When I was a kid, prior to the 1994 strike, it was common for about a dozen MLB players to hit 30+ home runs in a season. The only notable exception was in 1987, when the so-called “rabbit ball” led to 28 players hitting 30+ home runs. There was an apparent over-correction in 1988, when only five players managed the feat. Outside of those seasons, it was pretty much a lock that 10-13 different players would have 30 home run power in a given season.
Something changed again in 1993, as David Schoenfield of ESPN noted, and it wasn’t just the addition of the Rockies or the dawning of the PED era. After the strike, from 1996 through 2004, it became common to see 30 or more players able to hit 30 home runs in a season. The peak was from 1999-2001, a period in which 40 or more players were able to reach the 30 home run plateau annually.
The year 2000 bears similarities to the just-finished 2019 campaign. Unlike the preceding seasons, which saw the single-season home run record of 61 being challenged and broken by Ken Griffey Jr., Sammy Sosa, and Mark McGwire, in 2000, Sosa led MLB with 50 home runs. But the distribution was widespread – 47 different players hit 30+ home runs in 2000, a record that stood until this year. As in 2000, only one player reached the 50 mark in the homer-happy 2019 season, rookie Pete Alonso.
Once steroid testing began in 2005, we entered a five-year period in which about 30 players were capable of hitting 30 home runs in a season. Then from 2010-15, there was a further reduction in 30 home run bats, as typically only about 20 players would reach that level each year.
The pendulum started to swing back upward in 2016, and in 2019 a new record was set: 58 different players hit 30 or more home runs. Players such as Renato Nunez, Yuli Gurriel, Mitch Garver, Ketel Marte, and Eduardo Escobar – not generally thought of as 30 home run threats – are included in that group. The chart below shows the number of hitters with 30+ home runs per season, from 1996 through 2019.
With MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred planning to make changes to the baseball, it’s likely this home run trend will be reversed by 2021. While you may be pondering how to account for 30 home runs being the new 20 home runs in your 2020 fantasy draft, we should also expect continued ramifications in player compensation. When there’s a surplus of home run hitters available, those players are not able to command the same prices as before. In 2014, only 11 MLB players hit 30 or more home runs, and only two of them were free agents. Is it any surprise that Pablo Sandoval, Hanley Ramirez, Yasmany Tomas, Victor Martinez, Nelson Cruz, Chase Headley, Nick Markakis, and Melky Cabrera received free agent contracts totaling over half a billion dollars?
Now, players like Kole Calhoun or Jose Abreu will reach free agency coming off 33 home run seasons and stand no chance of receiving the $42MM contract Melky Cabrera got coming off a 16 home run season. The arbitration system will become increasingly out of step with the open market, leading to an increased supply of free agents, further depressing salaries. The juiced ball of the last few seasons is just one more reason free agent salaries will be suppressed this winter.
It is at least positive that MLB and the players’ union are having discussions with two years remaining on the current collective bargaining agreement, but the owners are in the catbird seat. Unlike in 1994, it is the players who now seek to drastically change the status quo. I imagine that whatever scant public support players had 25 years ago in resisting the owners’ imposition of a salary cap, they’ll somehow have even less this time around in trying to upend the system. The devaluing of the home run is just one more way in which the chips are stacked in the owners’ favor in the labor negotiations.
Gurriel has the worst hair
Have you seen his brothers? Forget the jays having all the former players kids it’s now about all their hair styles with Bo,Vlad and Gurriel jr all having epic level hair styles
This has all made the home run a way less valuable asset. When you have Freddy Galvis, Starlin Castro, and Jurickson Profar hitting 20+ home runs, power basically becomes almost irrelevant when everyone has it.
wait i knew a lot of guys hit many homers, but Garver? wow, goes to show.
Actually, if you watch Garver’s swing you will see why he hit 31 home runs. It’s short and compact. Excellent swing.
Garver had less than 400 AB’s before this season and is under a new coach who’s entire system is designed to help players hit more HR’s. He would also have the highest wOBA in baseball if he had enough AB’s this year.
