Batting average dips, power way down
NEW YORK – Last season, dwindling batting averages put baseball in a panic and prompted a midseason change in the enforcement of rules banning sticky stuff by pitchers.
The crackdown was awkward – remember Gerrit Cole stumbling over a question on Spider Tack? Or Max Scherzer defiantly beginning to disrobe during an in-game check by umpires? Funny enough, it also worked, with batting average rising from .232 through April 30 to .244 by season’s end.
In 2022, even with the designated hitter added to the National League, the hits are missing again – and suddenly, the power has gone out, too. This time, the culprit doesn’t look so straightforward.
The batting average across the majors this April was a lousy .231, once again on pace to fall under the record low of .237 set in The Year of the Pitcher in 1968. After several years of surging home run totals, batters are slugging a measly .369 and averaging 4.03 runs per game, both lows for baseball since the strike-altered 1981 season.
Ripple effects from labor strife are a suspect in this year’s offensive downturn. So, too, is the baseball, of course, along with caveats about cold weather and small samples.
“It’s hard to say anything is a trend yet,” Miami Marlins manager Don Mattingly said.
There’s one area, at least, of universal agreement.
“Pitching is really good,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone offered. “Really good.”
Despite the New York Mets’ consternation over a spate of hit-by-pitches, checks for sticky stuff seem to be limiting pitchers’ ability to blow batters away, and their control hasn’t been compromised. Strikeouts are down significantly, from 9.30 per nine innings through April 30 last year to 8.69 this season. Walks are down slightly, to 3.35 per nine, and hit by pitches are also down, from 0.5 per nine to 0.43.
Even with last June’s crackdown on illegal grip aids, the balance of power may still be tilted too strongly toward pitchers. Two lockout-related factors likely tipped those scales in the first month of 2022. First, baseball’s labor stoppage robbed hitters of a full slate of preseason exhibitions.
“A lot of guys got 30 at-bats in spring training,” veteran Yankees slugger Anthony Rizzo said. “Now that everyone is 50, 60 at-bats in, it’s like a full spring training.”
The evidence is certainly there in the Bronx: New York averaged 3.25 runs per game in the first two weeks of the season and 6.8 runs since.
“For hitters, it takes a while,” Mattingly said. “Once they lock in timing, you’ll see guys that start off slow, but once they kind of click it in, then it just stays there.”
Second, the shortened spring also prompted short-term changes to prevent pitcher injuries that may also be spurring pitcher effectiveness.
After planning to limit staffs to 13 pitchers beginning this season, baseball instead expanded rosters from 26 to 28 players, eliminated limits on available pitchers and held off on adjusting rules governing minor league assignments.
Starting May 1, teams will be kept to 14 rostered pitchers, and that will drop to 13 on May 30. The hope is that shortening bullpens will limit teams’ abilities to use a revolving-door approach to bullpen usage.
“The couple extra roster spots help you kind of protect pitching early on,” Boone said. “So you’re going to more fresh guys, and I think better than at any time, pitchers are equipped with what they should be throwing and who they match up well against.”
Of course, the baseball seems to be at fault, too.
“It’s not exactly juiced,” Yankees catcher Kyle Higashioka said with a laugh.
After lively baseballs contributed to record-setting home run totals in recent seasons, Major League Baseball attempted to slightly deaden its baseballs in 2021 – the hope was to reduce flight by 1 or 2 feet on balls hit 375 feet.
Pandemic-related production issues interrupted those plans, and the league ended up using batches of baseballs from both before and after the manufacturing adjustment last season.