Let’s take a break from pondering the team’s woeful start
Sure, I could have done yet another question that equates to, “Are you sad the Braves aren’t winning a bunch yet?” but we’ll do something else.
2015 was a bit of a turning point for MLB. Offensive performance was sliding, with little end in sight, for the past half-decade. The past season’s leaguewide wOBA was .310, a level not seen since 1972. Walk rates and ISO were down, strikeouts were up. Attendance wasn’t declining as rapidly as offense, but after a climb to record highs in the mid-aughts, it was stagnating.
Whether intentionally or not, MLB juiced the ball, which caused offense to pick back up, but arguably had a bunch of other downstream consequences, involving setting off a new phase of the inane, uncomfortable arms race between the people tasked with winning (MLB Front Offices) and the people who assigned themselves the charge of maintaining the game’s aesthetics (or whatever, I don’t really know what they’re doing). Since then, we’ve had a bunch of rule modifications, inconsistent run environments, and in the end, something that looked kinda similar to 2014 in 2024 — leaguewide wOBA was the same, but coming from a mix of more walks, way more strikeouts, more power, and despite the restriction on shifts, fewer hits on balls in play. (Oh, and pitchers no longer hitting, which in some ways, makes 2024 even sadder.)
Anyway, with that prelude, what do you think baseball looks like in 2034, or 2035? Is this some level of the new normal, with inconsistencies in the drag coefficient of the ball being the only seasonal variation? Or, are we going to see something even more dramatic? (I’m not even getting into expanded playoffs changing the overall texture of how the league works, but you are more than welcome to do so.)
Daily Notes
Record: 2-9
Yesterday’s wOBA and xwOBA: .342 / .365 (Season rank: 22nd | 20th)
Yesterday’s wOBA and xwOBA allowed: .348 / .307 (Season rank: 22nd | 24th)
Yesterday’s homers: 1
Yesterday’s homers allowed: 2
Record when out-xwOBAing: 1-4 (League: 137-43)
Record when out-xwOBAed: 1-5 (League: 43-137)
Record when out-wOBAing: 2-1 (League: 156-25)
Record when out-wOBAed: 0-8 (League: 25-156)
Record when outhomering: 1-1 (League: 93-24)
Record when outhomered: 0-6 (League: 24-93)