Baseball becomes even less interesting to the masses. The 3 true outcomes are killing the game.
Idk about that, I think casual fans generally like more home runs and offense. Pitching and defense are not that interesting, at least besides spectacular throws/diving catches and whatnot.
Or a guy like Nolie or some closer throwing extreme smoke.
i thoroughly enjoyed angels new players this season. mostly rejects from other teams, they played hard and mostly hitting singles and doubles. defense was good. it was enjoyable.
They lost about 90 games.
They had no pitching to start the season and on top of that one of their few talented pitchers died mid-season. Hard to blame the offense and defense when your pitching is that bad.
Don’t you call my Tommy La Stella a reject! – Heartbroken Cubs Fan
Manfred should’ve gotten more testing done before he implemented the new ball. If it weren’t so blatantly obvious that the ball was juiced people wouldnt notice.
So, now the 40 hr guys are considered the power hitters. Its all relative.
I wrote here a few weeks ago about the juiced baseball. Got juvenile sarcastic comments back. First started writing about it 2 weeks into the season when veteran OF’s were waiting for a fly ball to come down 15 feet in front of the warning track, only to watch it sail 20-25 feet into the stands.
Fans cannot watch a baseball game. Between every batter working the counts and hitting foul balls, one has to be crazy to sit at a game or in front of a TV or computer…..unless they have a set-up to watch at least 2 or 3 games at once (it’s what I do).
So MLB juiced the ball. And why not? Most Americans under 40 years-old have no idea how the game is played…..because they never played it on a field. They played it on Strat-O-Matic and then on computers. All they want is to see the highlights to find out how the players on their rotisserie league team did. Homers are good for that.
The MLB Commissioner plays to these people. In time, MLB will give out free tickets to paper the house. The same as Saturday morning wrestling on TV.
In fact, am having major problems trying to watch post-season games, one at a time.
I like your name. Sweet Dylan ref.
Finally…someone else who agrees with me that the majority of this country has no idea how the game is played. It’s an epidemic.
Yes. And the shifts do not help either. So players don’t want to try and beat it, they try to launch it. Thus we have tons of players batting .220 with 30 Hr.
You make a good point about Manfred playing to the people wanting homers. It’s the same thing in football. All Godell cares about is making money sacrificing the game. That’s why we have more penalites than ever, so it increases offense which is good for fantasy and gambling.
There hasn’t been Saturday morning wrestling on tv since 1995
Love the Strato-Matic reference.
you hit 30 homeruns…you get rewarded by sticking your wet fingers into a socket apparently
Batters are wearing too much protection – face guard, elbow pad, and shin guard. Hitters can cover the plate with little fear of the inside pitch. Just one of many factors tipping the scales toward an offensive evolution.
Tell that to Charlie Culberson who suffered bone fractures to his face when he was hit by a pitch going inside. You realize 90 mph pitches can kill, right?
Dude was bunting.
… line drives off the bat are equally as dangerous to a pitcher’s well-being. I’m not advocating for less protection, merely pointing out another factor in the rise of home runs. That said, I do think there should be an industry standard on the level of protection allowed (Eric Thames, for example, is pushing the limits with his hockey-style elbow pad). Pitchers have lost what once was a key advantage – the inside pitch.
You realize netting is now placed around the park to protect fans from blazing line drives, right? You’re ok with fan safety being at-risk just to see more homeruns by (most) players crowding the plate thanks to added protection? Seen more guys turning on inside pitches hitting lasers they wouldn’t hit without that protection.
They can kill but with more padding and protection things do change. It’s a good point…less fear standing closer to the plate these days. Interesting! Never thought of that.
Interesting point, but good luck getting the MLBPA on board with banning protective equipment, lol
Bingo. Helmet and face shield, shin guard, get off the plate. That solves pace of play. Take off the arm guards.
I doubt it will get back down to 30 home runs being the bar between elite power and good power but it is nice to see Manfred willing to make changes.
