Offense in MLB--What has happened?

[Hoplite]

In a more general sense I wonder if the whole Pitch-fx revolution has had an effect on umpires widening the strikezone overall. After all, umps are supposed to use it a part of a post game evaluation are they not?

 
Indeed it has - http://www.hardballtimes.com/the-strike-zone-during-the-pitchfx-era/
 
Cutting down on PED's and amphetamines, defensive shifts, higher quality/more use of bullpen arms and an expanding strike zone are all likely contributing factors.

 

[Fred not Lynn]

Is there a way, maybe by examining pitchfx data, to determine if umps are calling a larger strike zone this year? It seems that way. It also seems as if Sox batters are looking at an awful lot of called third strikes this year.

Because pitching mechanics are such that increased muscle mass doesn't translate into increased pitch speed in the same way that it does into increased bat speed.

Steroids are a recovery drug. The main way they help build mass is by allowing the user to weight train more often (which is why when Clemens claims he did better because he trained more, he isn't lying. He is just leaving out the part where he was ABLE to train more BECAUSE of the steroids).

Anyway, even absent the same degree of increase in mass due to weight training, steroids help in recovery, which IS a big deal to pitchers.

The doping issue that really kicks in, and it has been mentioned in this thread, and by me in previous threads on the subject, is that by banning/testing for stimulants (greenies, amphetamines, speed) a major tool was taken away from everyday players, with no corresponding tool taken away from starting pitchers.

It's not the steroid side of the new anti-doping policy, it's the stimulant side...

 

[dbn]

 
For all intents and purposes, that's setting the Y axis to the maximum Y value and the X axis to the minimum Y value, which would be the values one would select to most exaggerate small variations.
 
Sometimes that's the correct thing to do (when you're looking at trendline variations and don't care about their real magnitudes), but if you do that you can't then look at the graph and say "Wow, it looks like there's a huge drop!".  Of course it does.  The graph is intentionally scaled so that the variations appear as large as can be depicted.  If you want to look at whether variations are large or not, start by setting the zero on the axis to zero, not to something picked based on the data.
 
Or to rephrase: You could linearly regress all the data 50%, 95%, or 99% toward the mean (4.3 R/G-ish), so that the actual differences in R/G are really minimal. If you plotted those with the Y-axis scaled based on the new min/max Y values it would still look a huge drop in the second half (the graph would look essentially identical save for the labels on the left axis).  Likewise you could double all the variations from the mean and replot and the graph wouldn't change.  As soon as you're picking the axes based on the data, you've already lost.

 
Sorry. I'll stop adding content to the discussion.

 

[WayBackVazquez]

Steroids are a recovery drug. The main way they help build mass is by allowing the user to weight train more often ...

This is just scientifically plain wrong, but I'm not going to get into a 10 post debate about it with you.

 

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

My half-serious theory is the MLB "killed" the ball to make it appear like they won the "war on steroids". You know, opposite of the whole juiced ball thing.

 
I'm with you, I've suspected that all year. Remember, Bud is retiring, and he badly wants his legacy set in stone as "Won the war on PEDs." If he leaves office with offenses waaaaaaaay off their late 90s levels, he can go around claiming to have solved the problem. Never mind that pesky "rode the McGuire and Sosa train to "save" baseball after the 1994 strike" stuff, Bud wants this to be his legacy, and oh can you please build us another new stadium on the taxpayer's dime?
 
I think the balls are de-juiced this year. Now here, hold my tinfoil hat.

 

[smastroyin]

You really need to get into components.  The biggest thing that is going to affect offense, literally more than anything else, is how the strike zone is called.  I have gotten a feeling that the zone has been expanding a bit over the past few years, and there are a bunch of new umps going around who may have instructions to keep the strikezone wider, on top of the pitch f/x evaluations.  This makes more sense to me than juiced balls as a way for MLB to conspire to move the level of offense.  If attendance goes down it would not surprise me if they "recalibrate" pitch f/x.  
 
Another affect is going to be weather.  It was a cold spring all across the USA.  It will be interesting to see what happens throughout the full season, particularly if September is warm.

 

[WayBackVazquez]

 
Another affect is going to be weather.  It was a cold spring all across the USA.  It will be interesting to see what happens throughout the full season, particularly if September is warm.

