MLB Balls Are ‘Different’ This Season, per Andrew McCutchen

Pirates outfielder Andrew McCutchen has added fuel to speculation that MLB is using different baseballs this season than it did last year.

With scoring down a touch so far this year—roughly 4.32 runs per team per game compared to 4.39 across the entire 2024 season, per Baseball Reference—McCutchen took to social media on Saturday with some new information.

McCutchen quoted a post on X from Mets reporter Ben Yoel that included a video with the comment, “You can’t convince me MLB isn’t using dead balls.” 

McCutchen wrote, “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.”

The Athletic published a story on Friday breaking down ways in which balls were behaving differently this year. A higher drag coefficient is a factor, diminishing how far they go.

Total runs scored across all 30 MLB teams naturally fluctuate. The biggest differential came between 2022 and 2023, when the total increased from 20,817 to 22,432. 

The quality of play on the field—dead balls or not— has resulted in modest increases in both game attendance averages and TV viewership for the league’s national network partners.