It would be even nicer if he did something immediately following the world series like raising the mound by an inch or so. I understand his desire to get all the information and analyze it before he does anything but it’s obvious that there is an issue.
Raising the mound will only lead to more strikeouts, which is also awful for fans. They need to adjust the ball to help keep it in the park and provide for more action on the field. More K’s is not the way to offset the excess of homers.
They need to call the batter out on the 3rd foul ball he hits after 2 strikes.
Starting pitchers can pitch longer into games. Hitters will learn to put the ball in play. Action will be faster. TJ surgeries will diminish.
No. Not a good idea. Makes the game more exciting in high leverage situations if the PA is drawn out.
Why do that? It’s not the power guys that are prolonging at bats. Hoskins of the Phillies may be the exception there. That’s s fundamental change that would not give the intended result.
TJ surgeries will never go down until they teach pitchers how to pitch instead of teaching them to throw harder.
All these suggestions are god awful and not well thought out.
A pitch clock and less pitchers available is needed for two reasons. Pitchers will have to pace themselves and eventually learn that they can’t go max effort each pitch. This will solve two problems, the pace of the game (I don’t care that you like how long the game is most fans don’t and the stats back it up) and you’ll have less injuries.
Less pitchers available will put more value on SP who can pitch longer. This is something the MLBPA should be all over instead of wasting time saying collusion. Nobody wants to watch some AAA RP come out of the pen and throw 98 mph for one inning only to be sent down the next day till he is needed next week.
But yeah keep suggesting more roster spots so teams will keep sending RP down with options costing them money and by the time they hit free agency their arm falls off.
Fouling off a pitch w/ 2 strikes is a skill possessed by good hitters. It’s also a strategy to negate tough pitches, or pitches in an area that the ump erroneously called a strike earlier in the AB. It would be a really bad idea to punish good hitters and remove a long held strategy to make the game more appealing to those that aren’t particularly baseball fans.
AAA guys want that MLB time to accumulate so they are guaranteed the league minimum salary.
Or lower the mound and go back to a relatively normal ball… Pace of play isn’t just about scoring runs; it’s about stuff happening (aka putting the ball in play). Lowering the mound *should* decrease K’s, and a relatively normal ball *should* help keep the ball in the park. Either way, I don’t think there’s anything they can do that’ll work perfectly. Strikeouts and home runs pay, so pitchers will still go for K’s, and hitters will still sell out for home runs. That’s just the way it is.
I always felt the 1987 HR increase was more the bats in combo with the unusually warm summer that season instead of the ball.
Baseball rules were and are decided upon based on a combination of arbitrary, socially agreed upon and then generally but not uniformly codified regulations that have proven to be pretty flexible or are used by everyone game to game despite the differences stadium to stadium or team to team, such as bat lengths widths and weights, mound heights, foul ball areas, outfield depth for home runs, the location based on sea level and air thickness or thinness, etc. A line drive home run in one stadium is a double off the wall in another stadium, is a routine fly out to deep center field in another and so on.
My question is: Why does the ball have to be uniform and singular in qualities as well? And if you’re tweaking a ball, knowing it’s going to result in a home run differential or a pitcher ERA differential of 1/3 or more of the average total stats racked up in a season… How do you regulate that?
Think about the sheer volume of balls used in a game. I don’t think we think about that very often. A single baseball game might use 25 different baseballs or something. I’m not gonna look up the average right now, but the point is everything else about baseball is subjective and unique and has to be accounted for and accepted. A great example being: just because you hit 45 home runs with Coors as your home park in the thin aired Rocky Mountains you shouldn’t be shocked to only hit 25 home runs with Petco as your home park in the low-by-sea level humid thick aired gulf area and I don’t think any players are shocked or protest at the differential in conditions.
So why not treat the ball the same way?
Or play a season with multiple ball measurements, keep track of the stats and then compare which ball resulted in the most typical/average outcomes?
