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Beside The Points For Thursday, Mar. 1, 2018

By Walt Hickey

Things That Caught My Eye

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/juiced-b...cid=SigDig

We put some baseballs in an X-Ray

Are the balls juiced? Are material changes to the ball an influence on the spike in home runs analysts have found? Commissioner Manfred says that the balls have not changed, but a number of studies from journalistic outfits, this one included, seem to counter that idea.

ESPN took the next logical step and did a CT scan of eight MLB balls. The finding? It surely looks like the core of the balls are less dense compared to the control balls from several years ago. Indeed, a layer of pink rubber in the core of the balls was 40 percent less dense in the dinger-era balls than the 2014-2015 era balls. [FiveThirtyEight]

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