FWIW, MLB OPS was .705 in April, (.711 in May) and .705 in June. It's .707 thus far in July.

 

[Average Reds]

You really need to get into components.  The biggest thing that is going to affect offense, literally more than anything else, is how the strike zone is called.  I have gotten a feeling that the zone has been expanding a bit over the past few years, and there are a bunch of new umps going around who may have instructions to keep the strikezone wider, on top of the pitch f/x evaluations.  This makes more sense to me than juiced balls as a way for MLB to conspire to move the level of offense.  If attendance goes down it would not surprise me if they "recalibrate" pitch f/x.  
 
Another affect is going to be weather.  It was a cold spring all across the USA.  It will be interesting to see what happens throughout the full season, particularly if September is warm.

 
I think the bolded nails it.
 
We know that MLB has been concerned with expanding the strike zone for a very long time.  (At least since back when Sandy Alderson's memo urging umpires to "hunt for strikes" was leaked back in 2001.)  And with new umpires coming into the game having been brought up with this as their mantra, it's not surprising that we're finally seeing a meaningful change in how strikes are called.

 

[Fred not Lynn]

This is just scientifically plain wrong, but I'm not going to get into a 10 post debate about it with you.

It's way, WAY simplified...but the main point is that doping with steroids is complex and can be done many ways, not all of which automatically result in massive, visible muscle growth.

Further, recovery/building/rebuilding IS at the core of how and why anabolic steroids make you better at sports.

Even FURTHER, pitching mechanics are such that a bigger, stronger lower body can absolutely make a difference. Pitching power comes out of the lower body and core, not the arm.

So steroid use can help a pitcher by 1.) Helping him gain raw strength and/or mass in the lower body through weight training and 2.) Accelerating and aiding the recovery of all the muscle damaged in the pitching process.

 

[Jaylach]

 
I'm with you, I've suspected that all year. Remember, Bud is retiring, and he badly wants his legacy set in stone as "Won the war on PEDs." If he leaves office with offenses waaaaaaaay off their late 90s levels, he can go around claiming to have solved the problem. Never mind that pesky "rode the McGuire and Sosa train to "save" baseball after the 1994 strike" stuff, Bud wants this to be his legacy, and oh can you please build us another new stadium on the taxpayer's dime?
 
I think the balls are de-juiced this year. Now here, hold my tinfoil hat.

 
Yes, it's totally a tinfoil hat theory.. I get it.. but while I'm only half-serious about it, I find it completely believable. The MLB gods have juiced balls and "allowed" players to "cheat" in order to increase offense when things were going "bad" (i.e: People hated the lack of offense). I don't think it's outrageous, at all, to think the MLB gods will "de-juice" a ball in order to decrease offense when people are hating the fact that a lot of players use/d steroids. 
 
And, as you said, it's even more of a win for Bud if it means he can scream "I cleaned up baseball, just look at the numbers!" until he's 6 feet under. 

 

[OttoC]

 
Yes, it's totally a tinfoil hat theory.. I get it.. but while I'm only half-serious about it, I find it completely believable. The MLB gods have juiced balls and "allowed" players to "cheat" in order to increase offense when things were going "bad" (i.e: People hated the lack of offense). I don't think it's outrageous, at all, to think the MLB gods will "de-juice" a ball in order to decrease offense when people are hating the fact that a lot of players use/d steroids. 
 
And, as you said, it's even more of a win for Bud if it means he can scream "I cleaned up baseball, just look at the numbers!" until he's 6 feet under. 

 
Ask the Baseball Research Center at UMass-Lowell if they can support or refute the "de-juicing" theory.
http://www.uml.edu/Research/centers/Baseball/default.aspx

 

[SumnerH]

 
Sorry. I'll stop adding content to the discussion.

 
 
That's not the intent, I'm just pointing out that this particular graph made a classic mistake (the truncated graph/Y-axis gets a whole chapter in How to Lie With Statistics), and your interpretation seemed to flow directly from that issue.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misleading_graph#Truncated_graph
http://data.heapanalytics.com/how-to-lie-with-data-visualization/

 

[kieckeredinthehead]

Anybody who wants to posit that defensive alignments are taking away offense needs to explain why babip is still so high. It doesn't make any sense.

 

[smastroyin]

Just for some fun.
 
