A New Era of Offense

The various offensive eras in baseball history are well documented, but it’s possible we may be witnessing the birth of a brand new right before our eyes. In the time it just took me to write this sentence, you probably missed two no-hitters. Look at the headlines; pitchers are dominating in ways they haven’t in years. Let’s take a look at some numbers of a few well-known eras and see how things have changed over time, and how they’re still changing now. Forgive me for my unofficial era titles; I’m kind of making this up as I go, but of course the names are based on the actual eras.

The Dead-Ball Era

There may be no official beginning of the so-called dead-ball era, but it’s commonly considered to have started in the early 20th century. Some feel that this era was really in effect from the very beginning, but it’s really not that big of a deal for this article. I’m not writing a research paper, after all. I just wanted to do a brief recap of each era for some perspective on what’s happening today. At any rate, you know about this era. Nobody homered, nobody struck out, baseball stadiums were the size of small countries, and relief pitching (essentially) didn’t exist. Take the 1905 season, for example. The best offensive team in baseball was the New York Giants, and they average five runs a contest. The team as a whole hit a whopping 35 home runs on the season, and that led the league. Batting averages were relatively normal, and so were on-base percentages, but the day of slugging percentages had yet to come.

The Babe Ruth Era

Ruth brought baseballs to life. Seriously, no one ever hit anything until that guy came around. The 1927 Yankees were a true powerhouse offensively, hitting .307/.384/.488 as a team. Yes, they were the cream of the crop, but the average major league hitter in 1927 was no slouch, either. Hitters all around baseball combined for the triple stat line of .284/.345/.393. There’s still very little isolated power, but the times were already a changin’.

The Bob Gibson Era

Have you seen Gibson’s pitching stats from 1968? His ERA was 1.12. His WHIP was 0.85 in over 300 innings of work. Hitters everywhere were helpless, and it shows up in the stats: the average major leaguer hit .237/.299/.340 in 1968. This wasn’t exactly the dead-ball era, mind you. Almost 2,000 balls were hit out of the park in 1968, so home runs existed and happened somewhat frequently. There were even really good hitters around at the time known for their power. Regardless, this era belonged to the pitchers so much so that the mound was actually lowered subsequently.

The Everyone Homers Era

I’m truly making up eras now, but you know what I’m talking about. I’m jumping forward almost thirty years between eras now, so I’m sure I skipped one or two in between, but we’re not trying to recap all of baseball history here. In the mid-nineties, suddenly every hitter became a power hitter. In the time it just took me write this sentence (I’ve got to stop using that), you probably missed 50 Brady Anderson home runs in 1996. Let’s use the magical 1998 season to illustrate what was happening at the plate in baseball at the time. The average hitter posted a triple slash line of .266/.335/.420, good for a .755 OPS. This pattern continued in various peaks and valleys for the next decade or so. As recently as 2009, the average hitter had a .751 OPS. Things got especially out of hand in 2000, as the average hitter produced a .270/.345/.437 line. That’s just ridiculous.

The New (?) Era

Things started changing in 2010 (.728 OPS). The numbers dipped a little lower still the following season, dropping to .255/.321/.399 (.720 OPS). And in 2012? Well, obviously the season’s not even halfway over, but it doesn’t appear that we’re seeing much of a rebound at all. So far in the 2012 season, hitters are batting .254/.319/.404, good for a .723 OPS. There’s still a ways to go if we’re going to drop back to Gibson era offensive production, but we’re within shouting distance now, especially when compared with ten years ago. As for why this is happening, well… Maybe it’s the fact that baseball made attempts to end the rampant steroid abuse, although I’ve never been one to give steroids much credit for enhancing hitter abilities. Maybe it’s just the natural pendulum-like swing of baseball and the fact that this sort of progression has always happened in the game’s history. Or maybe it’s just that pitchers like Justin Verlander, Stephen Strasburg, and Clayton Kershaw never existed before. There are some truly amazing young arms in baseball today, and perhaps if you stuck them into a 1927 game against the Yankees, the Bronx Bombers would have been clueless. Regardless of the reasons, baseball’s offense is in decline at the moment, and it may not have reached the bottom just yet.

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