Wayyyy more than that. 90-120 balls per game on avg, accordingly fangraphs
.
The Number of Baseballs per Game, According to Sources …
https://blogs.fangraphs.com › instagraphs › the-number-of-baseballs-used-…
Consistency and “acceptable variation” are never going to be perfect, but this video game ball this year has been ridiculous. Pitchers SHOULD be pissed, like Verlander during the all-star game, even though I’m not a fan of his. It’s going to push the die hard fans away while only courting the casual fan in small margins. The perfect cutting off the nose…
“Pitchers SHOULD be pissed, like Verlander during the all-star game, even though I’m not a fan of his. It’s going to push the die hard fans away while only courting the casual fan in small margins. The perfect cutting off the nose…”
I take a bit of umbrage with this argument for the issue with the juiced ball, because pitchers like Verlander are so technically trained and stretched and moderated, so carefully regulated in diet, exercise, vital statistic, overall lifestyle considerations compared to pitchers of past eras. The number of guys who used to take the off season off and just do whatever and show up to camp out of shape, take spring training to get back into shape but only just enough.
If you exclude guys like Bo Jackson, look at how scrawny players were 25+ years ago. This isn’t even accounting for the steroid era of the late 90’s and early 2000’s. This is just guys changing the way they eat, the way they work out and the way they spend their time in the off season.
Even if they invented a perfectly balanced, fair ball for pitchers and hitters, for drag and lift and all that stuff, the pitchers are throwing harder with more finely tuned ligaments and the batters are hitting harder with far denser and better trained muscle fibers and muscle memory then past ball players.
Even if there are 75 hitters next season that hit 30+ homers I doubt any of them will be on the Giants. Yes, even Yaz.
Even after they move the fences in?
When did Ken Griffey jr. brake the homer record? Was I in a coma?
I was wondering the same thing.
Griffey challenged, but did not break it.
He never did. His career high was 56. In 1997 and again in 98.
What happens? You give the pitchers who somehow managed to keep an ERA below 3.50 ten year deals and a lot of money…
You do that if you’re the dumbest owner in sports because none of the smart intelligent fans would ever do that and none of the GMs would ever consider it.
Thanks for not seeing sarcasm
That’s not an outrageous statement. Ridiculous contracts were given out to defensively limited sluggers then the market adjusted. Those dollars that would be given to sluggers now would be reallocated to previously considered middle of the pack pitchers. The glut of sluggers would cause their earning power to drop and be reallocated to pitchers similar to bullpen arms receiving larger contracts.
Not sure why there was a sarcastic response when the point was valid
The home run is perfect for our sound bite world. ESPN has always been infatuated with the home run and little else. As home runs become so commonplace, I now find ESPN boring and seldom watch. I prefer a good pitcher’s duel game, but that doesn’t translate well to media sound bites. I think the juiced ball has had as many negative ramifications as it has had positive ones. I don’t think juiced ball home runs will retain casual fans, nor do I think increased fan interest via the juiced ball home runs is sustainable. It’s more gimmick than anything, so I think the commissioners office needs to act soon to correct before the juiced ball shelf life expires/implodes in baseball’s face.
If you told a fan 30 years ago that the In the far-flung future of 2016, the National League home run leader who hit 41 dingers would be non-tendered after the season, they’d think you’d lost your mind (both for the homer thing and for claiming to be a time traveler from the year 2019).
Chris Carter? There have been a few of those types. Prodigious power, but their peripherals prove they’re a waste of a roster spot, or they’re simply under valued.
Time to change the name to Blernsball.
Home runs may be exciting, but in the long run, more home runs do not make a more exciting sport. More home runs means more strikeouts. Hitters strikeout, hit a home run, or maybe walk. Of course that’s not exciting. What are those other guys standing in the field for: decoration?
What’s exciting is when almost every at-bat ends with the bat meeting the ball and the ball going somewhere in fair territory. Then either the fielders make plays – sometimes great ones – or the batters get hits. Hitting, running, fielding – those are more fun than home runs. Then, occasionally, a home run – and in that case, a home run is exciting.
