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Big time. If you were a billy goat, he'd be trying to get you under his bridge to be his meal...

And smart teams like the Astros and Royals figured out how to game that system...

They shatter and the balls bounce all over the first base line. Anything else, Graig?

Bats are freakin' crazy expensive. $70 for a cheap one? WTF?

The difference is in the deformation. When you strike a pitch with a wood bat, both the bat and ball deform, albeit not equally. But that deformation is lost kinetic energy. An aluminum (or aluminium for the Brits out there) barely deforms, if at all. And that make a huge difference in the amount of energy transferred to the ball. That aluminum bats don't deform as much and the ball still leaves with more kinetic energy is further proof as to why corking bats doesn't work. Unless you like foul tips...

The 2006 Astros were 8.5 games out with 12 to play and managed to get it down to 1/2 game with 3 games left, but just couldn't finish it off. They ended the season 1.5 games behind St. Louis. They did help themselves by sweeping the Cardinals in a 4 game series along the way...

But it's also why I always loved Torii Hunter. During an interview after he signed his contract with the Angels, he was naturally asked why he chose them. He said "My grandma told me I'd be stupid to turn down that much money."

The barrel is bigger, leading to more contact on the fringes. But that contact is typically just foul tips and pop ups (on the upper edge) or little weak grounders (on the lower edge). A player needs to make contact on the point of the surface of the bat radius that is in direct line with the path of the bat in order to make optimum contact. Hitting any other point on the surface of the bat splits the force vector into multiple components and leads to weaker contact. And to make hitting even tougher, that radius on the bat has to be at a point along the bat so that it passes through the center of mass. It is amazing that players can do all this sometimes....

Sort of like how players signing free agent contracts always say "I felt this team had the best chance to win." And they coincidentally offered the most money...

9 games out with 13 to play would be the greatest comeback of all time. The Marlins once came back down 7 1/2 games with 17 to play, but that's the closest I can think of...

I ripped that contract on Day One (and have been vindicated by none other than Bellhorn himself). I don't think Eovaldi's season was a surprise...

Disappointing and frustrating. But it also means a complete teardown isn't necessary...

And already an animated movie. "Robots" starring Ewen MacGregor, Hallie Berry, Robin Williams and Jim Broadbent...

That would be the only positive of it, but the increase is surface area only allows for more weak contact on the expanded edges of the bat barrel. A player has to hit along the radius of the bat to make good contact. A corked bat might help increase pop ups and foul tips. A lighter bat will lead to the same effects on balls hit squarely on the radius and increased exit velocity for those hitting the sweet spot, due to the increase in kinetic energy and moment arm.

If a player does cork a bat, he can get increased bat speed. So if coriking is working, that player should perform the perfectly legal maneuver of switching to a lighter bat. In kinetic energy, speed is paramount. 1/2*mass*velocity squared. Increasing the velocity from 1 to 2 increased the energy by a function of 4. But the corking myth I grew up with is that it makes the bat "springier." This only works in Bugs Bunny cartoons. The function of a spring in this case is to absorb energy, not to create it. (Those things on your wheels are not called "Shock creators" for a reason.) Besides damaging the integrity of the wood, a corked bat also moves the center of mass of the bat (aka the "sweet spot") closer to the hitter, reducing the length of his moment arm. Essentially, by bringing the center of mass towards to hitter, you are making the opposite of a fungo bat, which is designed with a longer handle and more mass further away from the hitter. And is also designed to hit long flyballs. So opposite of long flyballs would be detrimental here. Of course, this all assumes the hitter corks the barrel of the bat. If a hitter were to cork the handle, it would have the desired effect, assuming the bat didn't immediately break upon contact or via torque or both.

If we get all aerodynamic about it, like frisbees and airplanes, baseball movement is subjected to 4 primary forces - thrust, lift, drag, and gravity. With baseballs and frisbess, thrust is provided by the thrower/pitcher. Lift is a function of airflow. With a frisbess, the curved edges provide airspeed increase above the frisbee that causes the lift. Drag comes from below, perpendicular to lift, and is a function of air pressure and, actually, launch angle. Gravity affects the thrown object at 9.8 m/sec^2 with a downward force equal to that constant times the mass of the ball (which is known as the "weight"). The myth of the rising fastball rests on the lift force exceeding the drag force, but this cannot happen due to the weight of the baseball. I wouldn't call that slowing down the descent as much as I would simply being thrown too fast so as to minimize the effects of gravity. Gravitational force does have a time component, like all forces. The "lack of movement" is about the fact that the launch angle from a pitcher is typically downward, with most release points being higher than the catcher's target. A "rising fastball" is just a fastball thrown at a launch angle with a higher trajectory to above the target. The hitter anticipates the ball being lower than it's actual path, and the 1/2 second doesn't always give the proper time to adjust. The ball isn't rising; it's just following a different path.

Promiscuous Robots was the name of my band in high school...

I don't think the high spin rate reduces the effects of gravity. Gravity is constant. The high spin rate might impact the airflow around the ball, but that would usually create movement and not a lack of it...

While you are right, I don't think the common reference to a rising fastball is often used when describing submarine-style pitchers..

At least until the next umpires' strike...

And any batter struck by a pitch is out. That should speed things up...

I think they will have to think about it. I just hope they decide against it...

And while this season is disappointing, it's not like this team is horrible and unsalvageable. They actually still have an outside shot to win 90 games. The Sox are the Giants, saddled with a bunch of horrible under-performing contracts while facing a third straight sub-.500 season with no end in sight...

Without even getting into the Bernoullian physics behind it, that the seams have allegedly been lowered seems to prove they influenced the amount of break on these pitches, similar to how (most people think) the shape of an airplane wing influences lift. Which is why we have so many home runs now. But baseball players and managers are notoriously superstitious and believe a lot of old legends, which is why some players actually still cork bats, despite that it is actually a hindrance and not a help...

I think Dombrowski also had some of his future commitments held against him. That the Sox are in a position that they have to even think about trading Betts in order to afford Nathan Eovaldi is a larger mistake than anything Cora did...