Still in Los Angeles with a million things swirling around, so I don’t have a lot of time, but I did want to give you a chance to riff for a moment off a fascinating find by Joe Sheehan in his always fascinating newsletter.
I watched so many balls off the bat that were clearly gone but weren’t, instead caught on the warning track or closer. Happens a couple times and you dismiss it. It’s been going on all season. MLB, for reasons they only know, deadened the ball.
That does make me wonder about the select few who continue to crush the ball. Ohtani. Betts. Judge. Soto. A few others. Does this confirm they’re a cut above the rest more than we thought, perhaps their greatness not fully appreciated until the ball was deadened when we can see they’re better than all the rest?
There’s a belief that when offense is up or down in certain years that all players are impacted equally. Maybe that’s not the case at all.
It is kind of funny, but if this was a player, and not a league, and you believed in the predictive stat, some would call this regression to the mean. Always there or above the prediction in average, 29 points overall, now down 7. Always there or above the prediction in slugging, 58 points overall, now down 19.
I also noticed that fly ball percentages leaguewide over the statcast era have been an average of 23.6%. This year it is 26.1%, More fly balls = more outs.
Not with any number of at bats. It is hard to make a season's worth of contact without lucking into an extra base hit, however light of a hitter you are.
There have been many hitters (mostly light hitters) who have OBPs higher than their slugging though. Grissom's OBP as around 50 points higher.
Anecdotal, but almost across the board Cubs hitters are underperforming by 20% and starting pitchers are over performing by 20%. Brown, Assad, Imanaga, and Taillon look like elite pitchers this year.
But also I feel like it’s not a consistent ball. So some days we get the pitchers balls and good pitchers looks elite and some days bouncier balls. It almost averages out at the league level but we see a lot of extremes.
Runs per game are not really off. I have been watching baseball since 1973. The average runs scored per team per game in that time is 4.43. We are at 4.31 just past Memorial Day, and historically, the final season numbers will be above this. The year of the pitcher II? The year of the pitcher had 3.42 runs per team game. This is not, in any way, like that. Let us for once try not to be ridiculous and overreact.
From 2010-2015 we had a 6 year stretch where we scored an average of 4.245 runs per team game, and that was perfectly fine baseball. Of course, hitters only struck out 7.44 times per game then and put the ball in play 25.93 times per game instead of the 8.38 Ks and 24.45 balls in play today.
Some will say they deadened the ball. Good. It needed to be. Despite the steroid era and the recent juiced ball launch angle era, the average home runs per game is 0.96. The 1.03 We have at the end of May is a step in the right direction, and probably not a big enough one, as the end of the season will again, probably be higher. It is lower than the last 8 years, which feature the top 5 home run rates ever, and also the #7 and #8 rates. (2000, the highest scoring run total ever at 5.14, is #6)
As far as batting average goes, it is a result in team and hitter philosophy. Ignoring strikeouts, going deep into counts, etc. It is a well known fact that hitters hit much worse with 2 strikes and when the pitcher is ahead in the count. Let's just look at this century, shall we?
The changes are a result of offensive philosophy. The league needs to change that, not make up some kind of draconian rule. If the ball is deadened, (or perhaps back to normal) that might be a first step. Let's see where we are at the end of the year, hop off the panic express, and give teams time to adjust to this, and realize this doesn't happen in one year.
One-third of a season is a pretty decent sample size --- the shifts in data are pretty dramatic. I will say that the White Sox having a catcher (Martin Maldonado) posting a batting average of .081, just a shade above the Vargas Line (pitcher Claudio Vargas batted .079 in his MLB career) doesn't help matters.
Wow. I had no idea slugging was down league wide. I’m a Yankees fan and their slugging is up considerably, almost across the board. Volpe, Stanton, Cabrera, Trevino, Soto and Rizzo are all up by between 60-110 percentage points and Verdugo is slightly up. Judge is slugging .613 which is identical to his 2023 mark, Rizzo is slightly down and Gleyber has fallen off the face of the earth, more than 100 percentage points down.
