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Should NFHS Adopt a Lower Seamed Baseball?

gg2224

Freshman
May 12, 2009
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Division-I schools moved to a lower seamed baseball this season to help spark the long ball. Should high schools follow suit?

At the midpoint of the season, home runs are up 39% over a year ago at D-I. I think anything that adds offense to the high school game is a good thing.

There are a multitude of articles out there explaining the physics, but essentially the lower seamed ball maintains the safer exit velocity the BBCOR bats were designed for, but the reduced drag of the lower seams allows the ball to carry further, hence more home runs and extra base hits.


Added links:

Decision to change:
http://www.ncaa.com/news/baseball/article/2013-11-05/di-committee-changes-flat-seamed-baseballs-2015-championship

2015 Midseason Results
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/12419383/ncaa-reports-big-jump-home-runs-new-flat-seam-ball
This post was edited on 4/9 9:44 PM by gg2224
 
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All I know is that my fingers were ripped up after pitching with the IAHSAA baseballs during a playoff game last year
 
Division-I schools moved to a lower seamed baseball this season to help spark the long ball. Should high schools follow suit?

At the midpoint of the season, home runs are up 39% over a year ago at D-I. I think anything that adds offense to the high school game is a good thing.

There are a multitude of articles out there explaining the physics, but essentially the lower seamed ball maintains the safer exit velocity the BBCOR bats were designed for, but the reduced drag of the lower seams allows the ball to carry further, hence more home runs and extra base hits.


Added links:

Decision to change:
http://www.ncaa.com/news/baseball/a...anges-flat-seamed-baseballs-2015-championship

2015 Midseason Results
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/s...reports-big-jump-home-runs-new-flat-seam-ball
This post was edited on 4/9 9:44 PM by gg2224

What effect does the lower seams have on breaking pitches, I assume it eliminates some of the break which would also add offense to the games.
 
IAHSAA baseballs are pure junk. Maybe not go to the extreme of adopting these kind of balls, but something needs to be done. They suck to even be used as practice balls afterwards. Someone hits it square just once and they turn into eggs..
 
High seem balls allow for more break on pitches and personally I think the high seem ball is harder to get good pop off. I'm not sure why, but when I've hit them it seems like you don't get as much speed or distance.

Just out of curiosity I looked it up after typing my above message and as I suspected even with the same speed and trajectory off the bat high seam baseballs don't travel as far as low seam.
 
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