I like this Tom Verducci article on what is causing the fall in offense. He gives a number of possibilities a fair shake, and I agree with him on this one:
5. It’s cyclical. You don’t want to hear this because it’s not as fun as shouting across the bar, “It’s because steroids and greenies are banned!” But this one is not only true, it’s also the most practical explanation. Why are DHs hard to find? Why is the Golden Age of Shortstops over? The supply of talent at positions does not flow in a steady, even stream any more than world economies. Boom times are prelude to recessions, which are prelude to booms.
A great generation of aces aged and washed out of the game in recent years, including pitchers such as Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Mike Mussina, Pedro Martinez and Curt Schilling. Behind them came the recession, with few potential Hall of Famers. But this generation of 20-something pitchers looks like another boom. The good news, if you like pitching, is that the boom only has just begun.
I would also offer supply and demand. In the late 1980s and 1990s, pitching was fine, teams looked for hitters. When the boom of offense came in the mid 1990s, teams needed to keep up, since no one seemed to be able to pitch, so teams spent their money on hitters, and were often burned by free agent contracts to pitchers. When every one could hit, however, the road to success came through pitching and defense. Those are the things teams are demanding now. See Tom’s fourth point on how teams are getting better at protecting their young stars so their is less of a chance of them flaming out as well.
Offense is down 0.3 runs per game compared to the same point last season. Home runs per game are down about 0.15, accounting for a large percentage of the drop (since home runs on average drive in more
This is excting to me. I think a lot of long ball, ruins the strategic quality of baseball…in terms of steals (and I love steals!), going for extra bases, & pitch selection.
Whatever is going on is going on in the AL only. NL numbers are virtually unchanged from last year (4.43 RPG vs 4.42 RPG, and HR down only 4%).
The AL DH production (OPS) has dropped 45 points over the past year. But so too has almost every position. 1b (-37), 2B (-52) 3B (-22), SS (-40), C (-12) and OF (-1, LF -26).
And what explained the HR outburst last year in the AL?. HR’s were up 13% from the 2007-2008 numbers, and now are down 17% this year.
One difference seems to be in the production of the young hitters in the AL. Players 30 and under have experienced a significant drop in OPS, 760 to 730, while hitters 31 & up are essentially unchanged from last year.
This could be due to the youth movement among some teams where teams go with less productive but cheaper young players and allow older but more expensive hitters to go unsigned, or it may be that the younger talent coming up the past few years overall in the AL is not very good. For some teams it may be a combination of the 2.
I don’t see a flood of great young pitching in the AL that could explain the offensive drop, just more pitchers numbers looking a lot better due to whatever is responsible for the drop in offense in the AL. For every David Price, Jon Lester, Clay Buchholz, Phil Hughes there is a Scott Kazmir, Josh Beckett, G. Floyd, E Jackson. CC, Greinke, F. Hernandez all having off years this year, Halladay left for the NL, etc.
Of the 70 slots for SP’ers in the AL, only 58 qualify for the ERA title and 1/3 (20) of them have an ERA+ under 90. Last year only 1 SP’er who qualified for the ERA title had an ERA+ under 90. There is a ton of bad pitching out there, enough to offset a marginal increase in new and good young pitchers.
Also, the teams in the Al East don’t seem to have trouble scoring runs. This may be in part due to the talent of teams in the Al Central and Al West declining, maybe due to a youth movement, poor development/draft picks and not spending money on FA hitting . Many of these teams lineups resemble NL lineups today.
Not buying the cyclical hypothesis. Everyone knows you need pitching, defense and offense. It’s all about balance. Run prevention without offense = the Mariners. Offense without run prevention is just as bad. Everyone knows this, even GM’s.
Linked at Beltway Baseball.