I don't fully understand why it's not more exciting to watch a pitcher throw pitches that are like 110 MPH and move three feet. On some level I feel like that's incredible and we should be in awe all the time. I don't know if it's only because it's so common now, or if there's more to it.
I mean, yes, there's something inherently boring about strikeouts, but also watching a pitcher dominate can be really fun. God knows I have such fond memories of Kerry Wood's 20K game and 1999-2000 Pedro and Randy Johnson at his best.
Why isn't this more fun for us today? Again, is it just because it's so common it doesn't feel special anymore?
I think you nailed it - any sport in any era benefits from variety, and Kerry Wood was a breath of fresh air at the time.
I would still be floored by 20 K's in 2024; I just can't imagine a starter being left in to go for it.
I'd find Luis Arraez fun in any season, but his style stands out so much more in the current game. I actually enjoyed prime Adam Dunn quite a bit because he was relatively unique for his era.
Matt Waldron is hardly elite (though he's come on of late), but anyone whose repertoire is four-seamer, slider, and knuckleball is worth a watch in my opinion.
I think that’s it exactly. At least once a week now, I’ll be watching a game and some pitcher I’ve never heard of, probably 6’ 5”240, will enter in the 6th inning and throw filthy 98 mph fastballs and sweepers with 18” of movement. It’s not special anymore.
Gee, I thought eliminating those defensive alignments would solve the problem. :)
Isn't it interesting that this comes amid the cries that starting pitching is dead (I'm among those crying it)? Maybe part of the problem is indeed that pitchers need more than 18 seconds between pitches to be able to throw 100 miles an hour or more? And by the way, my response to that is, throw slower, because I am 100% for the pitch clock.
I don’t want to give MLB too much credit for thinking a move or two ahead, but might this be a step in a bigger plan to move the game toward something more like it was say 30-40 years ago? Deaden the ball so pitchers have too great an advantage - which cuts down on over-reliance on homers and incentivizes contact - then in a year or two do something (limiting pitchers on rosters or maybe do something else to the ball to make it harder to spin) to help offense?
Plenty of data tell us that hitting is down this year. But I’m not sure we can learn anything new from these numbers. These are predictive stats so if over 7 seasons of league wide data they are under predicting hitting averages and slugging percentages, either there is a flaw in the predictive ability of the stat or those variations are within the margin of error and you would expect there to be seasons of overpredicting by approximately the same margin. In either case (faulty stat or regression to the mean) you can’t really draw any inference from hitters “underperforming” in the first two months of this season.
Assuming (and I don't know this is correct) that the predictive formulas have not changed, I think you can at least conclude that there are fewer hits and less slugging going on this year with equivalent exit velocities and launch angles. Is ti statistically significant or just small sample size? No idea.
It does seem that if the predictions are off on the low side every year it's a prediction problem.
As others have pointed out, I think the baseballs are largely to blame (all balls are stored in humidors now, although they have been since 2022, so not sure that totally explains the downward trend in 2024). But I also think defense must be a decent chunk of it. Again, defenders didn't suddenly get amazing from '23 to '24, so this can't be all of it, but I'm constantly floored by how fast and athletic and skilled glovemen are now compared to even 10-15 years ago. Sinking line drives to center now seem like automatic diving catches. Bloopers beyond the shortstop now seem like automatic over-the-shoulder catches. We know from measuring, say, track and field events, or pace of play in the NBA, how much faster athletes are getting, and it's really showing up in MLB too.
I watched so many balls off the bat that were clearly gone but weren’t, instead caught on the warning track or closer. Happens a couple times and you dismiss it. It’s been going on all season. MLB, for reasons they only know, deadened the ball.
That does make me wonder about the select few who continue to crush the ball. Ohtani. Betts. Judge. Soto. A few others. Does this confirm they’re a cut above the rest more than we thought, perhaps their greatness not fully appreciated until the ball was deadened when we can see they’re better than all the rest?
