Offense in MLB--What has happened?

[drtooth]

Killing time on a Sunday morning, I found some interesting stuff (baseball-reference.com is where I found info).
 
1. Runs/game are down to 4.13 (per team I'm assuming).  That is the lowest since 1992 (4.12).
 
2. Hits/game are down to 8.58.  Lowest since 1972 (8.19)
 
3. HR/game are down to 0.89.  Lowest since 1993 (0.89)
 
4.  OPS is at .706.  Lowest since 1992 (.700)
 
5. This is the one that really got my attention and started my looking at this.  There are currently 3 pitchers (Cueto, Kershaw, Sale) that have WHIP's of this season that are in the top 25 of all time and 2 others (Fernandez , Wainwright) that are in the top 50 of all time.  Only 4 of the rest have been within the last 30 years.  Pedro's 2000 WHIP of 0.7373 is still unbelievable all these years later.
 
Is it the lack of steroids in the game?  The use of shifts?
 
What are the thoughts of all of you?
 
 

 

[johnmd20]

Shifts to a small amount, no PED's to a much greater degree. PED's not only help you get stronger, they keep you healthy(in the short term) and decrease the chance of injury. Without them, a 162 game schedule is a brutal grind for most people, even professional athletes. Pitchers don't go through the same kind of grind because they pitch every 5 or 6 days.

 

[terrynever]

Power arms in the bullpen, increased use of the bullpen, smarter defensive deployment compared to hardly anything innovative 20 years ago, bigger and stronger starting pitchers. Just the size of these guys alone is amazing. Throw in increased usage of the splitter and cutter. It has become a defense/pitching game again. As a fan, I'm learning how to watch low-scoring games again. It's like watching soccer. The beauty is still there. You just don't see the power hitting as much.

 

[Mighty Joe Young]

Power arms in the bullpen, increased use of the bullpen, smarter defensive deployment compared to hardly anything innovative 20 years ago, bigger and stronger starting pitchers. Just the size of these guys alone is amazing. Throw in increased usage of the splitter and cutter. It has become a defense/pitching game again. As a fan, I'm learning how to watch low-scoring games again. It's like watching soccer. The beauty is still there. You just don't see the power hitting as much.

Yeah .. All true .. And all those developments were there five years ago. I think the primary cause was the banning of amphetamines .. Which, of course, was a PED .. But something that was probably universally used.

 

[seantoo]

Killing time on a Sunday morning, I found some interesting stuff (baseball-reference.com is where I found info).
 
1. Runs/game are down to 4.13 (per team I'm assuming).  That is the lowest since 1992 (4.12).
 
2. Hits/game are down to 8.58.  Lowest since 1972 (8.19)
 
3. HR/game are down to 0.89.  Lowest since 1993 (0.89)
 
4.  OPS is at .706.  Lowest since 1992 (.700)
 
5. This is the one that really got my attention and started my looking at this.  There are currently 3 pitchers (Cueto, Kershaw, Sale) that have WHIP's of this season that are in the top 25 of all time and 2 others (Fernandez , Wainwright) that are in the top 50 of all time.  Only 4 of the rest have been within the last 30 years.  Pedro's 2000 WHIP of 0.7373 is still unbelievable all these years later.
 
Is it the lack of steroids in the game?  The use of shifts?
 
What are the thoughts of all of you?
 
 

Should the use of shifts be regulated, such as players, infielders in particular have to be within so many feet of the base they play?
Shifts have become very popular and it is taking away alot of hits and offense from the game and as we all know 'ladies love the long ball'/offense. Thoughts?

 

[terrynever]

Yeah .. All true .. And all those developments were there five years ago. I think the primary cause was the banning of amphetamines .. Which, of course, was a PED .. But something that was probably universally used.

Interesting debate here. Players were taking greenies in the mid-1960s when pitchers began to dominate so much that the mound got lowered after the 1968 season. It took a law to stop the domination of pitchers back then.
Greenies get an athlete physically ready to play but they don't swing the bat or provide more distance to their hits. I'm on the side of the debate that says athletes are getting bigger and stronger and in baseball that mostly relates to an abundance of pitchers who are taking over the game, thanks in large part to deeper bullpens and quick hooks for starting pitchers. 
And, of course, limiting steroid use really cut into offensive production.