By counts,
2014 AL, scoring 4.27 R/G
0-0:  5385 PA, 347/352/550 (10.6%)
After 0-1:  24907 PA, 225/267/340 (49.4%)
After 1-0:  20097 PA, 267/377/428 (39.9%)
 
A pretty huge split after the first pitch.  How does that compare to say, 2010? (4.45 R/G):
 
0-0:  9758 PA, 331/337/528 (11.2%)
After 0-1:  41155 PA, 229/271/348 (47.4%)
After 1-0:  35831 PA, 278/390/445 (41.3%)
 
So, in 2010, there were more times the pitcher was behind, and players hit better when that happened.
 
But, essentially, first pitch swingers are doing better now, and guys who get behind 0-1 are basically the same between both years.  The two effects contributing to offensive decline are more pitchers counts and worse results for hitters in hitters counts, but I've run out of play around looking stuff up time, someone would have to dig deeper into the instances of various counts, which might tell an additional story.

 

[geoduck no quahog]

For the hell of it, I'll summarize the factors posed in the NYT article cited above (from interviews with various baseball people). I'm curious if there's any data to back these up.
 
Premise: Halfway through the 2014 season, lowest runs/game since 1992, strikeouts rising, walks and home runs declining, lowest BA since just before the introduction of the DH in 1972, OBP and Slugging lowest since 1992
 
- PED's
 
- Pitching techniques (cutter)
 
- Revised use of young pitchers, trained to throw harder - particularly bullpen arms
 
- Defensive shifts
 
- Lack of young athletic position players, particularly from college, where fewer baseball scholarships and competition from sexier power sports, combined with new signing bonus rules dilutes the talent pool (not as much as for pitchers)

 

[bankshot1]

- Revised use of young pitchers, trained to throw harder - particularly bullpen arms
 
- Lack of young athletic position players, particularly from college, where fewer baseball scholarships and competition from sexier power sports, combined with new signing bonus rules dilutes the talent pool (not as much as for pitchers)
 

 I think these points could be related. Think of Trey Ball, he was a pitcher /SS in high school, but given the demand for young high-ceiling pitching, he was encouraged (my take) to focus on pitching. Its possible that athlete's fathers/advisors are making the same decision, and the high-school ballplayers opt for a faster track and a more lucrative track as a pitcher.
 
Given the theoretical increasing demand for power-hitting position players, its possible the career pendulum might start to swing the way, as MLB teams bid up hitters.

 

[smastroyin]

I'll be honest, I think most of that is just made up BS.
 
We had exactly the same people saying exactly the opposite things in 1996-2008 or whenever.  "Pitchers are taught to throw hard, not actually *pitch*" "Pitcher injuries create too much of a weeding out process."  "There are too many teams and not enough pitching talent" Blah blah blah.  People will always find something to say.
 
While there are often demographic shifts in baseball's available talent pool, I doubt that we have reached a point where one side of the pool is really tilted compared to the other.  Obviously though, things tend to go in cycles.  

 

[threecy]

While there are often demographic shifts in baseball's available talent pool, I doubt that we have reached a point where one side of the pool is really tilted compared to the other.  Obviously though, things tend to go in cycles.  

Could it be argued that being able to throw 90 MPH (accurately) is a specialized talent, whilst a strong/fast position player may be more likely to use his tools in other developing sports?  We've hit the point at which the 1994 strike was 20 years ago, which presumably had an impact on very young athletes' sports choices, as well as those soon to be born?

 

[OttoC]

Shut down the NBA.

 

[bankshot1]

Francona on with Francesa on decline in offense
 
relief pitching is a lot better-guy after guy coming out of the pen throwing 98
 
the shift is taking hits, runners and runs away
 
no talk of 'roids  yet

 

[kieckeredinthehead]

the shift is taking hits, runners and runs away

Oh and beyond the fact that babip is stable, the increased k rate completely accounts for the drop in OBP. This is not advanced stats, it's literally arithmetic. The only thing I can discern from the numbers is that an increase in defensive shifts has led to more people striking out.

 

[geoduck no quahog]

Oh and beyond the fact that babip is stable, the increased k rate completely accounts for the drop in OBP. This is not advanced stats, it's literally arithmetic. The only thing I can discern from the numbers is that an increase in defensive shifts has led to more people striking out.

I believe you, but it's so counter-intuitive...one would have to think that defensive shifts are taking hits away (and not just for Ortiz) - otherwise why would smart people be using them?
 
