There may be more uncertainty heading into the 2020 baseball season than there has been in any season before. There are an awful lot of unanswered questions, and in addition to the shortened schedule we are also dealing with a variety of rule changes. How each team will respond is wildly up in the air. Which manager will be the first to intentionally walk the leadoff man in the 10th inning? Will closers entering the game to begin the 8th inning become a regular occurrence? Will we see tandem starts combining 3-4 innings each from two back-of-the-rotation starters become the new version of “the opener”? It’s hard to tell, but I for one am very excited to find out. I think the strategies required to win this sprint of a season are going to be quite fun to watch. The teams that think the hardest about it are going to win the most, whether it’s thinking about how to keep their players healthy or thinking about how to best utilize an expanded roster in the early going when many players are still working their way into shape.

With all the known quantities affecting play this year, one of the biggest factors in overall strategy is going to be something we have absolutely no knowledge of – and that is what the “juiciness level” of the baseball itself will be. 2017, 2018, and the 2019 regular season featured significant increases in overall offensive production across the major leagues. There have been a lot of explanations for these increases, but it is clear that one of the major elements is the fact that the baseball was altered to make it more aerodynamic and to travel farther when hit. MLB has not publicly acknowledged any intentional changes to the baseball, but they have in some cases alluded to “natural fluctuations” and the fact that manufacturing can vary slightly over time. The biggest “juicing” increase happened for the 2019 regular season, resulting in the four largest single-season team home run totals of all time. This change happened shortly after MLB acquired Rawlings, the company that manufactures the baseballs. Maybe a coincidence, but given the fact that there was a large fan sentiment that desired more offensive fireworks in the wake of the post-steroid era, it seems that both the means and the motive were firmly in place. 

There was another consequence of the juiced ball, and that is the launch angle revolution. The players were not content to swing in the same manner and simply accept the results of the livelier baseball. With home runs becoming easier to hit, the math started to favor a strategy where players take home run cuts a much higher percentage of the time. Analysis of the obvious increased impact of a home run compared to a single combined with the increased frequency of fly balls leaving the yard has driven players to swing from the heels at every opportunity. This has resulted in increased offense, but also has caused instances of the “three true outcomes” to occur much more frequently. Similar to the fan backlash against the low scoring games featuring elite bullpen work that were the hallmark of the 2014 and 2015 Royals, we now have a similar sentiment from that fans want to see more action and balls put into play. Home runs becoming incredibly common somehow makes them seem less special, and I see fans growing weary of watching games that feature an endless parade of walks and strikeouts, occasionally interrupted by some weak hitting second baseman like Tommy LaStella knocking his 37th bomb of the year. The fans don’t necessarily want less offense, but what they clearly do want is doubles and stolen bases. They want high contact rates, line drives, and extended rallies. They want to see balls in play, and they want home runs to be notable and exciting again.

In response to this, MLB tested a significantly “less-juicy” baseball in the 2019 playoffs. This is not up for a debate in my opinion, and is backed up by hard stats from data scientists and front offices. It was clear to my baseball eye while watching the games, fly balls that would have been no-doubt home runs during the regular season were being flagged down on the warning tracks of every team still on the field in October. We saw some truly masterful pitching, and in my opinion it was an overall thrilling brand of baseball. The stats indicate the change was a significant one, and I think that all evidence points to it basically being a test run for the direction MLB intends to go with the ball for the near future. 

Did the fans like it? Did it simply decrease scoring, or did it push the games a little bit in the direction of the style of baseball many fans have expressed a desire to see? More important than the specific fan reactions is what MLB perceives those reactions to be and how they will respond to them. The feeling I got was that fans overall enjoyed the games. I think it’s good for the pitchers to get a chance to shine, and they took advantage to deliver some standout performances. The matchups were close and exciting, with healthy parity, and certainly enough runs making it across the plate to keep the fans entertained on the offensive front. I didn’t see a whole lot of deviation from the launch angle strategies employed during the regular season, but that isn’t much of a surprise. Teams were built to play that way, had succeeded by playing that way, and likely desire significantly more data before abandoning successful concepts. I do think that in the long term, if 30 home run power becomes a rare commodity again that we’ll see more of the contact hitting and situational hitting that fans are pining for these days. 

I think it is very likely that the 2020 baseball will not be as juicy as the 2019 regular season ball was, and I think the de-juiced ball from the 2019 playoffs is at the other end of the likely spectrum. It’s hard to imagine MLB moving to one extreme or the other outside of those benchmarks, but it is not entirely out of the question. What if MLB decides that the short season will be most fun for the fans if the batters sock as many dingers as possible in the short timeframe? On the flip side, they could be of a mind that shorter, low-scoring games lead to less potential virus exposure and decreased injury risk, and give us a ball even deader than the ones used in the 2019 playoffs. The most likely scenario clearly is a ball somewhere between the 2019 regular season and playoff ball, but there are no guarantees. No matter the outcome, the juiciness of the ball is going to have a significant impact on the season. We could end up with a slew of 18 home run hitters, or we could end up with a bunch of aces who go 8-2 and post ERAs under 3.00. I’m sure it is challenging to prepare for as a GM, not knowing which hitting skill sets will be most effective, or if quality pitching will become significantly more plentiful just based on a slight tweak to the ball. As someone who loves a good pitcher’s duel, I personally am rooting for as little juice as possible. Let the cream of the batters rise to the top in this short slate of ball games, and keep the games close and exciting. Forget the 16-4 blowouts that are effectively over in the 3rd, if we only get 60 games, let’s spend as many of them as we can watching the Schezers and Coles of the world dueling head-to-head to see who will crack first.