'Barrels' Stat Makes it Obvious That MLB's Ball Has Changed in the Postseason

It didn't take a brain surgeon to come to terms with the fact that Major League Baseball was deploying juiced balls during the regular season, as home runs were hit at a staggeringly high rate. The playoffs, however, have been a different story. Far less frequently are big dingers getting clubbed, and fly ball outs that would have traveled over the fence earlier in the year are back to simply being fly balls.

Well, we now have some more statistics to lean on that back the increasingly popular notion that significant changes were made to the balls used in the playoffs compared to the regular season.

Per MLB.com, a "barrel" refers to "a well-struck ball where the combination of exit velocity and launch angle generally leads to a minimum .500 batting average and 1.500 slugging percentage."

This major dropoff in barrel home run rate is not the product of some kind of uncanny coincidence, folks. Players are bringing a similar approach at the plate; the ball just isn't flying like it did over the first 162. And if the barrel figures weren't enough to convince you, maybe these next numbers will. The highly-touted exit velocity stat is down almost a full mile per hour, and even the launch angle on barrels has dropped noticeably enough to be due to something other than random chance.

As the postseason rolls on, we can only predict that these numbers will continue to stay humble-- and continue to reinforce the idea that the MLB's balls have been somehow un-juiced.

What more needs to be said?

The math is there, and the eye test should be more than enough to persuade you that it isn't nearly as easy to park a ball over the fence in October.

All that's left to do now is wait for some sort of explanation. Why take away the game's most captivating singular play right before the ratings were expected to ascend in the postseason? It simply makes no sense. The league owes teams and fans alike a proper explanation.