drag on the baseball this year, and I'm not talking about Pat and Joey. The balls are carrying less this year and not rewarding hits appropriately. 

Full tweet - I was told by a rep for MLB that the balls are indeed different this year. They stated “higher seams” which produces more drag on baseball, causing baseballs to not travel as far as they should. When asked why, I was told “every baseball is hand sewn so no ball is the same.” When I asked if there is something that can be done about correcting the current performance of this years baseball, I was told there was “nothing” that can be done about it this season BUT, they are “working hard on getting to the bottom of why the seams are higher.” So, yea you’re not wrong Ben.

An Eno Sarris piece in The Athletic backs this up, with MLB confirming the change in performance of the ball. 

(Athletic) Deep flies aren’t flying as far this year in Major League Baseball, and the league office is acknowledging as much. A review by The Athletic of MLB’s publicly available data shows there has been more drag on the ball in 2025 than in any of the other nine seasons that MLB has tracked it. As a result, equally hard-hit fly balls are coming up 4 feet short, on average.

The article goes further to state the sport is experiencing an 8 year low in percentage of fly balls that are home runs this year. Atta boy Manfred. 

My favorite reoccurring part of this storyline throughout the years is that MLB claims they don't know the root of the issue.  

A potentially tiny change in seam width or height is one theory the league office has identified, according to a league source who was not authorized to speak publicly, but nothing is conclusive at this point. Baseballs are hand-stitched, prompting league officials to point out there will always be some ball-to-ball and batch-to-batch variation. However, something appears to be happening at scale: On all but four individual days this year, there has been more drag on the ball than last season’s average.

Mind you that Major League Baseball is a parent company of Rawlings, the company that makes the balls. They literally own the ball making company yet claim it's out of their hands. Make it make sense! The article also displays data that shows the consistency in ball-making has improved over the years, so the big change in drag can't really be chalked up to human error. 

Gotta love this stupid sport, man. Football, basketball, hockey, soccer you get the same ball. It's a simple concept actually. But with baseball any given you year can yield a wildly different performing ball. 

Don't mind me I'll just be thinking about this Austin Wells fly ball last night that had a 106.1 mph exit velo, a 33 degree launch angle, and an .830 expected batting average that died in the air. Same as the Soto one above that should have tied the Mets game against Tampa.  

Pretty sure everyone in the building last night thought that was going to be a wall ball. Wasn't meant to be. Not the reason the Yankees lost though, they've played like flat out dogshit in these first two games. Top to bottom embarrassment. Can't wait to get swept today.