Is This An Era Of Great Pitching Or Poor Hitting?

[mayor quimby]

Three perfect games in one year? Are have we entered an era in which pitching is unprecedentedly dominant, or are hitters just not as good as they used to be?

We see a whole plethora of pitchers with sub 3 ERA's. Only a handful of guys will hit 40 bombs.

Back in the day, 40+ home run hitters were a dime a dozen and a 4.00 ERA was considered excellent.

So what's the answer? Great pitchin' or sh*t hittin'?

[Izenhart]

this is all just my thoughts and speculatiuons from what I've seen change over the last 10-15 years

I think the game has changed from small(er) ball to big ball. It's less of an approach to hit to contact and more of a hit the ball hard. K's are up, BA's are down, but power is there. Also pitchers are focusing more on the hitter these days (The slidestep is all but gone) and SB's seem to be up, not just from that but from teams wanting to stay out of the double play. Walks are up due to more power pitchers and less finesse and more emphasis put on getting on base for hitting. I think as the steriod era winds down we are seeing a lot of hitters having unexpected down years and injuries seem to be up as well. Injuries cause lesser players into a starting role and pitchers benefit.

In all the Max Scherzer and Adam Dunn type of players are more common today than they were 20 years ago.

Edit: 40 home run hitters were only common in the height of the steroid era, We're past that now but the game definitely has changed because of it.

[bayside]

both?
neither?
i thinks its impossible to say its just one or the other.
for example K% is at an all time high and walks at the lowest rate in 30 years.
but what does that really tell us?

I think the biggest driver is the reduced usage of PED's over the past 5 or so years