Because the 2024 MLB season has handed the midway level and approaches the All-Star break, there may be one large storyline throughout the league that warrants some consideration.
Hitting is down.
Actually down.
It’s not a lot the results of hitters getting worse, as a lot as it’s in regards to the truth pitchers are merely manner higher as a gaggle than they’ve ever been.
Coming into play on Sunday the key league batting common was a dismal .242 throughout the league, which might be one of many lowest marks within the historical past of the game.
It’s at the moment tied for the third-lowest league common in baseball historical past, forward of solely 1968 (.238) and a tie in 1888 and 1908 (.239). The 1968 season is known for being the 12 months that prompted the league to decrease the pitcher’s mound to stage the taking part in area for hitters, whereas the opposite two seasons are clearly going manner again into the dead-ball period of the league.
There are additionally solely 11 gamers who qualify for the batting title hitting over .300 for the season.
There are a variety of theories for why that is taking place. An added emphasis on hitters to go for launch angle and energy as a substitute of merely making contact. A scarcity of fundamentals. Even perhaps superior scouting has led to extra aggressive defensive shifting. Whereas the league banned the overload shifts we noticed lately, it’s nonetheless potential for groups to place their gamers extra aggressively.
However all of these theories overlook the obvious reason behind the hitting decline — it’s all in regards to the pitchers. Not solely when it comes to their expertise but additionally in the best way they’re developed, coached and specialised.
Pitchers are now not introduced as much as be artful, pitch-to-contact arms. They’re being developed to deliver most effort and as a lot velocity and motion as they presumably can on each pitch. The secret is to get swings and misses and never even permit the ball to be put into play.
Should you return 15 to twenty years in the past, anyone who threw over 95 mph on a constant foundation was an influence pitcher. Should you threw 100 you have been an alien. Now? Nearly each pitcher within the league averages about 95 mph, whereas each group has at the very least one or two guys that contact 100 mph. That doesn’t even get into the motion on pitches now or the truth that the highest starters have 4 or five-plus pitches of their arsenal.
That emphasis on energy and motion has one other potential affect: With pitchers maxing out, groups don’t care if starters pitch far into video games. They aren’t tiring themselves out or carrying down, and hitters should face a continuing cycle of recent, dwell arms.
The rise in analytics and scouting has additionally made it so groups and pitchers know precisely the place each weak spot with hitters is, proper all the way down to what their batting common is on pitches in sure components of the strike zone. The data overload, the elevated expertise and the change in technique have made hitting a baseball even tougher than it already was.
The numbers replicate that.