 

[dbn]

With pictures. The drop looks pretty significant.

 

[Toe Nash]

The biggest difference now compared to older offensive lulls is the incredible prevalence of strikeouts. Hitters are striking out in 20.31% of PAs this year, which is the highest amount in MLB history. This stat has reached a new high in each season since 2008.
 

 
This change is so dramatic that even comparisons to the early-00s are difficult as most people haven't adjusted mentally to the new K levels. A 7.7 K/9 is average now, but just ten years ago would have been top 15 in the majors, and 20 years ago would have been 7th between John Smoltz and Roger Clemens. You are seeing a lot of talk about how such and such pitcher is reaching or nearing their career highs in K/9 (Lackey and Lester, for example) but if not adjusted for the league environment these comparisons aren't valuable.
 
The effect of shifts is dwarfed by guys just not making contact. Here's BABIP over time:
 

 
So, BABIP has remained relatively constant with a jump in the 90s -- perhaps due to players swinging for the fences more / bulking up and hitting balls harder. Increased shifting in the last few years doesn't seem to have had a big effect on BABIP.
 
While hits and HR are down per game, I would suspect that adjusted for the amount of balls in play, the rate is not significantly lower. I'll try to crunch that data.

 

[Toe Nash]

OK, here is HR / BIP since 1947:
 

 
This is just HR / (AB-K+SF). So adjusting the HR rate for the lower amount of balls put in play overall.
 
As you can see, the rate of HR has dropped a bit in the last couple years, which could be weather, ball effects, whatever, but doesn't seem to be a dramatic change.
 
An interesting question is should the league do something about this? Do we want a league where people strike out over 20% of the time, if the BABIP and HR rates are so high as to still have a relatively normal amount of runs scoring? 
 
I would think that arriving at a similar amount of runs by having more defensive plays rather than more strikeouts would be a better result from a fan perspective. But I don't know how you could get there. You can exactly tell pitchers not to throw the nastiest and fastest pitches they can. Nor can you tell batters to choke up and try to make more contact rather than hitting it as hard as they can.
 
I guess you could mandate something where a team could have no more than 11 pitchers, or limit the number of relievers used so as to force starters to pace themselves, but that doesn't really seem possible either. You could have umps call a tighter zone but that would lead to more walks as well, which aren't exciting to watch.
 
Perhaps more importantly, is this going to keep continuing indefinitely or will the K% level off? I wouldn't think it could, but again, it has increased to a new historic high every year since 2008, and by a lot -- more than 3% overall.

 

[uncannymanny]

I have a hard time believing the answer isn't an overwhelming "STEROIDS" given the consistent early-90's timeframes noted by the OP and dbn's graphs. I think there's a lot of incidental factors moving the needle a bit too, but c'mon...STEROIDS.

 

[dbn]

Thanks for making those graphs, TN.
 
I feel like there are going to be trends - such as the increased k rate - that MLB should let play out, at least until/unless they start to really affect the game negatively. I'm not sure we're at that point yet. 
 
Does anyone have data on length-of-games in hrs trends? I wonder if the offensive decline is speeding games up. I suspect not, thanks to all the sausage races, honoring 'merica, tv ads, pitchers stepping off and batters stepping out, etc.

 

[Harry Hooper]

Interesting debate here. Players were taking greenies in the mid-1960s when pitchers began to dominate so much that the mound got lowered after the 1968 season. It took a law to stop the domination of pitchers back then.
Greenies get an athlete physically ready to play but they don't swing the bat or provide more distance to their hits. I'm on the side of the debate that says athletes are getting bigger and stronger and in baseball that mostly relates to an abundance of pitchers who are taking over the game, thanks in large part to deeper bullpens and quick hooks for starting pitchers. 
And, of course, limiting steroid use really cut into offensive production.

