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SAN DIEGO — The experiment with “enhanced grip” baseballs in the Double-A Southern League presented the Cubs with a conundrum: They couldn’t know exactly how it was affecting the performances of prospects such as Ben Brown and Daniel Palencia. And they didn’t know what would happen when pitchers were promoted to Triple-A and switched to normal balls.
“It’s just one of those variables that we have to deal with,” team president Jed Hoyer said recently.