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19 replies

Averages

S sportsfan5100+ posts
I know there are some very smart people here on this site so I want to pose a question and see what kind of responses or "debates" come about.

My Dad and I were talking today about the way "hitting instruction" has progressed or changed over the years and how many of the beliefs from his era, and even mine, just don't hold true in today’s game. Obviously, some major contributors to this is the use of TV, Video & the Internet. Since the video camera started being used, a players swing can be broken down to the smallest movements and then played over and over again to the student to show him/her exactly where and what they need to be focusing on changing or fixing...Also, many of the techniques that were taught years ago, squish the bug comes to mind, are now considered to be wrong... And the debate about "Rotational" -vs- "Linear" still crops up from time to time even on this site. Long thought of "Experts" on the subject have come an gone.

Bottom line is that a batters swing mechanics from the load through the point of contact is taught much differently today to my kids than it was to myself and there is a dramatic difference between now and when my Dad was playing.

So to my question: If today’s game has so many more quality hitting instructors, techniques and tools (video) at their disposal to be able to teach the "correct" way to hit a ball, why haven't we seen batting averages increase over the years?

I'm not smart enough nor patient enough to be able to find a site that could tell me what the "league" average was for each year in the MLB. So I only reference the averages not increasing based on what the averages were over the years of all of the "MLB Batting Champions". They range anywhere from Nap Lajoie's .422 in 1901 to Elmer Flick's .306 average just 4 years later. Most however fall in the mid-300's.

Any ideas? Or have we just decided to do it differently today -vs- yesterday and are willing to accept the same outcome? Bats are still wood, Balls are still round, The Pitcher still stands 60'6" away from the Batter and 9 players still play on defense.
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SultanofSwatSultanofSwat10,000+ posts
quote:
If today’s game has so many more quality hitting instructors, techniques and tools (video) at their disposal to be able to teach the "correct" way to hit a ball, why haven't we seen batting averages increase over the years?


Batting averages won't increase, but (theoretically) you should see an increase in the quantity of players using the "natural" swing of old.

We are not using video to develop a "better" swing, but merely to (try to) duplicate the best swing.

So, there should be a larger pool of good hitters.
Last edited by SultanofSwat
rz1rz15,000+ posts
So many intangibles have occurred over time. While the list of "reasons" may be long there is one that I always wondered about. In the old days of baseball how did the fielding compare with today? How generous were score keepers in error situations? These are questions that may never be answered because there is no video evidence across the board for verification either way.

Think about it...........How many "gifts" were handed a batter over the coarse of a year that would have been scored different today ? My unsubstantiated opinion is that batters were given many more hits in yesteryear than if those plays were scored today.
Last edited by rz1
Three BaggerThree Bagger1,000+ posts
I posted a reply and it hasn't come up so I may end up repeating. Batting averages are not going to increase out of the normal variations simply because pitching has kept up just as much as hitting with 12 and 13 man pitching staffs that always allow matchups and fresh arms in the games, computerized hit placement charts, advance scouting, larger gloves, the total change in hitting approaches that no longer fears strikeouts and totally gears toward driving the ball for extra bases. In decades past hitters learned to bunt, place hit the ball, and did something you hardly ever see anymore--CHOKE up on the bat--not just with two strikes but ALL the time. Not just one inch but four, five, and six inches. They hit opposite field much more often and not just because they were late on a big HR swing. Ty Cobb had his hands apart on the bat much of the time when he hit. No one hits like this now. Contact was the name of the game. Fielders overall are better and more athletic and with bigger gloves this makes a big difference. I was looking at some box scores in Retro Sheet the other night and I couldn't believe the 15, 16 and 18 hit poundings pitchers absorbed in complete games in the 1920's and 1930's.

Also, batting averages can only be compared in the true context of when they took place. A .330 average in the NL in 1930 when the whole league hit .303 was not as good as a .280 in 1968 when the AL hit about .230. In the 2000's we had leagues that hit between .270 to .276 so if a batter hit .280, he was barely above league average. You must look at things this way when comparing different baseball eras.
fenwaysouthfenwaysouth10,000+ posts
After reading your post, my first thought was exactly what fanofgame asks about pitching. From my point of view, the hitter is always going to be at the mercy of the pitcher....in other words it all starts with pitching. Whether the hitting mechanics are old school or new school, it doesn't matter. Each hitter has to go with some philosphy that works for him, however he is still at the mercy of the pitcher.

Baseball is ofter referred to as a game of failure. You can expect to fail 7 to 8 times at the plate out of 10. That failure can mostly be attributed to pitching. Pitching is gettintg the same technologoies that hitters are getting with video tape and computer modeling that tracks a balls flight, movement, pitch sequence, and situation. Pitchers are breaking down hitters weaknesses using video tape and more computer modeling.

