Indians, Mariners, and Rangers already no hit twice each this season
Goodness
Another no hitter? WTF is going on?
A no hitter threatened nightly and the Giants the best record after six weeks.
2021 is even more upside down than 2020
Some of the team BAs this year are fucking incredible
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Ha. I know you’re joking, but this is a huge part of why baseball is as it is today. People are going down weird rabbit holes believing that pitchers are so much better than they used to be…etc.
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2002 worst team batting average: 0.244 (Pirates)
2021: 22 out of 30 teams are under 0.244
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Here’s a fun one: Not a single team in 2021 is batting better than the major league batting average in 1999 (.271).
Dead ball era redux.
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This is why we need time machines. Drop the 2002 Pirates into the league in 2021 and see how they do.
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Fuck it, mandatory outfield cameras and trash can banging.
Is there anything that can (or should) be done in response to this?
This TTO stuff is pretty damn dull.
Pitchers clearly are better. Average MPH is way up. I’m pretty sure if you had spin rates from 10 years ago, you’d see a huge improvement in that as well.
I’m not sure why this is a problem though. Runs per game is not down. Do people really prefer bloop singles over HRs?
Deaden the ball and move the mound either back or down. Former reduces HRs, latter Ks. Not that I think either should be done.
20 years ago Maddux dominated MLB with a 89MPH fastball and a 2-seamer that he could backdoor the low and away corner. Now guys are throwing a 2-seamer that breaks 2 feet across at 97MPH. They are throwing more sliders and changeups, and less curves. Pitching and defense has evolved substantially in the last 30 years. The offensive shifting to a focus on power started well before that. It got a bit of a boost in the last decade or so, which accounts for some of the average drop, but pure slap single hitters have been devalued for a long time now.
So in summary: Pitchers are throwing harder, and batters are swinging harder and less flatter going for bigger launch angles. More whiffs, more no-nos, lower averages, but relatively flatline on the run scoring.
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Why is MPH up? I don’t think its a steroid thing. Is it a technique thing? Why would spin rates be up? Again, technique? What technique is it that they’re doing now that they didn’t do before? Or could this be a ball thing as well? Like maybe something to do with the laces? Does an individual pitcher see his spin rate improve as he ages? When does it peak? I think its more easily proven that teams trot out more pitchers now than they did in years past. So its harder for hitters when they have to face five different guys for five different ABs. Managers don’t even bother letting their pitchers go through a lineup for a third time. If the pitchers are so much better, why would this be a problem? And how can pitchers be so much better and yet far less durable at the same time?
MLB has been lying about the baseball for years. First they said it just mysteriously got livelier. They didn’t do anything to make that happen. Now they say they can alter the ball so expertly that a ball that went 400 feet last season only goes 398 feet this season. Not sure how both things can be true.
I think hitters will make better contact if they want to make more contact. But the lively ball made it easier for even the least powerful guys to swing for the fences. So that’s what they did, and the teams encouraged them to do so. Defensive analytics made it harder to find holes, so they just tried to hit it over everybody. And its been working, so why stop? I think they need to deaden the ball significantly and hitters will go back to trying to make better contact. The HR hitters will still hit homers, but we’ll see fewer of the ridiculous moonshots that are primarily the product of the juiced baseball.
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I don’t have any real insight into this but the simple factor that the pool of potential MLB players is growing way faster than the pool of actual MLB players means we should always expect the average MLBer to be physically more talented. Like if only a tiny fraction of the general population can throw 100 MPH, and the general population grows at 1% per year and the number of MLBers stays the same, we’d expect to see a lot more major leaguers throwing 100 MPH at the end of a 20 year period.
Part of the reason pitchers are better is they don’t have to throw as many pitchers. They can throw with higher effort, since they know they aren’t expected to got 6 innings as a starter (or more than 1 as a reliever).
I think the increases are also better technique and training. 10 years ago, I’m not sure anyone was tracking spin rate, now everyone is, so it’s easy to test different things to see how to improve it. It shouldn’t have been too big a shock when a guy like Cole went from the Pirates to the Astros, and all of a sudden his spin rate and performance jumped as Astros were likely ahead of the curve on this (at least compared to Pirates). Now that every team is doing this, all pitchers are seeing the same increase in spin rate.
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I agree there’s a connection between MPH and throwing fewer pitches. You can see it when a former starter becomes a closer or set-up guy and suddenly starts throwing 2 or 3 MPH faster than he did as a starter. Would be interesting to see if a pitcher can spin a baseball made in 2010 as fast as he can spin one made in 2020. I don’t think we can assume the structure of the ball itself, and its laces and tackiness, etc. can be discounted in this phenomena. Its just weird that so much trial and error has gone on with pitchers for generations and suddenly something clicked when it comes to spin rate. I mean, did Cole say that he changed something to make his spin rate improve, and what was it he changed?
He gave some explanations such as changing arm angle and delivery. Some think it was just cheating with foreign substance (which is possible - MLB seems more lax in enforcing this now).
It is also possible that there have been changes to laces, etc. that make it easier to spin. That said, it should be easy to test that, and I haven’t seen anything indicating changes to ball are making spin easier.
I’m sure KyleB could explain this all to us, but since he’s been hired by the Reds, probably can’t talk about it any more.
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I only played pickup baseball as a kid, so I don’t know, but I’m a pretty avid bowler and can say for sure that the construction of the ball has a huge impact on how it moves. I can throw two different balls the same way and one will go straight as an arrow, while the other will hook completely across the lane. In bowling, its all about the core and the cover of the ball influencing how it rolls. The technique used by the bowler matters too. Its a combination of all of the above and changing core, cover, or technique can make a really noticeable difference.