September 19, 2005
Home Run Production
Ronald Blum notes the drop in home runs in 2005 and asks around for explanations. I thought this one from Johnny Damon was interesting:
Boston center fielder Johnny Damon cites better pitching.
"We haven't really faced too many chumps for pitchers this year," he said. "Young guys coming in have got some unbelievable stuff."
This strikes me as something we can test. It turns out the 23 year olds (June 30th age) are very good this year, posting a 3.75 ERA. But the 33 year olds are also very good, with a 3.65 ERA. The group aged 24 to 28 is the best run of ages. These players in their prime post a combined 4.28 ERA in 18,169 1/3 innings. All other pitchers post a 4.31 ERA in 21,601 innings. It seems to me all ages are pretty good this year.
I don't think Damon's point is that far off, however. As offense rises, good pitching becomes more valuable. Pitchers get paid more money, encouraging ballplayers to want to be pitchers instead of hitters. Teams do more work to find good pitchers. It's the market correcting for too much offense.
Posted by David Pinto at
04:45 PM
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But are the pitchers better, or are the batters worse?
And is this really testable? Maybe the pitchers are only better because the batters are not as good. Or maybe the batters are not as good, and hitting less homeruns, because of the rise in dominant pitching.
Would there really be a way to test this?
I was trying to test if young pitchers were better than old pitchers. That test failed.
Wouldn't the argument actually be if young pitchers are better this year than in previous years?
Agreed -- isn't the point young pitchers this year are better than they have been in prior years?
Yes, that would be a good study. I took Damon's statement to mean that this year's youngsters were just plain good.
Fewer home runs, nobody going on the DL from sneezing and blowing out their back.. yes, something's changed. I don't believe it's the pitching, though.
I think what's changed is the strike zone. It's generally gotten bigger on both corners, and to a lesser extent up toward the letters. You can see the effect on broadcasts that use the overhead camera and the side cameras on ball-and-strike calls.
The real fall in offense occurred from 2000 to 2002, as the strike zone ballooned. Questec tightened the zone up a little after 2002, and offense rose in 2003 and 2004. But Questec seems to be gone, or it's not being used much. So the zone has expanded again, and offense is down to a shade below 2002 levels.
It's basically what happened after 1962 when the zone was expanded. Offense dropped to extremely low levels until they finally tightened the zone back up after 1968. As somebody (Bill James?) once said, an inch in the strike zone is worth ten feet in the outfield.
