I noticed a sharp decline in the number of MLB batters with high “On Base plus Slugging” (OPS) averages since 2000. While I expected a decline, I didn’t expect it to be so stark. I looked at the number of players with OPS’s of 1.000 and higher and those with OPS’s of .900 and higher. The results:
There have to be other factors. Did they change the manufacturing process for the baseballs (the power spike of 1987 has been attributed in part to harder baseballs from a different manufacturing plant)? Any change in the way games are umpired, i.e. smaller strike zone? Expansion, new ballparks, and a myriad of other factors can conspire to grow or shrink offense.
I do think that PEDs are the single largest factor, but expansion has a role to play as well.
I could definitely see that OPS would decline, perhaps even as sharply as seen here, due to the decline in the use of PEDs. Power hitting is down and pitching has not improved as much as power hitting has declined.
And yet, it seems like we’ve had a bumper crop of well-pitched games in the past 1 1/2 years (no-hitters, plus 1, 2, and 3-hitters, and shutouts).
So far this year, the cumulative ERA in the NL is 3.79 (and was 4.03 in 2010); those are the two lowest totals since 1993. Hits per game (per team) in the NL is at 8.56 (8.72 last year); again, those are the lowest numbers since '92. (The story in the AL is virtually the same.)
I do think that the crackdown on PEDs is one factor, but I suspect that it’s not the entire story.
I think its been a slow fall back to normal performance - the strength gains that steroids provide wouldn’t go away immediately. It is interesting that it has been a fairly slow decline.
I personally think the biggest thing is steroids, but other factors include the cyclical nature of positional performance (various positions go thorugh droughts of quality players, only to have a bunch of really good players show up at once like Jeter, ARod and Nomar in the 90’s), the lack of expansion (from a purely performance perspective I bet that we could expand the leagues - and it seems that good pitching beats good hitting), and a few good pitching parks opening up (notably the Mets and Padres new parks).
Also, on the PED front, some are suggesting that greenies are a bigger deal than 'roids, especially for hitters - hitters play every day for almost six months straight, but pitchers get more rest in between performance and therefore are less affected by the ban on greenies.
For one thing, I believe that many players simply switched to HGH, which MLB does not test for. I believe that the way that Bonds, A-Rod and Manny have ended up is making most players stop using HGH, since any link to HGH would destroy a player’s rep.
I’m a firm believer that just about every MLB player who has played over the last decade used something illegal. And that includes Pujols and Jeter. I’m a Yankee fan, but I believe everyone (including Jeter, Mariano, O’Neill, etc.) did it. I include Pujols because, similar to Lance Armstrong, you cannot be best in a world in which everyone cheats but you’re clean. It just can’t happen. Men can’t consistently beat supermen. Pujols was a bit too good for too long in an era where almost all of his peers were proven cheats.
There have been some commentators who attribute the “correction” in offensive stats to be the result of more pitchers making effective use of the cut fastball.
I have no idea if there’s really anything to that though.
We’re basically back to the offensive levels of the 80’s now. What’s worrisome to me is the drop in batting average; K rates are at an all-time high, and this year batting averages on balls in play has taken a huge hit as well. If the hot weather doesn’t bring averages back up I’m not sure what we’ll see.
BABIP should (if the theories about context-insensitive stats are correct) self-correct over the course of the season, unless we believe that overall defensive ability has changed.
The K rate is a different thing, and not easily explained by either PEDs or a change in the ball. It really might just be a glut of young, maturing pitchers - a true “pitcher’s era” independent of outside influence.
I will add that I believe I heard that a higher number of pitchers are throwing at extremely high velocity (95+) than has been seen in the past - that could effect the K-rates as well.
I’d be interested in seeing those OPS numbers for 1995-1999, as well.
As for K rate, didn’t MLB say they would put more emphasis on the high strike? I remember they did this about 5 years ago and it made a difference. I thought I heard something about it again this year. Regardless of whether they said it or not, I’ll say that I’ve noticed umpires giving a LOT more of the corners to pitchers. I’ve seen games this year where balls a good 2 inches off the plate were consistently called strikes.
There’s legitimate debate about exactly how much benefit PEDs provided (and their cost in different parts of the skill set), but it’s not a clear qualitative difference in any event, just one of degree (not that tiny degrees of incremental improvement can’t be very significant at this level; they certainly are).
There is no particular reason to think that some unenhanced players might not be better than some enhanced players. That should be obvious, really. Most players in organized baseball couldn’t become top major leaguers with any chemical boost. It may be that PED use (excluding greenies) was most common in the border territory between being a big league regular and not. Anybody who could get a major league position without chemical assistance is consistently beating naturally-lesser players who couldn’t–even when some of the latter are juicing.
Also, OPS as an additive metric is an odd choice for considering this metric. It might be more telling to graph the different components of batting separately. Wouldn’t we presume that pop is more responsive to a steroid boost than eye?
The thing is, BABIP (and it’s additive inverse, defensive efficiency) had jumped at the beginning of the alleged PEDs era, and stayed high (around .300) for most of the next 15-18 years. If any strikeout means no chance at a hit (tho a miniscule chance of reaching on a wild pitch/passed ball), and balls in play are less likely to drop in too, well that’s a recipe for plummeting batting averages.
I’m on lunch, bored, and have some time to kill, so here’s the (combined for both leagues) numbers for batting average, BABIP, HR rate (/PA), K/PA, on-base %, and slugging %, for the last 10 years, plus a few seasons from earlier:
Strikeouts have been going up steadily for almost the entire past 100 years, and have jumped close to 2 full percentage points in just the last 10. BABIP may have a direct relationship with the K rate, if we assume harder swings lead to harder hit balls and more K’s. But note that BABIP has generally been below .290 for most of major league history; if you combine declining HR rates (a home run ball since it can’t-usually-be caught, leads to a higher batting average), increasing K rates, and declining hits on balls in play, well that’s a recipe for averages in the .240’s. That hasn’t happened, yet (and as the weather warms up offense should improve across the board), but we’re now in danger of it doing so if the trends keep up.
But Pujols isn’t equivalent to Armstrong (whom I really wish looked better regarding PEDs). Pujols didn’t win 7 straight MVPs, just 2, which has been done before the steroid era. He also looks pretty much the same as when he got in the league. “Best in the world” is the supposition of this argument, and I think it’s not a true parallel with Armstrong.
What’s relevant is Pujols’ performance over the last decade, not the hardware the baseball writers gave him. And for the record I’ll believe Pujols cheated when I see evidence. I don’t go for the “he’s too good” argument. Someone always has to be the best, and it doesn’t follow that the best guy is always cheating. His performance has been amazingly consistent but it’s not a world away from what anyone else was doing.