Is MLB intentionally juicing the baseballs?

Welcome to SB Nation FanPulse, a survey of fans across MLB. Each week, we send 30 polls to plugged in fans from each team. Red Sox fans, sign up HERE to join FanPulse.

Is MLB intentionally juicing the baseballs?

In this week’s look at the Fanpulse poll results, we’re going to start with the national poll. You can expect more of this moving forward because, well, I suspect things aren’t really going to change much for the team-specific polls! Anyway, the national poll for this week related to the Extremely Juiced Baseballs this season. No one denies that the baseballs are different anymore. The league tried denying it for a while in the face of study after study proving them wrong before caving and admitting that hey, the baseballs are a little different. Christian Vázquez has 18 home runs on August 15. He’s made some real changes and has been very good but, I mean, come on.

Now, the question is whether or not MLB is behind the juicing or if it’s just a coincidence they are, in good faith, trying to fix. The fans have been asked and, well, they believe MLB is the mastermind here.

I am in agreement with the majority on this one. MLB now owns the company that manufactures the baseball. If they wanted to fix the issue it’s hard to believe they couldn’t have done so it by now. That said, I have a feeling I might not be in agreement with my feelings on the basic idea of juicing the baseballs. I’m not wild about the current state of the game with the absurd ballooning of home runs and three true outcomes in general. Generally speaking, however, I don’t have a problem with the league adjusting the baseball to spark or hinder offense. The issue is that they should be transparent about it. If pitching is becoming too dominant — and remember, this was an argument being made early in the decade — then I have no problem tweaking the baseball to try and fix it. The same could be said the other way, which is where we’re heading. Just be open about what you’re doing, Rob.

Red Sox Fan Confidence doubles!

You read that correctly! Since last week, confidence among Red Sox fans has doubled! That’s right. It has jumped from four percent to eight percent. You cannot stop this train.