I'm missing something here, just don't know what it is.

 

[bankshot1]

Oh and beyond the fact that babip is stable, the increased k rate completely accounts for the drop in OBP. This is not advanced stats, it's literally arithmetic. The only thing I can discern from the numbers is that an increase in defensive shifts has led to more people striking out.

I was paraphrasing a conversation between Francona and Francesa.
 
According to Francona they track the data and the data shows the shift, reduces, hits, runners and runs.

 

[kieckeredinthehead]

I was paraphrasing a conversation between Francona and Francesa.
 
According to Francona they track the data and the data shows the shift, reduces, hits, runners and runs.

I'm asking a general question. Somebody, anybody give me a reasonable - even an unreasonable - explanation for how the increase in shifts has led to a decrease in offense, while babip is constant. It's .298 this year. It was .297 in 2010. .297 in 2004.

OBP was .335 in 2004, .325 in 2010, and .316 this year. K%: 16.9% in '04, 18.5% in '10, and 20.3% this year. BB rates: 8.6, 8.5, 7.9. HR 2.9, 2.5, 2.3. Fielding percentage has been .983, .983, .984.

I honestly don't get it. I'm not trying to be argumentative. The numbers don't make sense to me. Start with a .335 OBP in 2004. Increase K rate by 3.4%. OBP down to .301. Decrease walk rate by 0.7%. OBP now .294. Home run rates...

Ok, typing while I think through this. Home run rates are down. So those long fly balls may be turning into doubles. BABIP on hard hit fly balls maybe has increased. In order to maintain the same overall BABIP, it would have to decrease on ground balls. Is that's what's happening?

 

[Harry Hooper]

In regard to strikeouts, has anyone looked at historical trends in called K's vs. swinging K's?

 

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

 
Ok, typing while I think through this. Home run rates are down. So those long fly balls may be turning into doubles. BABIP on hard hit fly balls maybe has increased. In order to maintain the same overall BABIP, it would have to decrease on ground balls. Is that's what's happening?

 
The baseballs have been deadened? Only thing I can think of, and yes I know it makes me sound like a crank.

 

[Harry Hooper]

 
The baseballs have been deadened? Only thing I can think of, and yes I know it makes me sound like a crank.

 
If true, the timing of deadened baseballs fits the "Selig legacy" theory mentioned previously and also would fit the owners (faced with the surge of revenues coming in) trying to hold the reins on salary escalation a bit by knocking down players' numbers.

 

[jimv]

 
If true, the timing of deadened baseballs fits the "Selig legacy" theory mentioned previously and also would fit the owners (faced with the surge of revenues coming in) trying to hold the reins on salary escalation a bit by knocking down players' numbers.

On the flip side they're enabling pitching stats. Wouldn't any savings on positional players just flow to the pitchers?

 

[geoduck no quahog]

Another possibility: The shift is impacting different players differently, with BABIP evening out.
 
Ortiz chooses not to beat the shift, and his BA suffers. I assume this would be true of all pull hitters who refuse to change their approach.
 
Others (I think I read something somewhere about Matt Adams) are changing their approach and increasing their BA by beating the shift.
 
This could partly explain a decrease in HR's - if enough power pull hitters are trying to beat the shift by getting base hits the other way.
 
It would be instructive to have player stats demonstrating where the shift works and where the shift fails.

 

[Harry Hooper]

On the flip side they're enabling pitching stats. Wouldn't any savings on positional players just flow to the pitchers?

 
Pitching $ is still anchored to stats like wins, IP, and saves. There are a lot fewer top starters and closers than position players.

 

[OttoC]

In regard to strikeouts, has anyone looked at historical trends in called K's vs. swinging K's?

 
I just looked at third strikes because it is a major undertaking to look at all pitches but from:
 
2000-04 -- 26.93% of third strikes were called (42484/157783)
2005-09 -- 26.53% (41099/160963)
2010-13 -- 24.12% (34236/141930).
 
Retrosheet Event File pitch sequences include symbols for pitches blocked by catcher, pick-off throws by pitcher and catcher to various bases, runner going on pitch, and the like. These all need to be stripped out to get the pitch sequence words (I have a parser that will do that but it is a lot of data) and then one needs to counts the "C's" (search and replace) and the lengths of all the words. It might be interesting enough to spend some time doing.