There’s a belief that when offense is up or down in certain years that all players are impacted equally. Maybe that’s not the case at all.
It is kind of funny, but if this was a player, and not a league, and you believed in the predictive stat, some would call this regression to the mean. Always there or above the prediction in average, 29 points overall, now down 7. Always there or above the prediction in slugging, 58 points overall, now down 19.
I also noticed that fly ball percentages leaguewide over the statcast era have been an average of 23.6%. This year it is 26.1%, More fly balls = more outs.
Does anyone know if anyone has ever had the same batting average as slugging percentage? Vaughn Grisson is .145 and .158 right now (one double).
Not with any number of at bats. It is hard to make a season's worth of contact without lucking into an extra base hit, however light of a hitter you are.
There have been many hitters (mostly light hitters) who have OBPs higher than their slugging though. Grissom's OBP as around 50 points higher.
Yes, it’s the ball.
Anecdotal, but almost across the board Cubs hitters are underperforming by 20% and starting pitchers are over performing by 20%. Brown, Assad, Imanaga, and Taillon look like elite pitchers this year.
But also I feel like it’s not a consistent ball. So some days we get the pitchers balls and good pitchers looks elite and some days bouncier balls. It almost averages out at the league level but we see a lot of extremes.
Runs per game are not really off. I have been watching baseball since 1973. The average runs scored per team per game in that time is 4.43. We are at 4.31 just past Memorial Day, and historically, the final season numbers will be above this. The year of the pitcher II? The year of the pitcher had 3.42 runs per team game. This is not, in any way, like that. Let us for once try not to be ridiculous and overreact.
From 2010-2015 we had a 6 year stretch where we scored an average of 4.245 runs per team game, and that was perfectly fine baseball. Of course, hitters only struck out 7.44 times per game then and put the ball in play 25.93 times per game instead of the 8.38 Ks and 24.45 balls in play today.
Some will say they deadened the ball. Good. It needed to be. Despite the steroid era and the recent juiced ball launch angle era, the average home runs per game is 0.96. The 1.03 We have at the end of May is a step in the right direction, and probably not a big enough one, as the end of the season will again, probably be higher. It is lower than the last 8 years, which feature the top 5 home run rates ever, and also the #7 and #8 rates. (2000, the highest scoring run total ever at 5.14, is #6)
As far as batting average goes, it is a result in team and hitter philosophy. Ignoring strikeouts, going deep into counts, etc. It is a well known fact that hitters hit much worse with 2 strikes and when the pitcher is ahead in the count. Let's just look at this century, shall we?
2001-2009: Average: .265, K/G: 6.57, Decisions with 2 strikes: 46.98%, Pitcher Ahead: 30.54%
2010-2017: Average: .254, K/G: 7.61, 2 Strikes: 50.19%, Pitcher ahead: 32.65%
2018-2023: Average .247, K/G: 8.61, 2 Strikes: 53.48%, Pitcher ahead: 33.38%
The changes are a result of offensive philosophy. The league needs to change that, not make up some kind of draconian rule. If the ball is deadened, (or perhaps back to normal) that might be a first step. Let's see where we are at the end of the year, hop off the panic express, and give teams time to adjust to this, and realize this doesn't happen in one year.
Good data. I agree it's not the runs per game, it's the three true outcomes that is the problem.
One-third of a season is a pretty decent sample size --- the shifts in data are pretty dramatic. I will say that the White Sox having a catcher (Martin Maldonado) posting a batting average of .081, just a shade above the Vargas Line (pitcher Claudio Vargas batted .079 in his MLB career) doesn't help matters.
Claudio Vargas?
Lower the mound and move it back.
dare we venture that they have deadened the ball a bit?
Wow. I had no idea slugging was down league wide. I’m a Yankees fan and their slugging is up considerably, almost across the board. Volpe, Stanton, Cabrera, Trevino, Soto and Rizzo are all up by between 60-110 percentage points and Verdugo is slightly up. Judge is slugging .613 which is identical to his 2023 mark, Rizzo is slightly down and Gleyber has fallen off the face of the earth, more than 100 percentage points down.
