The League’s Offense
Something is amiss across the baseballing populace. Take a glance at the pitching leaderboard and note all of the high strikeout totals. More than a dozen starting pitchers are averaging at least one strikeout per inning and about half of them are averaging more than 10 strikeouts per nine innings. It would seem as if the league is striking out more batters than usual, and sure enough, a check of this handy dandy chart confirms that suspicion.
The league is averaging more than seven strikeouts per nine innings for the first time in the history of the game – note that the SO/9 ratio from last year is based on rounding rules rather than a true ratio over 7. This season hasn’t just given us the highest strikeout rate in league history either, though: the 4.17 league-wide ERA is the lowest since 1992. Home runs are also down, below one per game for the first time since 1993, and walks are actually slightly up – to 3.55 – despite intentional walks per game remaining static from 2009.
Before declaring this the great offensive depression or the golden era of pitching, it’s important to put these numbers into context. Specifically: Did the league struggle like this last season too? Here are the comparisons between the 2010 ratio statistics versus the 2009 statistics through the May 16th, 2009 slate of games (gathered thanks to Baseball Musings’ day-by-day database and an assist to Marc Normandin):
2010: 4.17 ERA, 8.70 H/9, 0.94 HR/9, 3.55 BB/9, 7.08 SO/9, 0.31 HBP/9
2009: 4.56 ERA, 9.14 H/9, 1.05 HR/9, 3.71 BB/9, 6.89 SO/9, 0.37 HBP/9
Offense is down in every conceivable way from last year at the same time. Pick the reason. From Houston and Seattle’s struggling run production, to an influx of talented young pitchers, to a league-wide shift towards defense and a league-wide acceptance of strikeout-heavy hitters, to the fact that this young season has already had a no hitter and perfect game occur, to hey, it’s just some variance and luck. None of those answers seem outrageous or outlandish and a combination thereof is probably the most likely answer.
It’ll be interesting to see whether the data holds up as the season progresses.
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I think you mean: “Something unusual is amiss across the baseballing populace.”
Yah, but “something unusual is amiss…” would be redundant since amiss things just are unusual things.
That sentence simply cannot be helped and needs to be sent down to AAA.
It’s the Derek Lowe of sentences?
Thanks for the heads, guys.
It has been an unusually cold April and May across much of the country and Twins games are now exposed to the cold April/May weather in Minnesota. Just saying… as another possible reason for the decline in offense.
Other numbers to look at too: Percentage of balls outside the strike zone, and in the strike zone, being swung at (and possibly, missed); by which players (specifically, on Fangraphs and elsewhere, there have been a few standalone examples of players including Derek Jeter with odd patterns in their swing percentages). Anecdotally without doing research – and admitting I don’t know where to begin on this – I’d suggest that an enterprising researcher could make a case that umpires are calling a bizzaro, inconsistent strike zone this season. Where to begin?
this idea interests me, as I have seen some pretty bad strikezones so far this year.
I think if you adjust for the (non)production from Orioles first basemen you might be able to explain the entire variance.
Don’t forget any player being coached by Howard Johnson!
I think I read somewhere that Mariners DHs are being outhit by Padres starting pitchers.
White Sox, too, re: commenter brent at Sox Machine.
“Sox DHs entered Sunday with sub-.220 batting averages and .554 OPS. The Padres pitchers have .593 OPS.”
http://soxmachine.com/soxmachine/2010/05/17/harsh-royality/comment-page-1/#comment-2863
So there’s at least two AL teams that look to be nearly giving up the DH position.
Also the Astros (as a team) are hitting .228/.276/.324.
and Julio Borbon is on-pace to have the all-time worst season by a center fielder…. just saying
When do we start calling the Rogers Centre “Coors North”…or would that be “Cours North”?
“Coors North” is Molson
It take a special kind of researcher to look at the table you gave to us and stop at line two. If you look at the K stat going farther back in time (i.e. lines 3+), you see a steady trend starting around 2003, back when Ks were at 6.34/9 including jumps of more than .2 in 2004 and 2006.
