College Home Runs Increasing in 2015 with Flat-Seamed Baseball

To help boost the distance a baseball travels off the bat, the NCAA made the move to flat-seamed baseballs this season. Through the first three weeks of the season, the new ball has made a noticeable impact on the amount of home runs we're seeing each game.

NCAA Baseball released some data to highlight the statistics, and the biggest difference from 2014 to 2015 is the home run rate has increased from 0.33 per game a year ago to 0.47 per game this season.

The good news for proponents of pitching and shorter games is that the balls haven't affected total runs at the same rate. While scoring has increased, runs per game are only up 4.33%.

To give you a good snapshot of the new ball's impact, the NCAA put together this infographic.

For The University of Alabama, the trend is reversed. Keep in mind that it's a much smaller sample size when looking at just one team, but the Crimson Tide and its opponents have seen an 8% increase in home runs through the first 12 games (7 in 2014, 8 in 2015).

Meanwhile, the runs have jumped nearly 65% from 2014 to 2015. A year ago, Alabama baseball games averaged a total of 6.8 runs per game during those first 12 games, but that's ballooned to 11.2 runs per game this year.

It'll be interesting to see if the trends continue into April and May, but there seems to be some impact already with the new flat-seamed baseballs. Take a deeper look into the NCAA's statistics here.