MLB Baseballs Show Unprecedented Drag Drop Amid Yellow Staining Issue

In 2019 MLB saw a record 6,776 home runs, prompting a ball redesign that lowered the home-run rate to under 3 % by 2022. Rawlings, a partially MLB-owned maker, hand-sews each ball from natural materials, process that allows performance variation.

New York Times

Players reported longer fly balls in June 2026, and Rawlings disclosed that about 50 % of season-long inventory showed a yellow tint from excess yarn oil. MLB said the discoloration and the observed drag reduction are unrelated.

New York Times

Baseball Savant recorded a .013 drop in drag coefficient versus the prior full season, translating to roughly six-to-seven extra feet for 100 mph hits. Batted balls traveled about eight feet farther in June, home-run frequency rose from 2.8 % to 3.4 %, and barrels extended eight feet, a five-year high.

New York Times

MLB said performance variation caused the drag change and affirmed that ball materials and construction have not changed. Rawlings attributed the yellow tint to excess oil from the yarn, noted the yarn-supplier issue is resolved, and warned that unstained balls will not reach clubs until late 2026 or early 2027. Both entities said visibly defective balls are removed from play and that monitoring will continue.

New York Times

Detroit Tigers pitcher Tarik Skubal warned that the league appears unaware of the ball’s behavior, while an unnamed R&D analyst called June “the craziest month for drag I’ve ever seen.” Critics argue that opaque testing fuels speculation about intentional ball manipulation.

New York Times

University of Massachusetts-Lowell tests did not measure drag, leaving the cause of the coefficient drop unverified. The share of yellow-stained balls actually used in games is unknown, and no definitive timeline for resolution has been given.

New York Times

• “The baseballs are doing some weird things,” I don’t know if you guys are paying attention to that. They’re flying right now. Go look at the numbers and tell me that something’s not going on. There’s no coincidence.” — Tarik Skubal, Detroit Tigers pitcher

New York Times

• “This is the craziest month for drag I’ve ever seen,” — Unnamed high-ranking research and development analyst, MLB team

New York Times

• “And you’ll probably get nowhere, because there’s no accountability on that side of adjusting baseballs, which is interesting, because there seems to be a lot of data out there, suggesting that — especially in 2019 — the balls were flying much farther than they used to.” — Tarik Skubal, Detroit Tigers pitcher

New York Times