Well, what anyone understood during last year's MLB playoffs and World Series is now clear: They're fixing the results of games by juicing the balls...

We knew it was coming, with the Home Runs for Hurricane Relief and all that garbage.

And now, today, the first real establishment that the discussions of two years now are right:  We are back in a Juiced-Ball Era...

Alex Putterman at MSN's MLB Blog The Comeback reported yesterday that, after two years of statistical study, several bloggers at Five Thirty-Eight have concluded specific and substantial differences in the balls of 2017 and the balls of 2015.

2017's baseballs are bouncier and fly further and faster.

Rob Arthur and Tim Dix reported in Five Thirty-Eight that the chemical composition of the core of the baseball has been changed to increase distance, velocity, and home runs.

He's fixing results of games -- you saw it wholesale during the playoffs, but it's been true in all games.  The over six thousand home runs last year (beating the Steroid Era record for home runs in a year by almost 10 percent!!!) showed that the Juiced-Ball Era is back.

It's clear Manfred's eventual position:  Render pitching absolutely irrelevant.  "We'll get people to come back to America's Game -- HOME RUN DERBY!!!"