Its pretty clear that MLB batters are swinging for the fences and backing off on just putting the ball in play, striking out more, and drawing more walks, waiting on a fat pitch.
https://www.nbcnews.com/sports/baseball/mlb-playoffs-300-hitter-rcna234966
34 comments
Why is everything that is happening now in the world either the ‘worst’ or ‘greatest’ or the ‘birth’ or ‘death’ of something.
It’s just a trend.
It sure looks like that this post season. Hard to believe that strategy wins games, though.
Yes, this has been the trend for a better part of a decade.
Lower the mound?
This is why I love guys like arraez. Doesn’t over swing and is an almost impossible strikeout. Pitchers definitely have better stuff, but guys like him prove that it isn’t as drastic as everyone believes.
So did banning the shift help at all?
No, no no no no no…that can’t be because back when I engaged with my own fan base, I was told that that darned Cashman was the only one who cared about home runs and launch angle and that other teams still played for contact and small ball routinely.
This article must be a lie because my fan base knows what they are talking about. These are guys who boo Aaron Judge in April so they know what’s up.
Guys like Freddie freeman that use all parts of the field are starting to be non-existent.
Inb4 MLB institutes the Tony Gwynn rule, where twice per game you can advance a runner who got on base via a single or double.
Pitching has gotten so much better than it was even 5 or 10 years ago, especially with how teams manage innings and how bullpens somehow seem to be loaded top-to-bottom with guys throwing 95mph+. I grew up watching baseball in the 90s, and the quality of pitching is night and day compared to then.
With the incredible increase in pitching quality, I think that it’s probably rational for players to focus more on swinging for the fences than just putting the ball in play. Against a low quality pitcher, teams can feast on multiple hits in a row (a few singles, maybe throw in a double, and a team scores a few runs). But against much better pitching, a team’s chances of getting three singles or doubles before getting to 3 outs drops dramatically. I would assume that analytics suggest that for a lot of players, the rational choice is to go for the HR because that’s higher reward/risk than planning on stringing multiple hits together.
The other obvious reason for the drop in .300 hitters over the decades (though not really over the last decade) is analytics. When I think back on the 90s, it feels honestly really weird how people talked about baseball (just like in the NBA where teams didn’t realize a 3 was way more valuable than a 2). We idolized players like Tony Gwynn who had super high batting averages, and players would get basically no credits from announcers or fans for drawing a walk. I think we all *subconsciously* knew a Gwynn single was the same outcome as someone out drawing a walk, but the former was valorized while the latter never got much credit at all. And the same is true of strikeouts. I think we all *subconsiously* knew that striking out was basically the same outcome as grounding to second or hitting a shallow fly ball, but we just didn’t think in those terms. Striking out was seen as so much worse than putting the ball in play and being an easy out. In retrospect, it didn’t really make any sense, and you had to be there, but it was a definite thing in the way we talked about the game.
Hell…the NBA is an even stranger and more extreme example. It doesn’t take advanced math to realize FTs and 3s are far more valuable than shooting 45% from 2 (and that it’s not that hard to calculate actual efficiency), but it’s only been a little over a decade since NBA teams stopped valorizing the same kind of play that was valorized in the early 80s. Looking back as a 42 year-old, it’s not weird to me how sports change with analytics…what’s weird to me is how we used to ignore some of the completely obvious ones that were common sense and didn’t require anything beyond very basic math skills.
EDIT: As multiple people have pointed out, pitching isn’t nearly as better as I made it sound :). I was wrong.
As Maddux and Glavine said in the 90s, “Chicks dig the long ball”
A .290 hitter is 1% “worse” than a .300 hitter. That means in a 100 at bats in a month, the .300 hitter gets 30 hits while the .290 hitter gets 29. The difference for 10 BA average points is 6 hits per year.
Same reason why .400 hitters faded away a century ago
Back in the day, it was a joke that Rob Deere would either hit a homerun or strikeout. Today, he would be a superstar. He was a pioneer and visionary. He who laughs last, laughs best.
I don’t know if I’m just tired this morning but did this article really not mention Aaron Judge once? You know the guy who hits over 300 and 50+ HRs?
Just wanna say that I miss contact hitters. I miss having dozens of players finish the season more than a couple points over .300. I miss seeing hitters choke up and try to put the ball in play with two strikes as opposed to taking a 3rd swing for the fences
Home runs are exciting, but contact and smaller ball is a better baseball product
The balls
Are there more walks? There was over 500 fewer walks this season than there was in 2019 when pitchers were batting in half the games.
Remember when players having more walks than strikeouts in a season was fairly common?1470 batters had at least one plate appearance this season and SIX had more walks than K’s.Arraez,Perdomo,and four guys that had fewer than 20 at bats.
As in all things, follow the money.
Home runs = more money.
Someone will shoot the moon and play like the mid 80s cards and win, then the pendulum will swing. The current Zeitgeist overvalues walks and HRs, undervalues SBs, team at bats and 1B defense.
And the last horse crosses the finish line. This trend has been going on for about a decade.
I hate it. Those type of hitters keep innings alive and games exciting.
Baseball sucks now. This is why:
“[An Old School Pitching Coach Says *I Told You So*”](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/05/pitchers-too-fast-mazzone/682729/)
I can’t say enough about this article. I think it’s key to talk about and hope that baseball will move the pendulum back towards emphasizing all aspects of the game again. The worst part is what this has all done to the culture and approach within youth baseball.
It makes what Aaron Judge did this year more impressive.
It’s a pitchers era we just saw the crazy shit the MIZ was doing yesterday
BLUE JAYS DONT PLAY LIKE THAT
If you want to know why dead pull hitters refused to go the other way when presented with a shift, this is why – their future wasn’t impacted by outs hit into the shift. Their future earnings were dictated by exit velocities and home runs.
I thought this video was pretty well done and seems to come to a similar conclusion:
[Why Hitting .400 is Impossible](https://youtu.be/ezXfO6VnBGI?si=w112KiMX8UH7O1qp)
It’s called offensive efficiency
Because of this trend, I’ve seen so many lead off batters get on first, then sit there and watch the next three batters swing for the fence and strike out. The finesse and small ball movement are all but gone. It’s sad. Yet I still love the game!
And none of them can bunt. Its awful, the old teams would smoke these clubs. Look what Max just did lol toyed w them hackers swing
Another reason why Judge will win the MVP
Home runs are boring. Let’s see athletic catches and base running.
Raise the walls and/or make the outfields larger.
Along with the 300 win pitchers