As, RZ1 brought up... I also think the fielders are much more athletic now than ever. That is going to take a bite out of someones batting average. How much I don't know, but I think overall the game is more athletic than 20, 30 years ago.
Last edited by fenwaysouth
S sportsfan5100+ posts
quote:
Originally posted by floridafan:
Was the game a little different in 1901? I mean, the "long ball" became popular with Babe Ruth. Before that wasn't the game more of a hit the ball on the ground in the gaps type of game.

Could that result in higher averages?


Absolutly, that is a good point. The "oversized" fields mandated a much different style of play. Aslo, irregularity in the way a baseball was manufactured played into it. Today's baseballs are all the same. I'd doubt that baseballs were all exactly the same size and weight from 1 batch to the next back in those days.
S sportsfan5100+ posts
quote:
Originally posted by rz1:
So many intangibles have occurred over time. While the list of "reasons" may be long there is one that I always wondered about. In the old days of baseball how did the fielding compare with today? How generous were score keepers in error situations? These are questions that may never be answered because there is no video evidence across the board for verification either way.

Think about it...........How many "gifts" were handed a batter over the coarse of a year that would have been scored different today ? My unsubstantiated opinion is that batters were given many more hits in yesteryear than if those plays were scored today.


rz, I'm not sure I buy into the difference in the way a hit or error was scored, but I can buy the idea that the players are more athletic and that their gloves are both larger and better which would allow them to make not only more plays but also make the routine plays today that might not have been considered a routine play back in the early to mid 1900's.
Last edited by sportsfan5
wraggArmwraggArm500+ posts
I don't know if OP is talking about youth sports or baseball in general, but the only real stats that have been consistenly collected to analyze are at the MLB and upper MiLB levels. If those trends can reflect baseball in general, then there's a lot of great analysis that has been done. The SABRmetrics guys have been all over this question for years. I'd recommend a visit to www.sabr.org., and then follow the links around to the open articles.

Here's a great example of an analyst who shows that pitcher work load has consistently decreased, suggesting that it compensates for a gradual increase in offensive production:

Changin pitcher workloads 1920-2004

Its great stuff, but watch out...you can get lost in it overnight.
ClevelandDadClevelandDadHSBBWeb Administrator
quote:
So to my question: If today’s game has so many more quality hitting instructors, techniques and tools (video) at their disposal to be able to teach the "correct" way to hit a ball, why haven't we seen batting averages increase over the years?

Excellent question.

In 1968, after Bob Gibson's spectacular year, they lowered the mound to bring more offense into the game. I do believe the advent of the role-type relief pitcher has lowered averages. Starters are basically only expected to go 6 or 7 innings anymore. Great defensive athletes also lower averages. On the other hand, many of the modern stadiums are designed to give hitters the advantage.
Performance enhancing drugs have increased averages. Maple bats may have changed things as well. I guess some things have helped hitters and some things have hurt them. Maybe all this stuff is basically a wash.

My theory is a simple one. I believe that hitting is mostly a function of natural ability, time, and experience. Yes hitting instructors can accelerate the process but young players need to figure it out for themselves over time. Most of the stuff I see in the hitting forum is gobbeldy gook imho designed to make it look mysterious.

I agree with the premise of the original question however, if all this instruction is so beneficial, why doesn't everybody hit .300 in the pros, .350 in college, and .400 or above in highschool?
rz1rz15,000+ posts
quote:
Originally posted by sportsfan5:
rz, I'm not sure I buy into the difference in the way a hit or error was scored.....


As usual my reasoning may be flawed but I think you answered your own question....

quote:
Originally posted by sportsfan5:
players are more athletic and that their gloves are both larger and better which would allow them to make not only more plays but also make the routine plays today that might not have been considered a routine play back in the early to mid 1900's.


My hypothesis is 2-fold.

1. Because the player was not as athletic and the equipment was not as good many plays that would be made today were not made in the early baseball period thus plays were counted as hits that would be errors today. In the "old-days" I think that an error was identified a dropped fly ball, or an easy grounder that was mis-played. Today, a fielder fails while making a great athletic attempt be counted as error. The athletic quality of the defensive player and the equipment used, IMO, has lowered batting averages over time.

2. Another factor which cannot be quantified during early baseball is the official score keeper and his judgment. Besides the fact we do not know the expertise of the scorers, it was a much "friendlier" time in history and IMO, scrutinizing failure may have been more liberal We'll never know.

