Follow the money - straight to the mound

Remember that until the 1980's teams used a four man starting rotation and in the 60's and 70's generally only carried maybe 10-11 pitchers on the 25 man roster instead of 13. Pitchers finished what they started much more often so there wasn't the need for all the spot or specialty relievers. The top pitchers threw more than 300 innings, sometimes as many as 340 or so.

 

I still do not feel there were as many arm injuries in the 1960's as there now but I can't numerically prove it. Today, many pitchers are like cannon fodder with the massive numbers of Tommy John surgeries.

i agree with 3bagger and others who talked about specialization in pitchers. so few complete games now. i remember when knuckleballer wilbur wood threw in both games of dh with the whitesox. also go to showcases today and the scouts/coaches are there w/ radars. showcase formats in many cases favor the pitcher; for the patient hitter a 1-1 count to start an ab is a big disadvantage. pitchers not too recently were the best athletes and 2-way was common. dwight gooden was one pitcher who liked to hit carlos zambrano too.

Perhaps the increase in average velocities (especially at such young ages now) and the rash of arm injuries at all levels makes it necessary to recruit more arms than ever to assure a team is equipped to survive a season competitively...

Just a thought...

They may be drafting more kids with faster arms now, but they may not know how to pitch.  So, they must draft more pitchers in order to find a few good apples.

Some of my experience have involved the opposite issue.  A player is clearly talented as a pitcher only, but the player and his parents have aspirations of being a position player as well.  They are an adequate contact hitter with absolutely no power and a competent fielder but with no range. If they are successful in getting on base they are a liability.  Home to first in 7.2 for a 15U!?!?!?!?  I tried to gently help them understand the value they bring to the team as a pitcher but they insisted that if he can't play other positions they would go to another team.

 

In the words of Gerry Bertier in Remember the Titans "Sometimes you just gotta cut a man loose coach"

       
       
back then it was usually 4 starters one swing man and four relievers for a total of 9 pitchers....  or 36% of the roster (9 of 25)

       
       
Agreed.  See a lot of this.  Kids who could really be good at their craft (pitching) but can't let go of the fact that they hit some home runs when they were 9.

Bottom line is that you keep  doing what you are good at until someone tells you other wise.

Also understand that a lot changes between HS and college.  That great HS hitter may not be that great anymore after 3-4 years. But if he has a great arm, that may help him move to the next level. 

Setting aside why ... and taking into account all of the informed views above, I'd still love to know:

 

 

Does anyone agree with me that a possible explanation for the reduction in MLB offensive production is that the game values pitchers today more than it does hitters?

Plain and simple..pitching wins championships!!!

Jp24,

 

I've studied baseball history extensively and even as far back as the early 1900's, Connie Mack who managed the A's for 50 years stated that baseball was 75% pitching, so nothing is new in that regard.

 

If one studies baseball history, it seems that there are cycles that last up to a decade sometimes of pitching dominance or vice versa. There are also multi year cycles where things are pretty balanced. After the barrage of hitting due to a combination of PED's, small parks, team expansion, overall poor pitching and a group of great hitters, ML baseball has cycled the other way with some hitter negative parks in San Diego, San Francisco, New York(Mets), and Seattle as well as the balls not being as lively in Colorado due to being kept in humidors.

 

A tremendous crop of young pitching as well as hitters who try to do nothing but hit the long ball and strike out 140 to 220 times a season, even the leadoff batters, as well as the new defensive shifts and new emphasis on defensive value as well as the umpires shift to calling the lower strikes has all sparked this new cycle of dominant pitching.

Good stuff!

My son was a two way player.  Sophmore year of HS he wasn't sure if he would be recruited as a pitcher or hitter He had heard both from college coaches. He spoke to a few pro scouts that summer who told him his bat was good but his feet where slow (I mean really slow)so he should hit for fun in high school but focus most of his work on being a pitcher.  Funny tidbit: his sophmore year his HS coach was constantly berating him for being slow, son said to coach "I don't have to run the ball from the mound to the plate".  We know 3 other pitcher draft picks who could swing it but lacked the footspeed to make scouts forget their arms.

Tim Lollar one of the 'great hitting pitchers' was a .234 hitter over 250something at bats.  The truth of the matter is there just aren't many in the modern history who have the ability to do both.  Maybe jon olerued?  He chose 1st base but probably could have made it as a pitcher.  Very rare.  Truth is the game will tell you at some point if you are a hitter or a pitcher.  Facing up to it I imagine is difficult for some.

Yup, JP, I agree from this standpoint - with the heightened accessibility to information, the condensed and well-publicized showcase variety of recruiting and more emphasis put on velocity and projectability, pitchers get more visible love during the college recruiting process (and the younger kids and their parents know about it as well).  This makes pitching more desirable to many recruits and they are more likely to choose that path when both may be options.

 

Cabbage played a year of SoCal Scout ball.  The talent level at every position for most every team was really impressive.  Several D1 caliber kids on the field at any given time.  Yet, everything revolved around the P's.  You could see it in big waves.  So-and-so pitcher was scheduled to throw the 3rd and 4th inning and that's when the scout wave would come and go. 

 

Threebagger beat me to my other thought - more emphasis on hitting the long ball and the resulting acceptance of high K's and lack of complete hitting skills that come with it is another factor. 

There was this one guy who was a pretty good hitter, so even though he was the best lefthander in ML baseball, management decided in midstream to convert him into an outfielder for his bat. We all know that I'm talking about Babe Ruth. Who would have the guts nowadays to convert a Maddux or Martinez after a few 20 win seasons into a hitter and they immediately go from being one of the three or four best pitchers in baseball to being the most crushing hitter right at the prime age of 24 or 25. That's why anyone who argues that there have been greater players really doesn't have the ammunition to argue.

       
       
I am certainly not going to engage in an arguement which can not truly be won or proven by either side but...  I would assert that anything that happened before 1950 in my mind is somewhat misleading.  Baseball was still in its infancy when ruth played and the talent pool was thin which is why there was such a great divide statistically.  One guy hitting .434 and another on the same team hitting .170.  Now that might be more like .320 and .220.  Still a big difference but a lot closer.  Ty cobb hitting .367 career?  With all the great well trained athletes we have today nobody can do that.  Different era different game.  Respect what they achieved.  Enjoy our great pastime but I think it is a mistake to see any modern day relevance to what happened in the teens and twenties now becoming a full century ago.

Threebagger - I like your answer as I was thinking the same.  This game has always been about adjustments.  The best way to counter the pitching era we are in is to value contact hitters with speed and hitters that force the pitchers to throw many pitches.  That will be the next wave of talent that comes through MLB as teams adjust to the greater velocities and defensive shifts.

 

The same can be said for the business side of baseball.  The economics will most always favor the pitcher because you have to have them to play the game.  Whether or not the organization wants to pay them what they are worth is another matter entirely. But the game is tilted to the pitchers no matter what baseball adjustments are being made on the field because they are essential to success.  Every World Series winner will have seperated themselves from the others based on pitching.  Successful college and pro organizations re-tools themselves based pitching.  So, if I'm a great hitter but have a chance to make more "scratch" as a pitcher (college or pro) then I'm going where the money is...on the mound.  It makes sense to me.