Free Baseball's Best Decade by Carroll Conklin

teams are scoring more runs than ever before, but major leaguers are also striking out at an unprecedented rate. Total strikeouts are naturally higher, as there are nearly twice the number of teams now compared to the 1920s through 1950s. A more accurate measure from one decade to the next is strikeouts per nine innings. While hits per 9 innings have leveled off and scoring is down less than a run per game from the average in the 1930s, strikeouts per 9 innings in the 1990s and 2000s were more than double that of the 1920s. This would suggest that swinging for the fences hasn’t necessarily produced more runs, but has resulted in more strikeouts.
     

     
    Even though the changes to the strike zone and pitching mound height instituted prior to the 1969 season were supposed to make hitters more competitive and the games higher scoring, and seemingly accomplished just that almost immediately, it would appear that pitchers are again getting the upper hand, at least through the 2000s … and in spite of the fact that the home run total for the 2000s was 5 times that of the 1920s and nearly 4 times the total of the 1930s. Strikeouts are definitely on the increase. Hits per 9 innings are still significantly short of the averages achieved during the 1920s and 1930s.
    Perhaps it’s true that the pitchers of the 1990s and the present have become bigger and stronger and generally harder throwing than those of earlier times. (It would be interesting to see how Bobby Shantz, the 139-pound American League MVP of 1952, would fare against today’s hitters … or if he would even be given the opportunity. Or would Whitey Ford , based on his physical attributes, be able to attract a second look from a major league scout?) And there may be 2 other factors that would help account for the major league “boom” in strikeouts over the 4 previous decades. First there’s the slider, the breaking pitch that batters before the 1960s didn’t have to swing at. Without the slider, a pitcher who couldn’t master a true curve ball was forced to survive on a fast ball and possibly a change-up and hopefully good control … good enough, at least, to keep the ball in play. Ban the slider (not recommending that, just making a point) and watch major league batting averages zoom to 1920s levels. (Would Tony Gwynn and George Brett have been baseball’s last .400 hitters if there had been no slider? And would Ted Williams, baseball’s last .400 hitter who almost certainly never faced a slider in his prime, have been able to adjust if the slider were being pitched back in 1941 and hit .400 anyway? Yea, probably.)
     

    The relief specialist – particularly the “closer” – emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
     
    One final difference in pitching before and after the 1960s was the rise of the relief specialist. From the 1920s through the 1950s, the bullpen was the place where you generally found two kinds of pitchers: the old-timer on the downside of his career who pitched on know-how and guts more than stuff and from whom you hoped to get an occasional good outing; and the youngster using the bullpen as a stepping-stone to the starting rotation. You expected your starting pitcher to go deep into the game and even complete a majority of his starts. Relief work was mostly “mopping up” when the game was probably out of hand and you needed arms for innings. In a critical situation, you grabbed your ace or another pitcher between starts for maybe an inning or two, but not enough to disrupt your starting rotation.
    The relief specialist – particularly the “closer” – emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s: Elroy Face winning 18 games in relief for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1959; Luis Arroyo saving 29 game while winning 15 more in relief in 1961; Dick Radatz saving 100 games from 1962 to 1965 while winning 49 more and striking out more than a batter per inning; Hoyt Wilhelm making 542 relief appearances with 152 saves during the 1960s.