 

[Plympton91]

Anybody who wants to posit that defensive alignments are taking away offense needs to explain why babip is still so high. It doesn't make any sense.

One reason BABip may not have changed is because (lack of) correlation does not equal (lack of) causation and absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

If defensive alignments don't decrease offense, why do teams bother working out defensive alignments?

If players react to the shifts by trying to hit the ball the opposite way, often on the ground, does that depress the number of home runs? Relatedly, has SLG on balls in play changed? How much does getting batters to attempt to alter their swing to beat the shift contribute to higher strikeouts by generating foul balls early in the count and poor swings?

Another thing is that while there has been a general downward trend in recent years in the aggregate, the number of players seemingly still healthy and in their late primes that have experienced substantial dropoffs this season seems out of character. The in-season testing for HGH went into effect last season, announced January 10, 2013, so that wouldn't explain a break in the series this year. Though it is instructive that the average for 2013-2014 is well below the average of 2010-2012, so it may be that the HGH testing was an important innovation in baseball's drive to clean itself up.

The Unjuiced-ball theory isn't consistent with a gradual downward trend nor with a differential effect on certain players.

 

[kieckeredinthehead]

If players react to the shifts by trying to hit the ball the opposite way, often on the ground, does that depress the number of home runs? Relatedly, has SLG on balls in play changed? How much does getting batters to attempt to alter their swing to beat the shift contribute to higher strikeouts by generating foul balls early in the count and poor swings?

 
This makes sense, but what would you expect to happen to SLGBIP? If hitters are sacrificing home runs (balls not in play) to doubles against the shift, SLGBIP should increase.  But if some of the singles they were hitting decrease because of the shift (accounting for an equal BABIP), SLGBIP should be lower. But in general, assuming what were home runs are converted to doubles, and BABIP is the same, SLGBIP should increase, right?
 
2B%:
2004: 4.8%
2010: 4.6%
2014: 4.5%
 
3B%:
2004: 0.4%
2010: 0.4%
2014: 0.4%
 
SLGBIP:
2004: 0.422
2010: 0.410
2014: 0.412
 
edit: Okay, so maybe the real advance in defensive alignments have been in the outfield, where players have been positioned to trade singles for doubles? Less noticeable than the serious infield shifts, but I bet that's where a lot of the results are coming?

 

[luckiestman]

I don't think it's all steroids, and never said it was. There are many factors, in my opinion, one big one is PED use.

And to the point about strikeouts, if the increase in Ks is a significant cause of reduced run production, doesn't that mean that the old school guys are right when they said all along that strikeouts matter? It seems like new school guys have argued that a K is no big deal compared to other forms of outs. But I think we are seeing that that's not true. Productive outs DO help teams score runs.

 
 
I think it is an interesting question. It could be (I'm not arguing it is) that when everyone is trying not to strike out  that strike outs don't correlate with offensive production. However, if people look at this and say "hey man strike outs are no big deal" well, you start getting strike out rates that are higher than in any of the prior data so the predictions built with the old models might not hold.  

 

[OttoC]

Here are the numbers for strikes and called strikes for both leagues from 2000 through 2013 (source: Retrosheet Event Files)
 
[tablegrid= Percent Called Strikes MLB 2000-13 ]Year Pitches Called Strikes %Called 2000 714346 115480 16.166% 2001 695297 116608 16.771% 2002 696329 115343 16.564% 2003 700577 119283 17.026% 2004 709078 119999 16.923% 2005 695233 119150 17.138% 2006 706515 119640 16.934% 2007 711076 121242 17.050% 2008 713151 121732 17.070% 2009 715971 124961 17.453% 2010 709379 125788 17.732% 2011 706675 123777 17.515% 2012 704273 124732 17.711% 2013 709006 124142 17.509% [/tablegrid] 

 

[Harry Hooper]

 
I just looked at third strikes because it is a major undertaking to look at all pitches but from:
 
2000-04 -- 26.93% of third strikes were called (42484/157783)
2005-09 -- 26.53% (41099/160963)
2010-13 -- 24.12% (34236/141930).
 