 
But the withdrawal (pun intended) of greenies would be expected to have a much bigger downside for everyday players than pitchers. Plus no more scheduled double-headers and the tight travel schedules have raised the physical toll of the 162-game campaign.
 
I think the relaxed enforcement of the "no applying foreign substances to the ball" rule has also factored in. I would favor moving much closer to enforcing the rule as written, with maybe an exception for games played under 40 degrees or so.

 

[bankshot1]

I think most would settle on three factors explaining most of the decline in offense
 
1-MLB's crackdown on PEDS
2-the improvement in bullpen arms -fresh quality arms that can throw 93-100 in 6th-to-9th inning (it would be interesting to comp K rates in late inning to see the trend there)
3-the increase in the use of shifts 
 
Could they ban the shift, or put limitations on it, or lower the mound another few inches, I imagine they could, but unless MLB goes back to the see no evil-no test for evil, or unless offenses get to 1968-ish levels, we probably won't get a fix.

 

[BoredViewer]

Could there be demographic issues?  Disproportionate populations of hitters/pitchers (good ones, too) in their prime years?
 
PEDs - no doubt.
 
Shifts?  Maybe.  If that is a factor - batters need to adjust.
 
I don't feel like much has really changed with bullpen usage in the last 10-15 years - maybe longer.

 

[canderson]

It'll be more interesting in 5-10 years when the college and HS players using the dead bats arrive. I think you see a lot more bunting for hits, etc. more so I think those guys can hit against shifts.

 

[ivanvamp]

No need to do anything. If scoring is down for a spell, so be it. Offenses will adjust. There was a great interview Castiglione had with Joe Madden earlier in the year and they talked about the shift phenomenon. Maddon's take was that players will learn to adjust - bunt, slap the ball the other way, etc. - but that it'll take some time because they'll have to retrain hitters starting in the minors.

And I think he's right.

Edit: I forgot to add that in my opinion, any scoring decrease we've seen due to a decrease in PED usage SHOULD be down, because it never should have gone up on the first place.

 

[Fuzzypants]

As an alternative to the steroid hypothesis, what impact might technology be playing? 
 
It seems that video analysis has exploded, providing both pitchers and hitters access to a wealth of information. But I wonder if this data might be favoring pitchers more than hitters?  I'm sure it ultimately comes down to execution (on both sides) but might this be a factor?

 

[ivanvamp]

I honestly don't know how anyone can conclude that steroids did NOT have a huge impact on offense in MLB.

 

[Toe Nash]

 
2-the improvement in bullpen arms -fresh quality arms that can throw 93-100 in 6th-to-9th inning (it would be interesting to comp K rates in late inning to see the trend there)
 

 
Very time-consuming to do this for every year, but here's a start:
 
[tablegrid= Selected Stats for Relievers and Starters ]Year Role K PA K% HR HR / BIP OBP SLG BABIP 1960 As Starter 8879 67209 13.21% 1559 3.02% 0.322 0.391 0.277   As Reliever 3945 27575 14.31% 569 2.81% 0.329 0.378 0.276 1970 As Starter 15706 106177 14.79% 2520 3.16% 0.322 0.388 0.279   As Reliever 6671 43155 15.46% 909 2.93% 0.335 0.380 0.284 1980 As Starter 13575 113270 11.98% 2286 2.56% 0.325 0.394 0.287   As Reliever 6637 47940 13.84% 801 2.23% 0.330 0.372 0.286 1990 As Starter 15546 108714 14.30% 2326 2.81% 0.323 0.391 0.286   As Reliever 8307 51602 16.10% 991 2.64% 0.327 0.373 0.287 2000 As Starter 19868 126129 15.75% 3945 4.25% 0.344 0.446 0.300   As Reliever 11488 64132 17.91% 1748 3.92% 0.347 0.418 0.301 2010 As Starter 21859 124154 17.61% 3197 3.54% 0.324 0.410 0.297   As Reliever 12447 61399 20.27% 1416 3.38% 0.328 0.388 0.298 2014 As Starter 12796 66062 19.37% 1648 3.47% 0.316 0.402 0.299   As Reliever 7414 33458 22.16% 681 3.04% 0.315 0.366 0.295 [/tablegrid]
 
It seems like there may be something to this. As you can see, relievers this year are striking out a ridiculous 22% of batters and have shown a split since the 80s. They are also getting a higher share of playing time, which changes the overall results. Relievers are also allowing a lower HR rate and lower slugging percentages than starters, though these are higher than 1990 and earlier. So yeah, it seems like the strategy of having guys throw an inning at a time and just try to get Ks is working as we would expect. 
 
