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With Spring Training still a month away, it might be interesting to talk a little more about possible changes to the game of baseball as played at the top levels, and where the game has been, and is going.
The most recent SABR “Baseball Research Journal” publication (Fall 2018) has a couple of interesting articles related to this subject. One in particular, written by Dr. David J. Gordon, looks at innovations in the game and the style of play from the 1870s through today. He provides graphs that show trends in scoring, fielding, home runs and strikeouts. The trend line for runs scored is relatively flat from 1920 through today, but home runs and strikeouts are upward sloping. With obvious dips and peaks over time, the trend since 1870 is ever-increasing home runs and strikeouts, with a noticeable steeper slope in the 2010s.
Dr. Gordon notes, “We are now in an environment where the long-ball paradigm may be reaching its natural limit, as strikeouts skyrocket and balls in play decline.” He goes on to say “Another adjustment or recalibration may loom ahead: perhaps the resurgence of of some small-ball strategies, perhaps enforcement of limits on the seemingly endless supply of hard-throwing relievers, or perhaps something entirely new.”
What changes could be made? One rather drastic measure is to move the pitching rubber farther away from home plate. The current 60.5 foot distance has been the standard since the 1890s. The change in the 1890s spurred a movement towards bigger, harder throwing pitchers. Have pitchers today “outgrown” the current 60.5 foot distance? Doing the math, a move back to an even 61 feet would give a batter approximately 1/3 of a second additional reaction time to a 100 MPH fast ball. Would that slight change make much difference? Certainly it would do something, but how much is uncertain.
Maybe it is not so much that pitchers have outgrown the pitching distance, but rather the rules are too liberal in the allowance of the number of hurlers used in a game. A change I think we will see at some point is something to curb the use of the bullpen. Rules that limit the amount of roster transactions, where a team essentially utilizes the minor league roster as an extension of the big league bullpen might be a start. A more drastic measure would be to require a reliever to pitch to at least 3 batters before he can be removed rather than the current rule of one batter, other than in the case of an injury. That would also bring in a new kind of strategy, and managers would need to think ahead even more than they do today knowing that the guy they bring in will be required to face not only the hitter coming up, but at least a couple of more batters as well.
What do you think should be done to bring the game back into more balance between strikeouts and balls in play, if anything?
How about having hitting coaches and players stop emphasizing launch angle? That might be a good first step. In my opinion the SABR types have done a lot of damage to the game.
Launch angle
Starters not allowed to go more than 5 innings
Defensive shiftsAll of these things lead to more HR’s, more strikeouts, less action on the basepaths, and more boring baseball. IMO of course.
Fans love hometown HR blasts… TV highlights love HRs. If the cost is more Ks, I think most fans would rather see balls hit over the fence, and the deeper the better.
IMO the game has become more about HR bat flips, they put more people in the stands. Plus they get to see the round-trippers on their mobile devices. Its the trend that is moving forward daily and baseball is in the entertainment sector and will go with the new way people see the game.
Will we ever see the fundamentals game again, from where I sit, it doesn’t seem so.
You have a good point, 14Ny. The current thing is brief highlights on your phone. We are a culture that embraces quick video clips, not long drawn out events. I even find myself often watching the “recap” or “condensed” version of the Cardinal game on mlb.tv the next morning, rather than staying up for the entire game the night before.
It is a different world.
Not sure which thread to put this post in but this is how I feel about analytics most of the time.
Somehow we have developed this large contingent of know-it-all baseball fans who bay like wounded coyotes at any mention of wins, losses, RBI or batting average. I never know whether I should blame myself for this or not.
— Bill James Online (@billjamesonline) January 26, 2019
While I appreciate the modern, in-depth analysis, I still love the old stats. I have always been enamored by a 20-game winner. A guy who drives in 120 or more runs is a stud! There is still magic in the .300 hitter , and the .330 guy can really put the ball in play and do some damage.
You can still tell a lot about a hitter simply by the old BA/HR/RBI lines. The OBP, WAR and OPS gives you a little more focus, but by and large those numbers confirm what you already know from the classic stats.
Same with a pitcher, although with the modern starter often pitching less than 200 innings per year the W-L number is not as informative as it once was. So while the days of assessing a starter by W-L and ERA are not quite the same, they are still fun numbers.
ERA is still a pretty relevant number, especially when comparing the ERA to FIP. I agree that W and L really don’t mean much anymore when you only starting pitchers going 5 innings.
I understand the game is changing and I do appreciate some of the new analytics to help evaluate performance. But in the process we seem to have lost some of the romance of the baseball we love, the unquantifiable heroics and legends, even the craziness. In the end, I think old farts like me were mostly satisfied with the info we found on the back of a bubble gum card. It’s hard to love a statistic.
BikeMike, the big difference in WAR is the attempt to include defense, as well as to have a measure to compare pitchers and hitters directly. I think both have conceptual merit, but my take is that by not having a universal WAR, the creators weaken their own initiatives.
CIF has it right in that bottom line, the old staples of statistics give you a good sense of a given palyer’s ranking in any year or era. The later insights drill in a little closer, but usually do not change the final assessment on a guy all that much.
There has been some evolution in the game as well. As an example, 100 years ago the walk was not considered an attractive goal for a batter. The best choice was to put the ball in play. As equipment got better and defense became more skilled, the value of the walk increased.
I have been thinking some about the sustainablity of professional sports, given the incredible athletic ability of today’s players. I believe basketball is sustainable without major changes, and hockey is for the most part.
Baseball and football will likely need to adapt some. Football seems to be the most at risk. In baseball, rules can be changed to accommodate the out-of-balance areas. The pitching rubber can be moved back to give the hitter a little more time to adjust. In effect this would make today’s 100mph fastball more like a 90s mph fastball, depending on how far back the rubber is placed. The trend is for pitchers to pitch less and less within a game, but limits can be put on roster transactions and in-game moves to keep from having a new stud pitching every other inning or so.
Football could be facing a crisis. It is tougher to limit hits, and thus injuries, particularly brain trauma’s are a serious threat to the game’s future. It could be that less and less kids make a decision to keep playing the game. All it will take is a major hit to a marquee player that results in paralysis, and things could start to unwind.
Plus the NFL is a bigger fish, with twice the revenue stream of MLB and thus has much more on the line than baseball.
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