Runs A Plenty
One of the basic truisms of a baseball season is that offensive levels are lower at the start of the season than they will be in the middle. Cold weather in April is the most accepted reason for why it takes a few months for offensive levels to normalize, and you can look back at pretty much any season and find that pitchers have an early season advantage over hitters.
This year, however, that doesn’t seem to be the case. MLB is averaging 4.96 runs per game so far in 2009, up from a league average 4.65 runs per game in 2008. It’s pretty rare to see run scoring in April higher than the league average from the previous season.
The main culprit appears to be a rise in home run rate. Last April, there was ahome run hit every 43 plate appearances. That number ended the season at one per 38 PA, as the ball flew better in warmer weather. So far this year, we’re at one home run per 34 plate appearances, accounting for 311 total home runs to date. At last year’s pace, we’d only have 248 home runs.
According to Greg Rybarczyk, who runs Hit Tracker Online, it isn’t just the number of home runs being hit either – the home runs are flying further than they used to, by an average of 8.5 feet per home run. Even with a limited sample, the probability of a deviation of that kind of distance is extremely unlikely to be caused by random chance.
After seeing run scoring levels decrease the last few years, we might be in for a spike in 2009. It’s worth monitoring, at least.
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it might be that more games have been played at warmer sites relative to previous years. I believe the North east teams opened on the road and the west coast has been unseasonably warm.
The northern part of the west coast has not been unseasonably warm at all. In Seattle we had snow just a couple of weeks ago, and it’s been unseasonably cold for the entire spring.
That said, the Mariners opened on the road (though it didn’t look especially warm in Oakland either).
Not to get too conspiratorial, but given that we are now apparently in the post-steroids era, anybody get the feeling that the balls are getting juiced again? Too much money to be made on the longball.
Either that or a different and more difficult to detect PED is on the rise.
This is what I was thinking.
The ball was pretty clearly juiced in the late-90s going forward, and then baseball probably undid that to depress homerun rates so they could claim their PED policy was working.
Now that the PED thing is dealt with, they juiced the ball again.
Someone should be archiving some balls from each season so we can compare their internal structure.
While I realize Greg calculates his hittracker stuff differently, BIS data shows that average home run distance is 2 feet less than last year. Opposite results. Just throwing the extra data point out there.
I believe that 8.5 is adjusted for weather/temperature/wind/etc. So the actual home run numbers are higher, and the adjusted difference is also higher.
Dave and all,
I actually pointed out something earlier today in the forums here along the same lines and looking for some feedback.
Teams are avg HR/AB rate of 30
compared to a HR/AB of 38 last year at this same time.
Basically over the same number of Ab’s (which we wont get due to later start) we are talking about 200+ HR difference. This just struck me as incredible and I would love to hear everyones thoughts.
I told a friend the other day I thought the balls were juiced this year, and now it looks like I may be right. I think mlb- Selig- is juicing the balls because of the economy. He is trying to get people excited and when they get excited they usually come to the ballparks.
Also, the season started a week later this year; that may have a little bit to do with it.
Maybe the pitchers suck more? I’m just kidding, of course, but we did see Maddux retire.
In all seriousness, I would like to see the average temperature of all games up to this point from last year and this year, and see if that was actually higher.
The article frames this as an offensive boost, but I wonder if this isn’t a decline in pitching. Without having looked at any of the underlying numbers, it appears to me that the number of replacement level and below pitchers in the bigs this year is much higher than in years past. The Orioles and Astros are the two best examples of disastrously bad rotations, but even some stronger teams are employing guys that I find baffling choices. The Mets certainly come to mind.
This was also a WBC year with that extended spring training. Also, the Blue Jays have turned around their hitting woes from near last to first.
The late start to the season seems like a reasonable culprit. It’s probably worth seeing if something similiar to this happened after the last WBC.
This seems like a reasonable assessment. I, too, would be interested to see it the two WBC years trend out to have more offense compared to the three non WBC years.
Late start in warmer weather, longer spring training giving the batters more of an advantage, and maybe the pitchers from the WBC getting lit up (Matsusaka, Silva….) as something to do with it too.
Some undetectable PED is, of course, always possible.
I don’t see the economic imperative that would lead anyone to juice balls. How does a few more home runs translate into more people going out to games? They either have the money or they don’t; I don’t see anyone saying “Hey honey, let’s take the kids to a ballgame, there’s 10% more home runs this year!”
I’m willing to bet by the end of the season the difference vs 2008 will be much less than it looks right now.
I’m gonna go ahead and blame Phillies pitching for the entire home run increase.
haven’t you heard? global warming is all the rage!
Not only that, but walks are at a 59 year high and strikeout rates have never been higher. I know a certain Rob Deer fan club that will be pleased.
More support for PEDs.
If you go back and look at historical scoring you will find some years where scoring is way up compared to other years. This could happen from pure luck, changes in USA weather, or any of the conspiracies above.
I personally think it is partially explained by the number of young pitchers (players) in the majors. Seems the game has far more 21-25 year old pitchers than years past. Heck every starter on the Nationals and Marlins is under 26 and I am sure this is nearly the case for many other teams as well. So it has to be at least partially explained by lower quality less experienced pitching.
I also feel more teams have adopted more patient approaches at the plate which may lead to seeing more pitches and getting more mistakes. But this pales to the younger pitching all over the game.
right the Marlins pitching is definitely an explanation for this.
Don’s right – the Phils’ pitching staff has now given up a mind-boggling 25 HRs through their first 10 games so far. Playing at Coors and CBP haven’t helped but Philly pitching staff have been giving up a huge number of meatballs galore including a host of mid-high 80 MPH fastballs down the pike and a number of hanging changeups that look like BP.
Food for fact – Lidge gave up 2 HRs in 69 1/3 IP (78 2/3 IP if you include the playoffs). This year, Lidge has now give up 3 HRs in 6 2/3 IP.
it might also be the number of players that pitchers didnt know how to pitch against, guys like bonifacio.
I think its probably just been pitchers sucking. Lince, Lee, and Wang, all top pitchers have had some horrible starts.
Plus the New Yankee Right Field Wind Tunnel is offering cheap home runs to everybody.