I don't fully understand why it's not more exciting to watch a pitcher throw pitches that are like 110 MPH and move three feet. On some level I feel like that's incredible and we should be in awe all the time. I don't know if it's only because it's so common now, or if there's more to it.
I mean, yes, there's something inherently boring about strikeouts, but also watching a pitcher dominate can be really fun. God knows I have such fond memories of Kerry Wood's 20K game and 1999-2000 Pedro and Randy Johnson at his best.
Why isn't this more fun for us today? Again, is it just because it's so common it doesn't feel special anymore?
Agree with the folks below. It just isn’t as magical to watch a dominant pitching performance when four pitchers do it instead of one.
I think you nailed it - any sport in any era benefits from variety, and Kerry Wood was a breath of fresh air at the time.
I would still be floored by 20 K's in 2024; I just can't imagine a starter being left in to go for it.
I'd find Luis Arraez fun in any season, but his style stands out so much more in the current game. I actually enjoyed prime Adam Dunn quite a bit because he was relatively unique for his era.
Matt Waldron is hardly elite (though he's come on of late), but anyone whose repertoire is four-seamer, slider, and knuckleball is worth a watch in my opinion.
I think that’s it exactly. At least once a week now, I’ll be watching a game and some pitcher I’ve never heard of, probably 6’ 5”240, will enter in the 6th inning and throw filthy 98 mph fastballs and sweepers with 18” of movement. It’s not special anymore.
It's crazy that it might be Year of the Pitcher when it seems like every star pitcher is hurt or has been hurt this year.
Gee, I thought eliminating those defensive alignments would solve the problem. :)
Isn't it interesting that this comes amid the cries that starting pitching is dead (I'm among those crying it)? Maybe part of the problem is indeed that pitchers need more than 18 seconds between pitches to be able to throw 100 miles an hour or more? And by the way, my response to that is, throw slower, because I am 100% for the pitch clock.
Year of the Pitcher II?
Not if the Astros have anything to do with it. . .
I don’t want to give MLB too much credit for thinking a move or two ahead, but might this be a step in a bigger plan to move the game toward something more like it was say 30-40 years ago? Deaden the ball so pitchers have too great an advantage - which cuts down on over-reliance on homers and incentivizes contact - then in a year or two do something (limiting pitchers on rosters or maybe do something else to the ball to make it harder to spin) to help offense?
Probably wishful thinking…
Plenty of data tell us that hitting is down this year. But I’m not sure we can learn anything new from these numbers. These are predictive stats so if over 7 seasons of league wide data they are under predicting hitting averages and slugging percentages, either there is a flaw in the predictive ability of the stat or those variations are within the margin of error and you would expect there to be seasons of overpredicting by approximately the same margin. In either case (faulty stat or regression to the mean) you can’t really draw any inference from hitters “underperforming” in the first two months of this season.
Assuming (and I don't know this is correct) that the predictive formulas have not changed, I think you can at least conclude that there are fewer hits and less slugging going on this year with equivalent exit velocities and launch angles. Is ti statistically significant or just small sample size? No idea.
It does seem that if the predictions are off on the low side every year it's a prediction problem.
As others have pointed out, I think the baseballs are largely to blame (all balls are stored in humidors now, although they have been since 2022, so not sure that totally explains the downward trend in 2024). But I also think defense must be a decent chunk of it. Again, defenders didn't suddenly get amazing from '23 to '24, so this can't be all of it, but I'm constantly floored by how fast and athletic and skilled glovemen are now compared to even 10-15 years ago. Sinking line drives to center now seem like automatic diving catches. Bloopers beyond the shortstop now seem like automatic over-the-shoulder catches. We know from measuring, say, track and field events, or pace of play in the NBA, how much faster athletes are getting, and it's really showing up in MLB too.