That said, starters are also striking out a ton of guys, so I don't think this explains all of the effect. No matter their role, everyone is getting more strikeouts than ever before.

 

[curly2]

Seeing how scoring has gone down with PED suspensions and no more greenies makes it even more amazing to look at what Pedro was able to do when so many guys were juiced and you saw so many 10-8 games.

 

[Toe Nash]

I honestly don't know how anyone can conclude that steroids did NOT have a huge impact on offense in MLB.

It doesn't explain the increase in Ks, does it? HRs per ball in play have decreased, but hits haven't. But compared to the "steroid era" an additional 3% of plate appearances end in a K, which as we know is not only an out but doesn't advance a baserunner. That seems to me to be a huge amount that by itself should drop scoring a lot. It seems to me like that is a much bigger effect than the decrease in HRs (which is lower than the 98-04 peak but still historically high, per ball in play).
 
Would stopping PED use cause more players to strike out? Maybe if pitchers were still using...
 
Trying not to sound like a broken record, and I'm not denying the effect steroids had, but it strikes me as intellectually lazy to just say "Oh, clearly it was all steroids" when the facts don't seem to add up.

 

[ivanvamp]

I don't think it's all steroids, and never said it was. There are many factors, in my opinion, one big one is PED use.

And to the point about strikeouts, if the increase in Ks is a significant cause of reduced run production, doesn't that mean that the old school guys are right when they said all along that strikeouts matter? It seems like new school guys have argued that a K is no big deal compared to other forms of outs. But I think we are seeing that that's not true. Productive outs DO help teams score runs.

 

[fenwaypaul]

Is there a way, maybe by examining pitchfx data, to determine if umps are calling a larger strike zone this year? It seems that way. It also seems as if Sox batters are looking at an awful lot of called third strikes this year.

 

[Toe Nash]

I don't think it's all steroids, and never said it was. There are many factors, in my opinion, one big one is PED use.

And to the point about strikeouts, if the increase in Ks is a significant cause of reduced run production, doesn't that mean that the old school guys are right when they said all along that strikeouts matter? It seems like new school guys have argued that a K is no big deal compared to other forms of outs. But I think we are seeing that that's not true. Productive outs DO help teams score runs.

No, you're getting it wrong. Ks aren't that bad compared to other outs, but there are more Ks now, so there are fewer balls in play that could be hits or outs. Ks are bad compared to your average plate appearance, which is the comparison here. The biggest reason Ks aren't that bad is because they have no chance of being a double play.
 
If there are 1000 PAs, and previously 15% ended in a strikeout (with no BBs in this hypothetical), that means there are 850 balls in play and you'd expect about 30% of those to be hits (255). If you increase the K% to 20, then you have just 800 balls in play, and without a change in BABIP you'd only have 240 hits.

 

[VORP Speed]

Decreased PED usage could very well lead to an increased K rate. I'm not claiming it does as I don't have any data one way or the other. However, it seems quite plausible that decreasing the number of roided up hitters allows pitchers to be more aggressive. Mistakes aren't punished as severely. Pitchers can pound the zone and get ahead in counts with a greater degree of impunity. The PEDs didn't just increase power in isolation, they altered strategy/tactics/approaches, etc.
I think it's just as likely that the increased K rate is directly caused by decrease in PEDs as it is that it's unrelated. In any case the assumption that they are unrelated should not be the default.

 

[WayBackVazquez]

Beyond that, I don't understand why someone would assume that steroids don't have a more direct effect on strikeouts. Steroids aren't just home run injections. More home runs are a result of increased bat speed. Bat speed doesn't just mean increased power; it's just as important to catching up to fastballs and reacting to breaking pitches.

