Welcome to the Golden Age of Baseball
It’s no secret this season has been one of the most exciting in MLB history. Right now, the league is on pace to shatter the record for most total home runs hit in a year. That’s right, players are hitting home runs at a higher rate than they did during the steroid era. There are many conspiracies as to why this is. Honestly, I believe them all. I think a combination of things are responsible for the power increase. Though the home runs are way up, pitchers are not suffering as much as expected. They’re actually not suffering at all. We are seeing pitchers dominate more now than we did when it was a “pitchers league” just a couple seasons ago. Get ready, we are entering the Golden Age of baseball and here are a few things i think are to blame.
The "All or Nothing" Approach
One huge difference in today’s game is the approach batters are taking to hitting. Right now, there are more than a few young power hitters leading the home run serge. Most notably, Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger, Joey Gallo, Miguel Sano, Wil Myers and Michael Conforto. All of these players have a few things in common. Not only do they hit a lot of home runs, but they all strike out at an extremely high clip. A clip higher than we’ve ever seen. In fact, Michael Conforto who ranks 22nd in the MLB in K% in 2017 at 25.3% would have ranked 5th during 2000 (the current home run record season). My point here is, the league is embracing a new breed of hitters. They swing for the fences every time and while it leads to a lot of home runs, it also leads to a lot of strikeouts. In 2000, the league saw just 5 players strikeout at least 25% of the time. This season 22 players are doing so. That may not seem like a big difference but it is close to 5 times the amount of players doing so. Also, 25% is extremely high. In 2000, 25 hitters struck out at least 20% of the time which is still a very high number. Today, 73 players are striking out that much. Of the top 10 home run hitters in 2000, 2 of them struck out at a 20% rate. This season, 7 of the top 10 are doing it, with 4 of the 7 being over 30%. It’s simple, hitters today are taking an “all or nothing” approach with them to the plate. The result of this is more home runs, more strikeouts for hitters and more strikeouts for pitchers. This season, 13 pitchers have K/9 of 10+. In 2000, just 3 did that. This means that power was not always heavily paired with strikeouts. However, now it is.
Statcast
We are in the statcast era. We are able to evaluate hitter’s exit velocities and launch angles. This is helping hitters tremendously. The statcast poster child is Ryan Zimmerman. Zim Zam has been a good hitter for years, no one is denying that. What we are denying is that Zimmerman just randomly reached his prime at 32 years old. He is currently batting .310 which is .41 higher than his career average and is slugging .585, which is .104 higher than his career average. Zimmerman would be the first person to tell you exactly how he made such large strides. It is due to statcast’s advanced statistics. Though he has cooled off considerably (so has his launch angle), his changes were very obvious. His launch angle was much improved, resulting in more line drives, less ground balls, and more fly balls going over the wall. The slugger’s launch angle has since refound its old ways and as a result he’s been slumping for a few months now. Every player and coach has access to this information and I believe players are starting to adapt to the statcast revolution. Is it fair to say there is a direct correlation between launch angle and success at the plate? Not completely, but it sure does help big time.
Juiced Balls
No, I’m not crazy. There is plenty of reason to believe the MLB is using “juiced balls”. I won’t get too in depth about it, but pitchers, announcers and fans have all come out and said something about this. Many believe the MLB is juicing the balls to boost ratings. I mean who doesn’t want to see a home run race between Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge. Not only have there been more home runs this year than ever, but the ball is also traveling significantly further. We see pop ups carrying off the bat out of the yard almost every night. An announcer is quoted saying “It sounds like the players are hitting rocks”. Where there's smoak there's fire and tests have even shown subtle differences between this year’s balls and the balls a few seasons ago. This is all speculation of course, but it would make sense.