This clearly obviates any explanation having to do with something wacky this year, and probably reflects a long term trend of moving away from pitch-to-contact guys, to people who get outs with the strikeout.
Looking back farther, you see this trend extending back through the 80s. So, this probably isn’t some new Moneyball style understanding of BABIP and may also have to do with a move to 3-true-outcomes style hitters as well. You know, chicks digging longballs, more Adam Dunn, less Vince Coleman… that whole thing.
Actual stats, and reports of significance would be nice to have, too, no?
I noticed the same thing. But I would say the trend began in 2005. Since then K/9 has been increasing 2.2% per year. Prior to that it bounced around in the range between 6.4 and 6.7 from 1995 thru 2005 without showing any trend, up or down.
There is, of course, a lot of statistical noise, but if you look at a graph of the everything, you see a pretty steady increase starting in 1981 (4.75 k/9), not to mention a consistent trend since, like, the dawn of baseball civilization. What would *actually* be surprising is a consistent decrease in K/9 as in ’67-’78, and ’40-’45.
On reflection, I think the general lesson is that as overall ability increases, Ks become a more central part of the game. This makes sense from physics/physiology (you can increase strength at a faster rate than reaction time) and I think the data bear this out:
- the decrease during the war with diluted talent pool
- the rapid increase (faster than today) post segregation with a flood of new talent
- the current rapid increase (the “improved training techniques” era)
- the decrease during the 70s with the pitching mound change and the rapid expansion and dilution of the talent pool
It must have something to do with steroid use or discontinuance. After all, whenever there have been other changes in offensive levels over the past 20 years, many are claiming that it has something to do with steroids regardless of the lack of evidence.
So true. Although you wonder, if this low-scoring trend continues and we have the fewest hits and runs per game since 1992, and the fewest HR per game since 1993, that some will look back and use this season as the bookend to the steroid era (any real evidence of that be damned).
Steroid Era
R.I.P.
1993-2009
“Chicks dig the longball”
It may well be influenced by steroids. I’ve heard several times that we would expect to see a delayed effect since they cracked down on roids. The idea being that once you’ve put on the muscle mass, it’s easier to keep it on. It’s not quite as easy without steroids though, so over time, players that were taking steroids will lose some of that benefit, but it won’t go away overnight (or in this, case in a season). Also, there are younger players gaining playing time over the last several seasons that haven’t been packing it on for a few years, so we start seeing a shift away from the mega-strong players we saw a few years ago. It wasn’t going to change all at once, it was going to take a while for the benefits to dissipate.
According to High Boskage House (Eric Walker of the Sinister Firstbaseman fame), this era is not one marked by offense juiced by steroids but one juiced by the balls in use: http://highboskage.com/juiced-ball.shtml
He also explains his thoughts on steroids: http://steroids-and-baseball.com/
I would also note that the average run-scoring in the majors in 2010 is 4.49 vs. 4.61, so perhaps there are more errors resulting in the lowered ERA overall. That might fit in with the colder weather thesis – the cold causing fielders to muff more plays and thus resulting in more unearned runs.
Also, looking at the time series on the above link, 4.49 is low for the post-1993 era but still consistent with Walker’s thesis that the ball is still juiced because that is still higher than the average scoring before that point of time, though now it is falling into the grey area between the two eras.
Oh, and ‘roids.
Damnit Juan Pierre!
Don’t forget the .729 OPS at Target Field by AL hitters, down a full 48 points from last year’s AL OPS (.777) in the Metrodome. The new park in the Twin Cities could be a factor if it proves pitcher friendly.
Everyone else is playing too honest, except the Phils, they are stealing signs
Yet Haron is having his worse start in years.
Whats going on is mainly an AL thing from what I can see. Changes in the NL are insignificant although the K rate has jumped about 4% (thats may be due to Jason Bays retrun to the NL). Looking at the MLB as a whole dampens what is actually happening.