Yeah, I was about to say something like this. The article would be more complete if it also mentioned that along with record number of homers comes record numbers of strikeouts. The game has become more and more about hard throwers vs. hard swingers.
Don’t forget ” chicks like the long ball “
*Chicks dig the long ball
Chicks Dig the Long Ball, where are you when you are needed most?
Id say this is Manfred’s first failure. Artificially inflating stats for a year or 2, hows that going to turn out? Forever known in history as those couple years the modified balls carried out.
Exactly…
If he wants to risk drastic results by fiddling with a standard of the game, don’t mess with the balls. Do something that will improve it for pitchers AND hitters…
Automated Strike Zone
Don’t fiddle with balls
I saw that on a sign in a locker room once.
If you pull the ball on the ground, you’re out. if you go the other way, maybe, if your timing is perfect, you might get a single. You’ll bat 300 and slug 400… wow. But if Ted Williams had a hard time doing that with pitchers throwing in the high 80s, what chance does anyone have today with pitchers throwing in the high 90s
These shifts are forcing players to hit over the shift.
Get rid of the shifts, soften the ball just a bit and make it a little bit bigger (Japanese baseball are a little smaller) and the game will get much better.
Or the players could always get rid of the shift the same way they’ve done it for 100+ years….learn to hit the ball the other way. This “hitting over the shift”, as I admit, seems to be the way all teams are coaching their players, is beyond making sense. Maybe the deadening of the player value due to home runs will push the next generation of hitters to learn how to actually hit.
interesting Mr. Dierkes mentions ’87, that’s exactly what this season has reminded me of. If there is an over correction manufacture-wise as far as the ball is concerned I wonder if the same situation will happen statistically. Tbh I hope not, because aside from some entertaining story lines (Canseco’s 40/40 for one) ’88 and ’89 were deserts offensively
The article mentions the fantasy impact of the HR explosion. Does this make the true pitching studs like Cole, Verlander, deGrom even more attractive in first round of drafts?
The Forbes article that’s linked in the first few paragraphs kind of eludes to Manfred considering making corrections to the ball. Whether that happens next year or 2021, who knows? But when he does, I’d say fantasy values normalize.
As long as a ground ball is the enemy of the batter, they will continue trying using the launch angle to launch the ball out of the park.
If you soften the ball and do nothing about the shift, the game will actually get worse.
Baseball has to increase the value of ground balls and soft contact. The first think that needs to do is get rid of the shift. The second thing that needs to do is soften the baseball.
Every sport other than baseball has rules for the defensive positioning. It’s time baseball adapted.
I could get on board with that. The shift is kind of bush league.
No it’s not bush. In fact it’s the essence of baseball. Trying to regulate the shift goes against everything that baseball has been about in it’s history.
Football is exactly why MLB should leave it as it is.. Football has so many ridiculous position rules, it sometimes cuts into the enjoyment. How would you feel if your team threw a long bomb for a TD, and it was called back because the WR on the weak side was a few feet off the line of scrimmage leaving the tackle uncovered? Players illegally downfield, or illegal touching, are what you could get by that slippery slope of regulating defensive positions.
It’s up to the hitters. A normal ball, preventing average hitters from continually swinging for the fences, and going against the shift for base hits, is what the game needs, not more regulations.
If you soften the ball and do nothing about the shift, the game will actually get worse.”
I think you have that backwards. Most HRs from guys with average power are pulled. Pulled balls that are hit on the ground are the reason why the shift was invented. A non-juiced ball is less enticement for guys to try and pull the ball out of the park, and more enticement to go the other way. When guys start hitting to the opposite field, teams will employ the shift much less.
When I was a kid, a Hershey cost a nickel!
The average full-time player now hits 20 homeruns a year and maybe gets by with a 100wRC+. You can blame uppercut swings, Bill James, short porches, or Rawlings for making tennis balls with red baseball-style stitches. Or you can blame owners who nowadays seem to look at baseball teams as hedge funds with mascots.
