Tyler Kepner writes about how and why baseball moved to a high home run, high strikeout game, and where it goes from here. Theo Epstein has an opinion:
A change in hitters’ approaches is already underway, Epstein said.
“You can’t see it if you’re too close to it,” he said. “But that’s exactly what’s coming next: teams that make contact in this age of great stuff will be greatly rewarded.”
I certainly hope so. The game tends to move toward more home runs and more strikeouts because those bring the greatest success. If baseball really wants the game to move toward more contact, it may need to change the incentives that reward more contact for both the pitcher and the batter.
Where have you gone, Jeff Keppinger?
Theron » It would appear he went to Twitter.
The evolution was not natural. Pitch f/x allowed MLb to expand the strike zone to suppress offense so Bud could declare the war on steroids was won. When he left Manfred introduced a juiced ball in the 2nd half so as to boost offense in the face of stagnant attendance, much like Bud did when he first became commissioner. Thats my theory
Sure, the increased velocity is real due to various strength programs which seem tied to increase in TJS, but hitters can hit fastballs. Hitters obviously are not being rewarded much for HR and are labelled as one dimensional. Ask Chris Carter, Encarnacion, Moustakas and Morrison. So its not like players have an economic incentive to hit HR like they did before OBP became a thing.
The shift provided a disincentive to make contact at all costs, and perhaps is a factor in players wanting to make hard contact in the air, which leads to more strike outs but its really 2 things IMO-strike zone and ball.