Nothing to back-up these theories, I just don't feel you can do an apple-2-apple comparison on and old vs new stats because the game has evolved so much.
Three BaggerThree Bagger1,000+ posts
In the original post, sportsfan5 pointed out that there was a vast difference in leading averages in the early 1900's with Lajoie batting .422 and Flick winning a title with a .306 four years later. Part of the answer to this was that the American League was still virtually a year from being a minor league in 1901 but Lajoie was a truly great hitter and totally outclassed his peers until more talented players jumped to the AL in the next season or two. In the early part of the century there were far more teenagers in the Majors and as the level of play has gotten higher it has now gotten to the point where you rarely see a teenager make an impact. This shows that the talent level has made it harder to get to the ML's until after a certain length of apprenticeship and the talent level is closer for those that do make it. Therefore there are less differences in the statistical differences in the leading batting stats unless an unfair advantage is achieved such as the steroid issue. Since 1942, more than 90% of batting titles have been won with averages between .301 and .372 with only a few times someone surpassing that. This "tighter" range to me shows that the talent level of all individuals has gotten closer over the years. If everyone started hitting .300 at the ML level it wouldn't necessarily mean that all these guys were better hitters, it would just mean something has artificially changed the pitching/batting ratio for the worse. Steroids affected strength and power but they did not raise the overall "skill" level of the hitters so they had only a smaller effect on raising batting averages mainly by an increase on HRs and extra base hits across the board that would have been flyouts before. Pitchers matched this by using them just as much but the effect was increased velocity not increase in their skill level. I truly believe the .370 years of our time are the .400 seasons of the past because of this regression to the mean in the leading batting average in MLB.
ClevelandDadClevelandDadHSBBWeb Administrator
quote:
Steroids affected strength and power but they did not raise the overall "skill" level of the hitters so they had only a smaller effect on raising batting averages mainly by an increase on HRs and extra base hits across the board that would have been flyouts before.

Good stuff everyone.

Three Bagger - I used to feel that way about steroids myself until I thought about it some more. You increase a player's power, you will increase his average and thus his "skill." For example, all those hard hit grounders that are snagged by slick fielders are suddenly going through as base hits when the player puts a wee bit more zip on the ball. Steroids remove many defensive opportunites if you think about it. It increases singles, doubles, triples, and homeruns (that were all formerly defended) which all in turn increase batting average imho.
Three BaggerThree Bagger1,000+ posts
But CD that didn't really show up in the overall league batting averages as much as people assume. League averages were in the .270's which was somewhat higher although some of it was due to new smaller retro parks and really a poor cycle of pitching also. There have been other multi year groups where the averages were that high or higher. I feel the higher run totals were more about the plethora of extra base hits more than an increase in batting average. But yours is a good argument also.
GM Gingerbread Man500+ posts
I think it is all relative to an era. It reminds me of automobile racing. Racers from the 30's had a different set of circumstances to overcome which were different than todays circumstances. Cars were less powerful and so different strategies were employed because of that. As for technique? I think it is all relative to an era. Pitchers pitched differently just as batters hit differently. The defense also played different as did the offense. It really all equals out for the most part. As offense in an era gets lopsided, the defense changes and sometimes even gets changed due to rules, changes in strike zone size, etc.

We cannot know for sure how a batter today would stack up against the pitcher of yester-year. All we have is the present which over time makes up an "era". Different eras can have lopsided results due to a number of factors (including steroid use) but the rules and changes in philosophy will even things up from one era to the next. As for basic mechanic study and improvement on that, time will only tell. Often times the things we teach kids are either non-effective overall or perhaps- just as wrong as they can be right.

I do know that as for pitching, my son was taught for a few years to throw "over the top" to which I told him to just ignore and keep the low slot. Other pitchers changed their natural slot and threw "over the top" and today are not as effective as they could have been in my opinion. This shows to me that there is still a lot of research to be done- perhaps we should resurrect more Bob Feller and Babe Ruth footage to see what made them effective and apply it today.
JW Just Watching10+ posts
This is a very interesting question, and I think that a number of factors go into the equation. Whiles batters may have progressed in some techniques, other batting art forms such as butting and making contact with two strikes have been lost. You also have the fact that pitchers have kept up with batting technology. The average speed of the major league fastball has increased through the years and more pitchers throw more pitches with more movement. Computers now let teams see the weaknesses in the swings of competing batters. Then factor in the computer modeling that allows for the better placement of the defense and an increased emphasis on the abilities of fielders.

What you have is an amazing balance through the years, where one development is soon offset by another one. For instance, while gloves have gotten better, so have bats. While the mound was lowered after 1968, the strike zone has appeared to shrink in size over the years. Finally, as already noted, the 12 man pitching staff helps managers keep pitchers fresh and helps with match-ups.

With the accepted increase in strike outs through the years, it would be interesting to go back through the last one hundred years in baseball and see how the averages of balls put into play matches up.

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