HR rates dropped in both leagues in 2007-2008 about 10% from what is known as the juiced era (1994-2006, testing began in 2004 but with little effect until 2007). Yet it increased an amazing 13% in 2009, but only in the AL (even adjusting for the new Yankee stadium they still increased 10%). Such an increase has not been seen since the abnormal 1987 jump over 1986, and the early years of what is known as the steroid era (or juiced ball era).
Hr rates in the AL have dropped 20% this year, a decline not seen since the 1988 season if they hold up, and they remained low until the early 90′s when they jumped again.
Couple other observations.
It’s interesting how teams have ignored some FA hitters with HR power to fill DH spots. Some teams might as well let the pitchers hit.
Also curious is knowing that the AL is studying the issue of the DH, and Bud Selig recently mentioned that he likes the NL style of play but it is up the the owners to decide on the DH.
MLBPA is studying the issue over possible collusion.
Could these be related?
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Follow the money. DH players tend to be older players who can no longer play defense well, but who can hit significantly better than pitchers, and the best ones hit HR (HR hitters unlike defensive specialists are in short supply) and given their age and non-wage slave status (FA), and the low supply of HR hitters, they earn significantly more than younger players or older players whose defensive skills are declining and who do not hit for power.
Of the 20 DH in 2009 who had 250 or more PA, 13 made between them 154 million in 2008 (too lazy to check actual 2009 salary since FG does not list the 2009 salaries). If you can replace all of these older players whose value is mainly in hitting with younger defensive players (large supply in the minors), AL teams will save 150 million or more each year.
Run prevention and defense may be just code for cheap during a time of lower attendance in a poor economy.
Eliminating the DH may also help establish parity between the AL and NL, help competitive balance in the AL between teams which spend on DH and those who can not, make the league younger, and reduce payroll costs.
Observationally, I notice 2 things this year. One is what appears to be an expanded strike zone, at least to my lying eyes. Another is that balls do not seem to be carrying that well. Yes, guys like Pedroia have hit a bunch of HR, but if you look at the HR distances, he is averaging 370 ft on his HR’s. I have not verified either point yet (pitch f/x and hit tracker), but it would be an interesting study.
The strike zone can be easily changed via an edict from the front office reinterpreting existing rules (no rule change is required) .
Balls must be made to MLB specs, but the specs are so broad the travel of balls made at the upper end and lower end of the spec have a travel variance of 40 ft in the 400 ft test. This per an MLB test report on balls used in 2000-2001 which showed balls were within specs, but did not answer the question of if the balls were livelier than before the juiced era. Manufacturing technology allows balls to make balls to close tolerances at whatever point in the spec you want to hit. Distribution of balls to each league is controlled by MLB HQ.
Suppressing HR in the AL this year, if this is the case, may be a test to see the impact on attendance. Last year attendance still dropped despite the HR boom. If the drop is no more or less, this may be enough to convince AL owners that fans like defense and low scoring games as much as HR’s and high scoring games with lots of RP’ers (and the games will be shorter to appease Joe West).
In any event, we may just be returning to a strike zone and ball of the 1988-1992, by accident or design, and the DH may soon be a thing of the past.
Nathaniel Dawson makes an interesting point within his steroid comment about younger players. In general, I wonder if the slow down in production has anything to do with cutting back players salaries, going younger and cheaper in this era of “The Great Recession” or whatever you want to call it. Not that less money would necessarily impact an individual players performance, but a team salary reduction might. And of course it could be all of the above comments and ideas as well.
Just saw pft mention this, sorry.
Home runs are not down this year through April to any significant extent, compared to recent seasons.
Home runs per game in March/April”
2010: 1.90
2009: 2.10
2008: 1.79
2007: 1.84
2006: 2.31
2005: 1.89
Average 2005-09: 1.98
Here, 2006 is the unusual point. The weather that season in April was unusually warm, which of course favors home runs.
That’s an excellent point. Not really an apples-to-apples comparison comparing the previous full seasons to just April of this year. April vs. previous *Aprils* is the relevant comparison, which you nailed.