 

[Mighty Joe Young]

Is there a way, maybe by examining pitchfx data, to determine if umps are calling a larger strike zone this year? It seems that way. It also seems as if Sox batters are looking at an awful lot of called third strikes this year.

In a more general sense I wonder if the whole Pitch-fx revolution has had an effect on umpires widening the strikezone overall. After all, umps are supposed to use it a part of a post game evaluation are they not?

 

[SumnerH]

With pictures. The drop looks pretty significant.
 

Those graphs have a y-axis carefully chosen to maximize the appearance of the drop.

 

[Apisith]

I would like the strike zone to be called like it should be, not this expanded strike zone that allows so much room on the edges for pitchers.

Of course, for this we would need automatic balls and strikes ie. not umpires calling them. I'd say that if you eliminate the biases in favour of pitchers right now in the way strikes are called, you'd get lesser strikeouts, more walks and more offense. And it'd be a fair solution, too, because it's based on the rules.

 

[soxfan121]

I would like the strike zone to be called like it should be, not this expanded strike zone that allows so much room on the edges for pitchers.

 

 
Eric Gregg thinks your idea is so quaint.

 

[Toe Nash]

Beyond that, I don't understand why someone would assume that steroids don't have a more direct effect on strikeouts. Steroids aren't just home run injections. More home runs are a result of increased bat speed. Bat speed doesn't just mean increased power; it's just as important to catching up to fastballs and reacting to breaking pitches.

Well, if balls are coming off the bat harder due to increased bat speed, wouldn't we see this in BABIP? BABIP league-wide has remained close to steady since 1996 or so even as PED use has supposedly dropped off.
 
I think the bats and balls used has a big effect on speed of the ball off the bat as well.
 
I suppose looking at contact rate would be good here to tease out the effect of the strike zone, but I don't think that data goes back very far.

 

[WayBackVazquez]

Well, if balls are coming off the bat harder due to increased bat speed, wouldn't we see this in BABIP? BABIP league-wide has remained close to steady since 1996 or so even as PED use has supposedly dropped off.

I'm not sure what you're questioning here. Is it whether increased bat speed makes the ball go farther/faster when hit, or whether steroid use improves bat speed?

 

[OttoC]

HR rate per AB is dropping more in the NL than in the AL.

 

[johnmd20]

I have a hard time believing the answer isn't an overwhelming "STEROIDS" given the consistent early-90's timeframes noted by the OP and dbn's graphs. I think there's a lot of incidental factors moving the needle a bit too, but c'mon...STEROIDS.

 
Thank you. The continued denial by some people about how well steroids worked and how much of an effect it had on the offenses of baseball in the late 90's and early 00's is *still* breathtaking.
 
Someone said the pitchers are getting bigger and that is why offense is down. That's beyond laughable. It's actually embarrassing.

 

[Toe Nash]

I'm not sure what you're questioning here. Is it whether increased bat speed makes the ball go farther/faster when hit, or whether steroid use improves bat speed?

Neither. I question neither point, but I am wondering why league-wide BABIP levels have remained steady while PED testing has been put into place. If the idea is that steroids is not just HRs (which makes sense) you would expect BABIP to go up as more hitters begin using (which seemed to happen in the early-mid 90s), and then for BABIP to return to its previous levels as presumably fewer hitters used (which didn't happen, at least not dramatically). Similarly, HR hit per ball in play has not dropped significantly, suggesting that when people do make contact, they are hitting the ball as fast and far as ever.
 
It seems weird that players would still be swinging as hard, and when they made contact the ball was going as far, but because of not taking steroids they are making less contact. I guess it is possible, especially if confidence comes into play (it's striking in narratives about A-Rod how fragile he seemed mentally and how he started hitting almost immediately after starting certain PED regimens, likely before they could have much physical effect). I also wonder if some players who were just really good at PEDs and putting up incredible numbers (Bonds, A-Rod) skewed the numbers somewhat and 98% of the league wasn't that different from normal.
 
