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Stolen bases are up and the pitch clock has sped up games, but the offensive environment is still a mixed bag.
We are now almost two years into a new slate of rules that Major League Baseball unleashed to begin 2023 hoping to shorten the time of games while making the game more exciting. Some of those rules have worked mostly as intended, while others have seemingly failed to do much of anything. It is time to look at the overall offensive environment across the majors to see how the rules have changed the shape of production. We will start with the most obvious effects and work our way down to those that are a bit harder to disentangle from all the other factors that can nudge the league stats in one direction or another.
The most impactful rule change was, in my opinion, the pitch clock. I have heard no one complaining about tighter games with the same amount of play in a smaller package. Average game times in the years before the changes were somewhere in the three to 3 hours and 15-minute range. Last season, games averaged 2:42 and this season it is down to 2:38. This great change is working out perfectly. The number of violations is way down this year too, so the disruption to play has been minimal.
Reviving the running game and stolen bases were a clear goal of the new rules, or at least they were accepted to reduce time between pitches. The two big changes included limiting the number of times pitchers could disengage to attempt to pick off a runner, and the other was slightly bigger bases that would have hopefully an additional side effect that could reduce collisions. These rules had the desired outcome as well. In 2023, the number of stolen base attempts spiked to one in every 42.2 plate appearances, that is similar to the rate that teams ran in the go-go 80s. In 2024 they are stealing even more often, once every 39.7 PAs. Those were converted to steals at a rate of one out every 52.6 and 50.3 per plate appearance respectively.
The most stolen bases per plate appearance all-time was in 1987 at one every 45.2, so 2024 has not quite gotten the league back to the most frequent rate, but it has been a substantial improvement. What is different now versus the past is the overall success rate. In 1987 players stole 3,585 bags and got caught 1,529 times for a success rate of just over 70 percent. The 2024 results with a handful of games to go are 3,525 steals with only 936 caught stealing for a success rate of 79 percent. Steals are up, but teams are still only willing to run when they have a reasonably high certainty of doing so safely.
Another initiative set out by the league for 2023 was to change the rules around defensive shifts. So many hard-hit ground balls to places that have traditionally been hits were turning into outs that many thought it hurt the aesthetic of the game. On top of that, the number of hits from balls in play was at its lowest point in many decades. Three true outcomes (homers, walks, and strikeouts) had become the dominant style of offense, and encouraging more non-homer hits seemed appealing. Unfortunately, it is hard to see any evidence that the new shift rules have fixed anything. The league BABIP in 2023 did spike up to .297, which was promising as batted balls in play had been bouncing around a .290 to .292 the past several seasons. In 2024, BABIP has fallen to .291 however, so it is right back where we were before the rule change.
A higher BABIP than years past will not be enough to bring back the same total number of hits and the corresponding web gems that go with more balls in play. The strikeout rate has fallen a bit from the peak in 2020, but less than 1%. K% were 23.4% in that season and are still at 22.6% in 2024. Similarly, walk rates have not shifted much. In the 1980s, between 70 and 75% of plate appearances ended on balls in play rather than a walk, homer, or strikeout. Over the last two years, that rate has been 64%, only a bit higher than the 2020 low of 62.4%. That means for this year and last there will be just shy of 120,000 balls in play total, fewer balls in play than in 1980 through ’84 despite there being more teams and more games played than there were 40 years ago. To get back to a similar level of balls in play, hit or not, will take a lot more than these new shift rules.
It will be hard to get teams to stop trying to hit home runs, and batters do not worry about strikeouts as much anymore. This problem is much more than a shift rule can take care of. The baseballs this year are carrying less than last year, which has slightly lowered the number of home runs. I’m not sure messing with the ball is the best way to get to whatever state of baseball the Commissioner’s Office desires, but if you deadened the ball enough players would have to adjust. I just don’t think that is a good long-term strategy for the league. Strikeouts are even harder to tackle. Pitchers are just so good now and hitters are not going to suddenly become contact hitters after working their whole lives to get where they are. For now, I think the three true outcomes will continue to be a significant portion of the offense league-wide.
So how is the offense doing? The short answer is that scoring is down a bit from recent years with the exception of 2022. It is not as low as the scoring was in the 2010 to 2015 period, and definitely not as low as the 80s and first couple of years of the 90s. Is the run scoring environment good? I have no idea what the ideal is, but 4.4 runs per game sounds reasonable. I think the shape is more important than the absolute amount of scoring as long as we don’t go back to the extremes like the year of the pitcher or on the other end the steroid era. Average, OBP, and slugging are all at all-time lows or near-lows unless you go back into the 70s and 80s. That is probably not what the league would prefer, but the answer to increasing singles, doubles, and triples while not increasing home runs or scoring significantly is not obvious.
Personally, I think the current form of baseball is good enough. I do not think the game experience itself is a problem. You have marketable stars like Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge. There are a bunch of exciting young players ready to become stars. These changes to the rules have mostly worked, and the 1980s are not actually the only and best way for baseball to be played. Sometimes a homerun chase is fun too. It is time for the league to take the win here and find other ways to grow the league.
