Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
September 07, 2005
Offense Down

Bryan Johnson writes:

I (as well as several of my coworkers) noticed that the ball hasn't seemed to be jumping off the bat in the past month or so like it was the last few years.

Has anybody else said anything about this? Is it possible that the Commissioner's office took away the "juiced" baseballs? I don't think this would be a result of players being off of steroids, but I could be wrong. I know this sounds like a huge conspiracy theory or something, but I was wondering what you and possibly others have heard or noticed on this subject.

I noticed a couple of weeks ago that no one had a long hit streak. I used to print out that report every day as part of my stat package for ESPN, and I found that the number of long streaks was in proportion to the amount of offense in the league. But when I looked at runs scored compared to last year, they were still very close.

However, offense is down over the last couple of months and really down in September:

MonthBatting AverageOn-Base AverageSlugging PercentageRuns/Game
April0.2610.3310.4099.1
May0.2630.3290.4189.1
June0.2710.3350.4329.5
July0.2680.3320.4259.2
August0.2630.3260.4159.2
Sept0.2490.3150.3918.2

So yes, both Bryan's perception and the hit streak data were correct, there's been a big fall off in offense lately. As for the cause? Earlier in the year I remember reading a story about players being afraid to take supplements due to the steroid testing. I remember it being Omar Vizquel saying that players were smaller because they had stopped taking the off the shelf products. We might be seeing teams wear down because of that.

There's the possibility that steroids were used not so much to gain strength as to allow a player to go through a full season. If players cut back on use, they also may be wearing out.

But I believe this chart tells us what we need to know. Players are old. Last year was the oldest the majors have been since the end of WWII when baseball brought back everyone who had lost time to fighting. Old players aren't as durable as young players. Even now, teams are bringing up old players from the minors to make their first appearances. Where are the youngsters?

Update: While the players making their debuts this season seem old, it's actually the youngest average debuts we've had in a few years. The average debut age is 24.7 years this season, compared to 24.8 last year, 25.0 in 2003 and 25.3 in 2002. Still, in the late 1970's and early 1980's the debut age was in the high 23's and low 24's. The game is getting older.


Posted by David Pinto at 11:22 AM | Offense | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Looked at the numbers from the ESPN site. There's been a "September effect" on offense for each of the previous four years, though the size of the effect was usually very small:

2002
Full year r/g: 9.24
Sep r/g: 9.21

2003
Full year r/g: 9.46
Sep r/g: 9.28

2004
Full year r/g: 9.63
Sep r/g: 9.61

2005
Full year r/g: 9.19
Sep r/g: 8.16

So September doesn't seem to be a big scoring month compared to the overall season, though the differences are usually not so big. Scoring is down all over this year compared to 2004 and particularly compared to the offensive peak in 2000.

Everybody blames steroids because nobody wants to look naive. But there were big scoring decreases in 2001 and 2002, before MLB ever started testing for steroids. My guess is that the bigger influences are a generally larger strike zone (ridiculously large on some games I've seen this year) and much better pitchers' parks in place like San Diego and D.C.

We'll see if the September effect holds up this year, or if it's just a small sample artifact. But scoring this year definitely looks headed for its lowest level since 1993 and maybe 1992. We've come down from an era of historically high offense (especially 1994-2000, when baseball averaged nearly ten runs a game) to pretty average offense in 2005.

The question is whether the trend will continue in future seasons, so that we could see below-average offense in a few years. That wouldn't be surprising if the strike zone continues to expand and baseball continues to move into more pitcher-friendly ballparks.

Posted by: Casey Abell at September 7, 2005 12:41 PM

Hmm... it's really way too early to tell whether September is down compared to the other months this year. In fact, I'd say it's almost deceptive to compare a 6-day sample to 30- and 31-day samples like this. There is obviously much higher variance in a 6-day sample; the chance of it being extremely low or extremely high (compared to the 30-day samples) is quite high. Try this: compare the first 6 days in Sept. to all other 6 day periods of the year. This will give you a better sense of whether the current 6-day period is really an outlier.

Also, Jul & Aug are down only compared to Jun. Looks like they're in line with Apr-Jun...

Posted by: Jason at September 7, 2005 01:00 PM

Minor league call-ups getting a few at-bats before the postseason? Sure, this happens for pitchers too, but anecdotally, I seem to notice more new, young hitters getting a few innings in than new, young pitchers.

Posted by: Mike at September 7, 2005 01:13 PM

My guess is that it's just a small sample blip for September this year. The recent indications are that September is a slightly lower scoring month. But it's no huge deal. We'll see what September, 2005 really looks like in three more weeks or so.

The big trend which is no blip is the general and significant decrease in offense since the 2000 season bashed out 10.28 runs per game. I'd say this much more important trend will probably continue. From what I hear, the Cardinals will move into a more pitcher-friendly park next year. And there's been lots of talk about pushing back the left field wall in Philly.

And, yes, there's steroid testing, however much its effects on offense may be overblown. Meanwhile, I don't hear anybody talking about shrinking the strike zone, which might well keep expanding especially on the outside "corner."

After their happy hour in the closing years of the millenium, the hitters seem to have the trends running against them right now. Maybe there will be a reversal in future seasons, but I don't see that as likely.

Posted by: Casey Abell at September 7, 2005 01:44 PM

Speaking of steroids, Seattle rookie Mike Moore just got suspended. Moore says he hasn't used steroids since 2003. Who knows? He apparently tested positive twice in the minors. If the tests can really detect steroids from so long ago, it seems that more players would have been caught.

This appears to be the "questionable result on a very young player" that Selig referred to in his ESPN interview. Somehow, I don't think this result will create as much racket as the Palmeiro test did.

Posted by: Casey Abell at September 7, 2005 03:21 PM
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