I think it’s very ironic that the next story is about Ray Searage being fired today.
I think the ball alterations are directly connected.
Less drag on seams of a baseball dont just affect flyball distance. Finesse pitchers RELY on seam drag. It’s what makes things happen on the way to the batter for curveballs, splitters, other breaking pitches and, drum roll please…. cut fastballs.
…Ray Searage’s calling card.
Does anyone else find it coincidental that the Pirates pitching coach guru suddenly loses his touch?… in the same 2-3 years that 160lb shortstops start showing 40hr power?
Fix it Manfred. So far, all you’ve done is “interrupt” the game… but you’re quickly headed into “ruined” territory.
All I know is mlb cannot keep waffling/flip flopping season to season (juiced vs non-juiced ball) with these big contracts involved. A guy hitting 20-25 homeruns right now is much more valuable compared to having warning track power with the old ball. Mlb has to make the decision to stick with this ball forever or at least a finite amount of time so gm’s know well in advance before handing out millions to the “on the fence” guys that would maybe be hitting 10-15 hrs/yr max. Jmho
What Happens When Everyone Can Hit 30 Home Runs?
More pitchers visiting the IL, the minors and a Psychologist. Not in that order.
Triples are more exciting than the homerun. Push every fence back, if possible. Allow team defenses make plays on ball driven to the outfield. Very entertaining to watch that play from start to finish if there is a close play at third.
Can you imagine if they occasionally decided to overinflate the basketballs in the NBA? Or if they decided to not oil the lanes in the PBA? Or if they decided to not allow dimples on golf balls? Or if they decided to use super balls for tennis? Pogo sticks for marathons? When does baseball own up to how utterly ridiculous it is that they change the baseball? Any other sport would be the laughingstock of the world. In fact, when it does happen in another sport, the poop hits the fan, and it goes everywhere. MLB is beyond stupid.
What happens, Tim? The game starts to take on a boring tone. Tons os strikeouts and solo homers can put even the mist diehard fans into a slumber.
The correlation to less .300+ hitters is astounding. Bring them back into the scheme of things and see the excitement return……..along with the fans who’ve said adios to the current offering.
A triple, a player trying to score from first on a gapper and the defense trying to cut him down at the plate, the stolen base….that’s exciting baseball.
What amazes me is this is an assault on iconic, long-held records, and it’s greeted with something less than outrage. If the use of this ball is continued, every record will be broken. But outrage is exactly the reaction that guys like McGwire, Sosa, Bonds, ARod, etc. got, when they broke iconic records. Where is that outrage now? I guess fans are selective when it’s their team benefiting.
There’s a gigantic difference between these 2. Although the MLB turned a blind eye to juicers, they were still cheating. They were doing something that gave them an unfair advantage over the competition (although you could probably argue more players were juicing than not). Everybody has to use these juiced baseballs now, which is why the MLB is getting blamed instead of select players.
Griffey broke 61 homers in a single season? Could swear he fell short……
I believe Jose has a really good chance of receiving 42M contract next year.
What happens is the value of a HR is devalued. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if MLB did this on purpose as a way to drive down the negotiating power of what traditionally had been the highest-paid players: HR hitters.
The “super ball” has also made it easier for prospects (who are cheap) to make an immediate contribution. It’s also allowed players who were formerly viewed as quad-A players to make contributions on the major league level. It’s all about driving down costs for the owners (not the fans) so owners can pocket more money.
I’m looking for dray. Has anyone heard from him. I miss his thoughtful insights into the world of baseball
Dray likes colors and shapes
Better question might be, “What happens when notorious power hitters didn’t hit 30HR this season?”
Right there in front of everyone. It’s the painted bats
Didn’t they tell us more offense was supposed to be more interesting?
Juiced balls + Juiced Players + Smaller Ballparks = 58 thirty home run hitters
It also, combined with the total indifference to strikeouts means a lot fewer balls in play which = boring baseball