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May 25, 2021

[Editor’s Note: If you’re concerned about the trend today’s game is on, I urge you to read Bill Gutman’s important blog post today. What Bill has uncovered in his research is both unsettling and a major cause for concern for all of us who love the game. In the featured photo, we see HOFer Joe Sewell, who holds the major league record for fewest strikeouts in a career. I think we need to update the song lyric: “Where Have you Gone…Joe Sewell!” -GL]

New Blog Topic: WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO HITTING?

Just recently, Miami Marlins manager Don Mattingly, who was known in his playing days as “The Hit Man,” made a very telling statement about the state of hitting in today’s game. Said Mattingly, “It’s great for your team when a guy

throws a no-no and it’s great for that guy. But when there are so many so early and strikeouts are at an all-time high, it tells you that there are some issues in the game that need to be addressed. Now we’re at a point where it’s getting so much attention because it’s just a game that sometimes is unwatchable. Guys you talk to, they don’t even like watching games because there’s nothing that goes on in them.”

Don Mattingly has a lot of company among those in the game, former players and legions of longtime fans who not only think baseball today – with its emphasis on the home run and resultant strikeout – is boring, but also difficult to watch. I was originally just going to present my take on what’s happening to hitting in the game and why, but in doing some research I realized the situation was even more complex than I at first thought and the solution may not be an easy one. At stake in this dilemma is baseball itself, a game that many think is now on the brink of being ruined.

Take a look at the 2021 season so far. As of last Sunday, the major league batting average was .237, tied for the lowest ever with 1968, the so-called year of the pitcher. But there are some major differences. That year only two pitchers – Luis

Tiant and Sudden Sam McDowell – averaged more than a strikeout an inning. This season, some 39 of 69 starters are fanning more than a batter an inning and 94 of the 143 relievers who have been in at least 15 games are also averaging more than a strikeout per inning. As of Sunday, the batters had collected 10,676 hits while striking out 12,229 times. In addition, there have already been six no-hitters thrown as well as a seven-inning no-no by Madison Bumgarner in a doubleheader game. Plus there have been 11 other games in which the starter threw between six and 7.1 innings of hitless ball. And it’s not yet the end of May. 

In a recent game between the New York Yankees and Cleveland Indians, the stats after seven innings read six total hits and 24 total whiffs. And look at how many games this year teams have had just two, three or four hits, not to mention the number of hitters still under the dreaded Mendoza Line, hitting below .200. No wonder there is deep concern about the lack of hitting, lack of balls in play, and lack of action in so many games. One more example. When the Pirates beat the Yankees, 10-9, in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series there wasn’t a single strikeout. Yet in Game 1 of the Reds/Braves wild-card series just last year, the game went 13 innings and there were a total of 37 strikeouts. Whew! Now let’s examine the reasons why this is happening and what, if anything, can be done.

Many point to today’s hard throwers, both starters and relievers, with many heaters measuring between 95 and 100 miles per hour on the gun. Baseball people say the difference between a 90 mph fastball and one of 95 is like “night and day, while the difference between an 85 and a 100 mph fastball makes it a “completely different game.”  Yankees manager Aaron Boone was watching a tape of a game from 20 years ago when a player hit a home run. His comment was, “That pitch doesn’t even exist today.”

The hard throwers are also working more at the top of the strike zone, a difficult pitch to hit even while it may look tempting. And, as was pointed out, the faster the four seamers means the faster the sliders and cutters. And one more thing. Apparently, many pitchers are thought to be breaking the rules by the repeated use of sticky substances on their fingers to get a better grip, something that can improve velocity, spin rate, and give breaking pitches even more of a break. It’s a violation that is apparently not being enforced. All this adds up to advantage pitchers.

But what about the hitters? Baseball has always been a game of adjustments and right now that doesn’t seem to be happening. For openers, hitters today don’t seem to care if they strike out multiple times as long as they hit home runs. And it’s apparent, through analytics and thinking this is what the fans want, that

baseball has taught and encouraged players to continue this style of hitting, something Nolan Ryan, baseball’s all-time strikeout king says “has turned me off the game.”

Ryan continued by saying, “It used to be the ultimate embarrassment to walk back to the dugout and rack your own helmet. But it’s not like that today. When I got two strikes on a hitter, he didn’t want to strike out against me because at least he felt like he accomplished something.”

He’s right. Tony Gwynn, for example, had just one three-strikeout game in his entire career. The same went for Joe DiMaggio and Stan Musial, guys who also hit a lot of home runs. But just recently the stats indicated that players have struck

out four and even five times in a game 56 times this year. And, again, it’s only May. Yet in 1955 it happened just 12 times and no season before 1956 saw it happen more than 17 times. To strike out back then was an anathema.

But baseball today is putting an emphasis on something else. As Cubs manager David Ross said, “We are not trying to play baseball. We are trying to hit home runs.” Thanks to analytics, the players are more concerned with launch angle and exit velocity as opposed to a liner or grounder to an open area of the field. As one player put it, “The game has changed. There is no more shortening up and making contact. We are being told to drive the ball. We are using our “A” swing on every pitch.”

Others have noticed the same, troubling situation. Nolan Ryan said, “’I watch the hitters’ approach, and I see that they think it’s about them, not the team winning, and it drives me up a wall. They don’t change with the count. You don’t see them go the other way, they don’t put a ball in play. These are number eight hitters, the leadoff guys, the cleanup guys. Back when I played only the real power guys didn’t adjust when they had two strikes.”

Reggie Jackson took it right back to analytics. “The hitters have become so reliant on analytics that the numbers they look at are far more important than my

conversation with them about hitting. It becomes an argument and it’s disappointing. This is what baseball has come to. It is what we are focusing on in the minor leagues, in college ball, in high school . . . It’s a grab for homers.”

We’ve talked before about how the baseball lifer is disappearing. Nolan Ryan confirmed this when he said, “We have a lot of coaches in baseball who have never played the game. Major League coaches, until ten years ago, were almost all former big league players, Not anymore.”

Is there any hope for the game we have loved most of our lives? One thing is for certain. It can’t be improved with gimmicky rule changes and it won’t change overnight. Players today have been taught to take one kind of swing, the big swing. Very few shorten up and try to make contact, let alone place the ball. High-velocity pitching and big swings will produce its share of home runs But it also leads to more strikeouts, fewer hits, fewer balls in play, and often a dull game.

Too many people, both inside and outside of the game, see the problem but the lords of the game, bolstered by analytics departments, haven’t blinked. Some think even if the overall philosophy of hitting changes, it will take a full decade or more to incorporate the changes and teaching techniques at all levels of the game. And in the interim, I have a feeling that more rule changes will be upcoming and baseball will continue to look less and less like the game we have always loved.

Bill Gutman

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