Many theories are postulated about why starters don’t go later into games in current Major league baseball versus what starters did in decades gone by. Many theories are also postulated about why pictures arms blow up with an alarming regularity whereas back in the old days, they didn’t.
I think it’s simple, and some data will support it A simple comparison of 2025 and 1975.
In 2025, with 30 teams, the 15th highest team, the Boston Red Sox, had 186 home runs.
In 1975 with 24 teams, the 12th highest team, the Los Angeles Dodgers, had 118 home runs.
In 2025, the team with the most homers had 274 dingers, while the team with the least homers had 118, but the 29th team had 148. In fact, The 26th highest home run team in 2025 had more home runs than the number one team in 1975.
In 1975, the team with the most homers add 153 home runs, while the team with the least, the California Angels, had just 53.
In 2025, only three major league pitchers had two complete games, and a few dozen had one complete game. No one managed to rack up three complete games.
In 1975, Catfish Hunter had 30 complete games, and the next 19 highest pitchers had between 15 and 25 complete games. And 113 pitchers on the 24 teams in 1975 had two or more complete games…Compared to the mere three pitchers who did it twice for their teams in 2025.
An incredibly drastic difference.
What has changed as far as pitchers facing hitters these days is concerned?
The pitchers these days throw drastically harder on average than the pitchers in 1975, in large part to try to strike out hitters with infinitely more hitting power than the average hitter displayed in 1975.
The hitters also, in this day and age, get to face many blazing fast relief specialists later in games, rather than the scenario in 1975 where a starting pitcher may have hit the hundred pitch mark after seven innings, and despite some fatigue was allowed to complete games.
If you brought all of those pitchers forward from 1975 to 2025, those pitchers and that 1975 lower velocity pitching pattern allowing guys to complete so many games, the 2025 teams would probably be hitting somewhere between 50 and 100 more home runs, because they would be facing slower-throwing, more fatigued, pitchers. A tiring starter back in 1975 in the eighth and ninth ending would perhaps have been more vulnerable and given up more fly balls to the warning track. Nowadays, the same balls would be 50 to 100‘ over the fence.
Hurlers, realizing that, are left to try to throw the ball through the wall, velocity wise, or break of the sharpest sliders they could possibly throw at the highest velocity they can throw them, to avoid being taken deep.
Similar to an automobile, if the car’s engine red line is 6500 RPMs, and you’re driving it at 5000 RPMs, the engine will be fine. If however, you’re driving the engine at 7500 RPMs, you’ll get away with that for a while, but after a while, the engine will blow.
Same principle with the hurlers in today’s game - they no longer by and large throw like the guys in 1975 in terms of velocity and severity of sliders, because quite simply, they wouldn’t be in the major leagues if they throw like that.
Tom Seaver allowed a sparse 11 HRs in 280 innings in 1975, or just one every 26 innings. That home run rate would’ve most likely at least doubled in 2025, and he would’ve had to adjust just like any other pitcher.
Unless it was pitching batting practice, because if they pitched now like they did a 1975, it would look like batting practice.
The huge money in today’s game is also a factor. Pitchers will try to strike out the world in order to put up gaudy power statistics, and hopefully for them, they will have signed a multimillion dollar contract at such time as their arms blow up, and they’ll then need 18 months to heal. If they return post-injury as free agents, and they can pitch well again, they’ll just get huge money until the arm blows up again.
The game is changed forever, unless baseball decides to move the fences back 30 feet in every park. If that were to occur, we might just see a lot more complete games and a lot fewer home runs, closer to the meager home run totals of 1975.
No comments:
Post a Comment