Retrosheet Event File pitch sequences include symbols for pitches blocked by catcher, pick-off throws by pitcher and catcher to various bases, runner going on pitch, and the like. These all need to be stripped out to get the pitch sequence words (I have a parser that will do that but it is a lot of data) and then one needs to counts the "C's" (search and replace) and the lengths of all the words. It might be interesting enough to spend some time doing.

 
 
Thanks for digging into this. I'd love to see such numbers over ~40 years.

 

[Cesar Crespo]

Is it possible the talent is also spread out better so teams can't reap the benifits of having a High OBP lineup because 2 positions suck and there is no upgrade? Is it the 2nd Wild Card? Less creampuffs?
It's mostly the PEDs.

 

[Hank Scorpio]

Another look at the gradual dip in OPS, although it's a pretty broad view (only considering qualified players, and looking at 100 point chunks). Not that this data proves very much, but you can see a gradual increase in guys in the .600-.799 range, while .900+ guys went from being fairly common to pretty rare. 
 

 
*Typo on .600-.650 ... it should be .600-.699
 
Just as a note, Barry Bonds OPS was 1.379 in 2001, 1.381 in 2002, 1.278 in 2003 and 1.422 in 2004.
 
And as an even more fun note, see the one guy who had a sub .600 OPS in 2007? It was Nick Punto, at .562.
 
As another aside, something I stumbled upon...
 
Player A: .298/.354/.518/.854
Player B: .230/.280/.300/.580
 
One has a WAR of 2.1, the other has a WAR of -2.6.
 

Spoiler

Player A is 1999 Dante Bichette, with a WAR of -2.6 (yes, negative 2.6).
Player B is 2014 Zack Cozart, with a WAR of 2.1.
 
Bichette must have been a lot worse defensively than I remember.

 

[Wake's knuckle]

It is just me or are we seeing a lot less shoulder injuries these days? Elbows we can fix, but shoulders often end careers. If memory serves me, we used to hear about rotator cuffs all the time... now, not so much. Could the knowledge we've gained about pitcher mechanics be trading career-ending -- or velocity-sapping -- shoulder injuries for fixable elbow injuries? This would lead to a lower attrition rate of hard throwers...

 

[PEDs]

I'll be back in the game soon.. It's only a matter of time.

 

[MentalDisabldLst]

I'll be back in the game soon.. It's only a matter of time.

 
Best parody account since DCHONG.

 

[PayrodsFirstClutchHit]

I think the newer parks may not be as hitter friendly. I have heard that the added seats/sections at Fenway have altered the wind patterns that has negatively impacted hitting.
 
The recent "Moneyball" focus that has brought more on-base guys and fewer HR bashers into the league.  The on-base guys have a greater tendency towards taking pitches which can lead to more called third strikes versus more guys swinging for the fences 5 or 10 years ago.

 

[Bone Chips]

Great article on the effects of the shift on left handed hitters, particularly the power hitters (like Papi). While I hate the idea of an illegal defense rule, it's pretty sad to see a whole style of baseball player being so adversely affected by a change in the way the game is played.

http://www.si.com/mlb/2014/07/22/shifts-rule-change-lefthanded-batters-david-ortiz

 

[tims4wins]

That article shows BABIP for lefties pulling it in steep decline, but fails to show when they go the other way.

Also, now we know Cafardo's SoSH handle.

 

[Hank Scorpio]

Great article on the effects of the shift on left handed hitters, particularly the power hitters (like Papi). While I hate the idea of an illegal defense rule, it's pretty sad to see a whole style of baseball player being so adversely affected by a change in the way the game is played.

http://www.si.com/mlb/2014/07/22/shifts-rule-change-lefthanded-batters-david-ortiz

 
While I get sick of seeing the shift against Ortiz, I'd much rather have a "3 hitter" or "1 inning" minimum for relief pitchers. Maybe only allow starters to be pulled mid-inning unless a RP allows so many base runners.
 
It gets old seeing Buck Showalter lumber out of the dugout every time a reliever allows a base runner or watching a John Gibbons take 20 minutes to use three relievers to get three outs in the seventh inning. 

 

[Bone Chips]

Also, now we know Cafardo's SoSH handle.

I thought it was Toe Nash.

 

[Muggzy]

My thought is that homerun hitters get paid more than contact hitters. Players are maximizing power at the expense of contact. .240 BA and 40 homeruns gets paid better than .320 and 15 HR's.

