When you’re a former MVP and Cy Young winner, you can pretty much say whatever you want. Houston Astros ace Justin Verlander knows that and took full advantage of it earlier this week. One day before taking the mound as the American League’s starter in Tuesday’s All-Star Game, Verlander vented his frustration over the drastic increase in home runs and total runs in baseball this season, claiming that MLB is using juiced balls to improve offense around the league.
“It’s a f—ing joke,” said Verlander. “Major League Baseball’s turning this game into a joke. They own Rawlings, and you’ve got (MLB Commissioner Rob) Manfred up here saying it might be the way they center the pill. They own the f—ing company. If any other $40 billion company bought out a $400 million company and the product changed dramatically, it’s not a guess as to what happened. We all know what happened. Manfred the first time he came in, what’d he say? He said we want more offense. All of a sudden he comes in, the balls are juiced? It’s not coincidence. We’re not idiots.”
The number of home runs in baseball has increased by 60% since 2014. At the current pace, major league hitters will amass 6,668 home runs this season. That number will break the current record of 6,105 set in 2017 by more than 5,000 home runs. Verlander has been personally victimized by the increase in long balls, yielding a league-high 26 home runs through the first half of the season.
Manfred, who took office in January 2015, approved a study released in June 2018 that concluded balls were performing differently in recent years. However, the study didn’t have an explanation for why that was happening. That study was released one month after MLB (as Verlander mentioned) purchased Rawlings, the company that makes all official MLB balls.
Verlander went onto say that he’s “100 percent” sure the league is using juiced baseballs. He says the league knows what to do to balls to make them fly out of the ballpark with more regularity because they have been juicing the balls used every summer at the Home Run Derby “forever.” For further evidence, Verlander showed reporters a blister on his thumb, claiming he’s only developed it there during the 2017 season and this year, the two seasons with the most home runs in league history.
While Manfred denies the league has tampered with the balls and says scientists are still studying the issue, power hitters like J.D. Martinez say hitters deserve some of the credit. He says with hitters taking a better approach, they can take advantage of mistakes pitchers make with their control on pitches in the strike zone.
Overall, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of at-bats that end with either a walk, strikeout, or home run, the three true outcomes. Verlander says he isn’t sure if an increase in the three true outcomes is good or bad for the game. But he knows that if MLB is doing something to change the balls, they should come out and say it.
“I don’t think it’s great — that the true outcomes of strikeouts, homers, and walks is best for the game,” says Verlander. “That’s for somebody else to decide. I talk about time a lot — how do you stack up in history? If you’re going to change something so dramatically, I think you need to make people aware.”