Perhaps obviously, I think there is too much noise in all of these numbers to get anywhere near a conclusion. The main point I wanted to make is this: Offense has ebbed and flowed throughout time for various reasons, but we have never seen such high K numbers. I don't know the reasons for this and there are probably many. I also don't know if this is desirable or not. It seems fine to me, but it might get wonky if it continues. We also really need to be careful with K rates when making historical comparisons.

 

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

In order for the STEROIDS! hypothosis to be true here, you'd have to assume that the pitchers never used and all the batters did. Not buying it.

 

[WayBackVazquez]

In order for the STEROIDS! hypothosis to be true here, you'd have to assume that the pitchers never used and all the batters did. Not buying it.

Not quite. You seem to be assuming steroid use by pitchers and hitters is equally effective, ie performance is increased by hitter and pitcher at the exact same proportion.

 

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

If the effect is to make both parties stronger and quicker to recover from injuries, why shouldn't it be? Dan Naulty has spoken extensively about how steroids made him a much better pitcher.

 

[WayBackVazquez]

If the effect is to make both parties stronger and quicker to recover from injuries, why shouldn't it be? Dan Naulty has spoken extensively about how steroids made him a much better pitcher.

Because pitching mechanics are such that increased muscle mass doesn't translate into increased pitch speed in the same way that it does into increased bat speed.

 

[VORP Speed]

If the effect is to make both parties stronger and quicker to recover from injuries, why shouldn't it be? Dan Naulty has spoken extensively about how steroids made him a much better pitcher.

Because pitching and hitting are two completely independent athletic skills. Why would steroid use enhance them both in exactly equal proportion? Do steroids help tennis players as much as weightlifters? Can steroids help a tennis player, but not as much as they help a weightlifter?

 

[Spacemans Bong]

If steroids don't make you that much better as a pitcher, shouldn't everybody STFU about Roger Clemens then?
 
I wonder if anybody has compared K rates of starters to relievers year by year. It seems like every bullpen now has a bunch of guys who throw over 95, while in recent years (say, as little as 8-9 years ago) 95 meant you were probably the closer or, at worst, the set up man.

 

[Toe Nash]

If steroids don't make you that much better as a pitcher, shouldn't everybody STFU about Roger Clemens then?
 
I wonder if anybody has compared K rates of starters to relievers year by year. It seems like every bullpen now has a bunch of guys who throw over 95, while in recent years (say, as little as 8-9 years ago) 95 meant you were probably the closer or, at worst, the set up man.

I did a little bit above, which seems to support this idea a bit. If anyone knows a way to get splits for multiple years from b-ref without a thousand clicks and copy / pasting, let me know.

 

[timlinin8th]

If steroids don't make you that much better as a pitcher, shouldn't everybody STFU about Roger Clemens then?

Here's the thing: where steroids presumably can help a batter get around on a ball he may not have gotten the bat on without them, helping him from at-bat to at-bat, a pitcher doesn't necessarily have to gain the same pitch-by-pitch advantage where he now throws 98 instead of 95. They COULD however assist a pitcher in his recovery from start to start - less injuries, more starts, better cumulative career numbers in the grand scheme as compared to ball players throughout history.

In other words, f*^k Clemens.

 

[dbn]

Those graphs have a y-axis carefully chosen to maximize the appearance of the drop.

 
No, they don't. I (arbitrarily) set the max y axis to be 1.03 times the maximum y value, and the min y axis to be 0.97 times the min y value. They appear as they appear. If someone can't parse the the trend relative to the scatter, well, I can't help that.

 

[geoduck no quahog]

As an alternative to the steroid hypothesis, what impact might technology be playing? 
 
It seems that video analysis has exploded, providing both pitchers and hitters access to a wealth of information. But I wonder if this data might be favoring pitchers more than hitters?  I'm sure it ultimately comes down to execution (on both sides) but might this be a factor?

You may have heard about the NYT article on the subject earlier this week.
 
It basically said that pitchers are smart and hitters are stupid. Pitching and defense has evolved exponentially faster than most hitters, who still live by the credo, "see the ball, hit the ball" because they've been hitting that way since they were 12.
 
