Upward trends
Homers, strikeouts, hit batters on the rise
NEW YORK — Cincinnati Reds manager David Bell notices the difference from his playing days.
“There’s just no question that swings are geared for more home runs,” said the 46-year-old Bell, who played for six teams in an MLB career that lasted from 1995 to 2006. “The swings are different than they used to be. It’s pretty obvious when you pull up a video of 20 years ago, 30 years ago.”
Baseball’s all-or-nothing trend accelerated in this season’s first full month as batters binged on home runs and pitchers thrived on strikeouts.
Players hit 1,144 home runs in 874 games through April 30, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, an average of 1.31 per game. That is on track to break the record average of 1.26 set two years ago.
“I think we’re starting to see more and more, some of the (balls hit for outs) are going pretty far, too,” Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash said.
Even more significantly, the barrage took place during a time when cold weather in much of the country usually causes many fly balls to die on warning tracks. There were 912 homers in 838 games through April last year, an average of 1.09 in a season that ended at 1.15 — the second-highest ever. This year’s weather was better to some degree; there were 15 postponements, down from 28 through last April.
There was an average of one home run every 25.6 at-bats in April for the second-highest rate in any full month of games in major league history, according to Elias. The only higher average was one home run every 25.4 at-bats in June 2017.
“The ball’s been flying here more than I’ve ever seen,” New York Mets manager Mickey Callaway said after this team and the Minnesota Twins combined for a Citi Field-record 10 home runs on April 14. “This time of year, the balls don’t usually travel like they are.”
Perhaps more alarming to baseball officials is the rise in strikeouts. Batters are averaging 8.86 per game, up from 8.48 last year — the 11th consecutive record year for whiffs. Strikeouts are on pace to top 43,000, up from 41,207 last year and 30,644 in 2005.
“Pitching just continues to get better and better, more wipeout stuff. Just nastier pitching,” Los Angeles Dodgers infielder David Freese said. “Younger-age guys are starting to learn even in their teens to get the ball in the air, not necessarily to hit the ball up the middle, other-way type of stuff.”
Before 2017, strikeouts never exceeded hits over a full calendar month. There were more strikeout than hits in April, June and September last year, and there were 187 more strikeouts than hits over the full season.
This year already there were 949 strikeouts and 848 hits in March and 6,799 strikeouts and 6,371 hits in April, leaving strikeouts 529 ahead.
“Relief pitchers are throwing 95-plus (mph). Starters are throwing 93 or higher with movement,” Mets third baseman Todd Frazier said. “Balls are going left and right, and up and down and sideways.”
And perhaps because batters are crowding the plate, there have been 368 batters hit by a pitch, an average of 0.42 per game on track to be the highest since 1900.
Frazier notes swings have changed as batters try to go deep.
“People got to understand, it’s not how it used to be,” he said. “When I was younger, they taught you to get on top of the ball, backspin.”
With more strikeouts, requiring lengthier plate appearances, the average time of nine-inning games backtracked to 3 hours, 3 minutes, 48 seconds, up from 3:00:50 through April last season.