Major League Baseball: Where Has all the Offense Gone?

     I've noted more than once that we've seen a precipitous drop in runs scored in the last few years. I've suggested that the reason may be a successful war on steroids and human growth hormone (HGH). That HGH is banned makes no sense; I mean why wouldn't you want to speed up a player's recover from an injury?

      "I'll return to an observation I've made a few times lately: baseball has just gotten really boring the last few years. Runs scored team by team are way down. It's shocking that not a single team scored over 800 runs last year and that the average team scored 660 runs."

      http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/team/_/stat/batting

     "In 2006, only two teams scored less than 700 and Tampa Bay, which had the fewest runs in the majors, scored 689-which is 30 more than the average team scored in 2014."

     http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/team/_/stat/batting/year/2006

     "If this is what the integrity of Baseball looks like I can do without it."

     http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/03/mike-lupica-and-bill-madden-anatomy-of.html

     At least the league itself has noted this drop in offense. It's being argued that a big part of this has actually been an enlarged strike zone-and a lower one. 

      "Major League Baseball is considering altering the textbook definition of the strike zone for the first time in nearly two decades, fearful that the proliferation of the low strike has sapped too much offense from the game, league sources told Yahoo Sports."

     "Runs per game fell to 4.07 in 2014, the lowest mark since 1981 and the 13th fewest since World War II, and studies from The Hardball Times' Jon Roegele and Florida professor Brian Mills pegged the low strike as a significant culprit."

     "Since 2009, the average size of the called strike zone has jumped from 435 square inches to 475 square inches, according to Roegele’s research. The results: Pitchers are throwing more in the lower part of the zone, and hitters are swinging at an increased rate, knowing the tough-to-drive pitches will be called strikes."

     http://sports.yahoo.com/news/sources--mlb-could-alter-strike-zone-as-response-to-declining-offense-232940947.html

     It's good that they're looking at this because I don't care how much 'integrity' the game allegedly has now, it's becoming pretty boring. I mean if the Steroid Era is over, we're now in the Second Deadball Era. 

    I guess having more injured players out for longer also adds to the integrity of the game. 

    In football no one worries about steroid and HGH use destroying the 'integrity of football'-why is that? Probably it'd be unthinkable even in theory to stop NFL players from using HGH-too many serious possibly career ending injuries. 

    However, I don't much understand the proposal of both Bill Bellichick and John Mara to move the extra point back. 

    "The NFL Competition Committee has discussed experimenting this preseason with a longer -- much longer -- extra-point try. According to one member, the committee's meetings this weekend included preliminary talks about placing the ball at the 25-yard line for the extra-point kick -- which would make it a 43-yard attempt -- rather than the 2-yard line, where it is currently placed."

     "Last season, kickers missed just five of 1,267 extra-point attempts, a conversion rate of 99.6 percent --so good that Commissioner Roger Goodell recently suggested the demise of the extra point could be imminent, because it is almost automatic, and thus not exciting enough. A longer extra-point try certainly would make things more interesting and require significantly more strategizing. The conversion rate of field goals between 40 and 49 yards last season was 83 percent. The last time the extra-point conversation rate regularly fell below 90 percent was in the 1930s and early 1940s. That surely would give coaches something to ponder when weighing whether to kick for one point or try for two, with the success rate for two-point conversion attempts typically around 50 percent."

     http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap2000000330411/article/nfl-might-experiment-with-making-extrapoint-attempts-longer

     I don't see why we'd want to go back to having extra point conversions lower than the 90s. I mean why would having a bunch of 12-6 and 20-13 games make things more interesting? The league feels it needs to make the extra point more exciting. I think the other proposal out there-moving the extra point to the 1 yard line-rather than the 15 or the 25 would be much better. 

    "There’s increasing talk at the league meetings this week that the NFL may be ready for a significant rules change that would make two-point conversion attempts much more common."

     "The change is simple: Move extra points from the 2-yard line to the 1-yard line. That wouldn’t have any noticeable change on the success rate of extra point kicks (the difference to an NFL kicker between essentially a 19-yard field goal and a 20-yard field goal is nothing), but it would significantly change how often coaches go for two. From the 2-yard line, where extra points have been since 1994, two-point conversions are successful slightly less than half the time. But from the 1-yard line, two-point conversions would likely be successful more than half the time. That means that most of the time, going for two would have a better expected payoff than kicking the extra point."

      "There’s not currently a specific rules proposal regarding moving extra points to the 1-yard line, but Sal Paolantonio reported on SportsCenter this morning that there’s an undercurrent of movement toward making the change. And NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell told Peter King in today’s Monday Morning Quarterback that there’s a chance of such a change."

     http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/03/23/talk-increases-of-moving-extra-points-to-the-1-yard-line/

    So these two proposals are basically opposite. 

     Basically, as this post shows, I like things that increase offense, and dislike things that decrease them-in any sport. The NBA is another league that went from really exciting-'Showtime'-during the 80s to lower and lower scoring games in the 90s-first more and more teams were failing to score 100 points per game then a lot of teams started scoring under 90 points per game. Today it's better-a good offensive team scores over 100, a bad one under. In the Showtime Era, the good offenses were scoring over 110 and only a few would fail to score 100. 

   P.S. If you prick Bill Bellichick, he will bleed, but he will never let us see that. No matter how you phrase the question, he'll never acknowledge any 'human side' to letting Revis go. Again, this seems cold but really it's the salary cap that makes it 'cold.' 

  Bellichick could do what Jerry Jones did with DeMarco Murray and at least acknowledge he wanted to keep Revis but just felt that the salary cap made it too hard but that's just not his style. It's kind of boring-and rather unsatisfying-listening to his press conferences-but how can you argue with the results?

   But again-the salary cap makes you be 'cold.' The Saints were more sentimental and paid all their 2009 Super Bowl winning stars and this has hurt them in subsequent seasons-the team has regressed year after year since 2009. 

   One remedy to the 'coldness' would be to: get rid of the salary cap-or least relax it-but that would kill the 'competitive balance'-right?

    https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome-psyapi2&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS608US608&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8&q=salary%20cap%20and%20competitive%20balance&oq=salary%20cap%20and%20&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l5.5206j0j1