 

[jk333]

 
... I'd much rather have a "3 hitter" or "1 inning" minimum for relief pitchers. Maybe only allow starters to be pulled mid-inning unless a RP allows so many base runners.
 
It gets old seeing Buck Showalter lumber out of the dugout every time a reliever allows a base runner or watching a John Gibbons take 20 minutes to use three relievers to get three outs in the seventh inning. 

This change would speed-up play. However, like the proposed shift rules it would change the game. The rule would be best written as you can't change any pitcher mid-inning. It would make the manager much more important and really speed up the late innings.
 
I would be for it just based on how much quicker it would make the game. The only thing that would similarly speed up the game is a pitch clock that umpires will never enforce.
 
Edit - Regarding offense, this thread has shown relievers are better and umpires are calling more strikes. The pitchers are hammering the zone, putting the hitters in difficult counts, resulting in depressed offense and higher K%. The method mentioned above would slow this by allowing less pitching changes. Hitters would have opportunity against the weaker relief pitchers or tired starting pitchers.
 
Lyle Overbay talks about it in a recent article,

“Brewerball” in which the Brewers would use their hack-tastic plate approach to revolutionize baseball offense. Comparisons were made to other free-swinging clubs like Baltimore and Colorado, who contrast vividly to the Red Sox, 2013’s offensive champions, many of whom tended to take a large number of pitches during each plate appearance (P/PA). Why would the Brewers try to be impatient at the plate? One explanation came from Lyle Overbay, who told Kepner that a free-swinging approach makes sense in today’s run-scoring environment:
I froze when I read this the first time. A grizzled veteran inside the clubhouse, casually discussing the effect of the times-through-the-order (TTTO) penalty on a starter? That’s not only unexpected, but welcome.
When I came up in the league, ‘Moneyball’ was big, and I understood that, because the fifth-, sixth-inning guys were not that good,” Overbay said. “Now, the bottom of our bullpen—any bullpen—they all throw 95. I’d rather face the starter four times. So it’s changed. I don’t think it’s the same game.”

Article: http://www.hardballtimes.com/batter-patience-as-a-team-sport/

 

[Hank Scorpio]

 
This change would speed-up play. However, like the proposed shift rules it would change the game. The rule would be best written as you can't change any pitcher mid-inning. It would make the manager much more important and really speed up the late innings.
 
I would be for it just based on how much quicker it would make the game. The only thing that would similarly speed up the game is a pitch clock that umpires will never enforce.

 
It'd be beneficial to offense as well, as it would prevent the over usage of LOOGYs and ROOGYs. When a manager is smirking to himself thinking "I'll bring in a lefty for Holt, a righty for Pedroia and then another lefty for Ortiz" - it's detrimental to offensive production (without knowing their splits off hand, it was just a L-R-L combination that popped into my head, but you get the idea). But yeah, the fact that it takes for freakin' ever is reason alone enough to endorse the idea.
 
As far as banning the shift, I'd be all for that too. At least until Ortiz retires.

 

[moly99]

The biggest difference now compared to older offensive lulls is the incredible prevalence of strikeouts. Hitters are striking out in 20.31% of PAs this year, which is the highest amount in MLB history. This stat has reached a new high in each season since 2008.

 
This is why I have a hard time believing the defensive argument. If BABIP was dropping precipitously I could buy that. But the strikeouts makes me think it's a combination of other factors.
 
I really think baseball needs to do something to improve offense. Decreasing the strike zone seems like the least dramatic option. It would nudge the game back towards control pitchers and give hitters more hittable pitches to work with without making any radically disruptive changes.
 

Edit: I forgot to add that in my opinion, any scoring decrease we've seen due to a decrease in PED usage SHOULD be down, because it never should have gone up on the first place.

 
It should have gone down, but we have pinballed right back into a deadball era. Pitchers duels between Cy Young candidates are good, but no one wants to see a 1-2 game between the 4th starters on each team. Things have gone too far.
 

My thought is that homerun hitters get paid more than contact hitters. Players are maximizing power at the expense of contact. .240 BA and 40 homeruns gets paid better than .320 and 15 HR's.

 
It's hard to reconcile this with the contracts that are being given out. Hitters like Robinson Cano and Carl Crawford seem to be doing just fine. Teams are desperate for offense of any kind, and a guy who hits .320 with 15 HR's would be in high demand in free agency.