Major League Baseball is apparently looking to level the playing field for pitchers.
The league has reportedly informed teams of changes to the ball which will be in effect for the upcoming season.
The tweaks to the ball, which will be minor reductions in weight and "bounciness," taken in total with the addition of humidors to several ballparks, will likely have the combined effect of dragging down offense, according to baseball insiders Ken Rosenthal and Eno Sarris.
MLB informed its 30 club teams of the changes in a memo last week, the report said.
An unnamed expert cited in the report said the so-called deadening of the ball could curb home runs by about five percent -- the equivalent of moving outfield walls back by about five feet in every Major League ballpark.
A record number of home runs were slugged in 2019, surpassing the previous mark by a whopping 11 percent.
It was the culmination of several years of sharp upticks in the long ball.
While MLB never officially acknowledged "juicing" the ball -- or changing it in any other way for that matter -- it has long been suggested that the league tinkers with the ball's dimensions, perhaps beginning in 2015.
That season was marked by an unprecedented second-half home run explosion, prompting speculation about whether the ball had been altered during the All-Star Break.