MLB's baseballs are dead. What exactly does that entail? The home run rate is universally down across the league in 2022 compared to 2021 and year's past. The dead ball expression references the “Dead Ball Era” of the early 1900's. While 2022's situation isn't quite that bad, MLB players and media are taking notice of the rapidly declining home run rates. Marlin's infielder Jazz Chisholm Jr recently called out the league's dead ball issue in a hilarious Tweet.

“These dead balls gonna make my hair grey before I even dye it that color”

Home run rates had been soaring in recent years and the league likely wanted to provide pitchers with more flexibility after imposing the “sticky stuff” ban last season.

People have tried to blame the declining home run numbers on various other issues such as ballpark humidors. But even Jeff Passan of ESPN believes it is the ball itself causing the most change.

“But when home runs are ‘collapsing at similar rates to which they grew in 2019, the ball will face rightful scrutiny.'”

MLB's launch angle is an interesting narrative as well. Many hitters found slugging success in the late 2010's due to an incline swing. To put it in layman's terms, guys were taking more of an uppercut in their approaches. And that was fine when the ball was flying out of ballparks. But this new ball is producing a lot more fly outs which could drastically change the way hitters approach launch angle. 

 

We could see the value of the single rise again as well. Batting average could become an important stat for the first time in a while. It will make players such as Steven Kwan even more valuable and boom-or-bust options such as Joey Gallo less useful unless they make the necessary adjustment. So there are pros and cons to Rob Manfred and MLB's dead ball situation.

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The good thing is that we will probably continue seeing hilarious reactions like Jazz Chisholm's to the dead ball situation.

 

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