It presumed hitters will eventually wise up.
 
I'll try to find some quotes from that article.
 
edit: Probably worth reading the whole thing if you can:
 

A stronger testing program for performance-enhancing drugs, more sophisticated analysis of hitters’ tendencies, a changing amateur scene, and, especially this season, a sharp increase in defensive shifts have
coalesced to help the pitchers — with no end in sight.
 
“None of the stuff that’s come up the last several years has benefited offense,” said Joe Maddon, the manager of the Tampa Bay Rays. “It’s actually subtracted from offense, and it’s going to continue to subtract.

 

 

If pitchers are not recording strikeouts, they are often daring hitters to put the ball in play. The avalanche of data in the modern game naturally benefits pitchers, who control the action, more than hitters, who simply react. Teams are more aware of hitters’ tendencies than ever, and many have responded with extreme defensive alignments...
 
...This trend, naturally, turns many would-be hits into outs. Yet hitters, so far, have been slow to adjust, partly out of competitive pride.
 
“I think when hitters start to smarten up and use the deficiencies in those shifts, they’ll quit doing them,” Texas Rangers Manager Ron Washington said. “But, hey, machoism. They go up there, there’s a shift, and they want to bash the ball through it instead of giving yourself some room off the plate, taking the ball the other way, dropping bunts, keeping ’em honest. That’s the only way it’s going to change. But hitters today are stubborn.”
 

 

Kepner goes on to talk about how stronger NCAA athletes are gravitating to other sports, and that pitchers don't rely on strength.
 
Buck Martinez attributes much of it to the emergence of the cutter.
 
I still think it's because hitters are too dumb to take advantage of the changing situation and technologies.

 

[Jaylach]

My half-serious theory is the MLB "killed" the ball to make it appear like they won the "war on steroids". You know, opposite of the whole juiced ball thing.

 

[SumnerH]

 
No, they don't. I (arbitrarily) set the max y axis to be 1.03 times the maximum y value, and the min y axis to be 0.97 times the min y value. They appear as they appear. If someone can't parse the the trend relative to the scatter, well, I can't help that.

 
For all intents and purposes, that's setting the Y axis to the maximum Y value and the X axis to the minimum Y value, which would be the values one would select to most exaggerate small variations.
 
Sometimes that's the correct thing to do (when you're looking at trendline variations and don't care about their real magnitudes), but if you do that you can't then look at the graph and say "Wow, it looks like there's a huge drop!".  Of course it does.  The graph is intentionally scaled so that the variations appear as large as can be depicted.  If you want to look at whether variations are large or not, start by setting the zero on the axis to zero, not to something picked based on the data.
 
Or to rephrase: You could linearly regress all the data 50%, 95%, or 99% toward the mean (4.3 R/G-ish), so that the actual differences in R/G are really minimal. If you plotted those with the Y-axis scaled based on the new min/max Y values it would still look a huge drop in the second half (the graph would look essentially identical save for the labels on the left axis).  Likewise you could double all the variations from the mean and replot and the graph wouldn't change.  As soon as you're picking the axes based on the data, you've already lost.

 

[Rasputin]

My half-serious theory is the MLB "killed" the ball to make it appear like they won the "war on steroids". You know, opposite of the whole juiced ball thing.

That's my half serious theory as well. It seems incredibly small minded and shortsighted which means it's just the kind of thing the lords of the game would do.

 

[SteveF]

Average fastball velocity and the success rates of UCL replacement surgery are my best guesses as to the reasons. Two seam fastball velocity, even accounting for PitchF/X pitch recognition refinement, is up. Fewer pitchers are being lost permanently to injury, many of whom throw harder than the human body was really designed to permit. Some of it is probably also cyclical.  Pitching talent is further ahead of hitting talent at the moment.

 

[rembrat]

Can we see a side by side of yearly OBP and K%?
 
With the prevailing hitting approach removing the stigma of striking out, it wouldn't surprise me if "drawing a walk" post steroid era is negatively impacting offense, or at the very least, beefing up pitcher's overall stats.