MLB hitters are on pace to hit nearly 500 more homers this season than ever before.
Entering play Wednesday, Major League hitters have combined to hit 2,701 home runs in 2017. That puts them on a pace for about 6,186 longballs on the season, a total that would shatter the previous record high of 5,693 from 2000, in the thick of the sport’s so-called “steroids era.”
This post exists mostly just to tell you that. I
mentioned it on Monday in a post about things to know about the 2017 season, but the uptick is so outrageous and so unprecedented, at least since the dawn of baseball’s live-ball era in the 1920s, that it feels like it merits a more detailed examination. If you’re looking for any sort of definitive conclusions as to what’s behind the sudden surge, though, I must warn you in advance that this post offers none of them.
The stark increase in home runs began right around the All-Star break in 2015. It continued into 2016, when hitters combined for 5,610 homers — second most in history, behind 2000. Last season, 111 players hit 20 or more homers — the most ever, and only the third year in the sport’s history and the first time since 2000 in which over 100 players finished with 20 homers or more. This year, some 125 players are on track to hit at least 20, and that’s not even accounting for the long-held understanding that home run paces tend to pick up in the hotter summer months.
There’s a hundred other ways one could express it, but this is the main thing: MLB hitters are simply hitting way, way more homers than ever before. More guys are hitting lots of homers and lots of guys are hitting more homers. Homers, homers, homers. I’m not here to tell you it’s bad. Home runs remain dope.
But it seems so far beyond the expected that it requires some explanation or at least some context. There are a handful of theories as to what’s happening, and I’ll list some of them here. This author’s best guess, though, is that it’s some combination of multiple factors including some mentioned below and some that few of us have even considered yet.
I’m just being real with you: I really don’t know what’s going on, and I’m not wholeheartedly or even halfheartedly endorsing any of the items below unless noted in the text. What follows here are just some popular narratives to explain the surge:
1. The ball is juiced: This one may sound ridiculous, but I’m putting it first because I’m growing increasingly convinced it could be true. At
The Ringer last week,
Ben Lindbergh and sabermetrician Mitchel Lichtman presented some pretty compelling evidence that not only do baseballs used in 2016 travel further by about 7.1 feet on average than those used before the All-Star break in 2015, but that the corresponding difference in exit speed is just about exactly enough to account for the uptick in homers based on research elsewhere. It’s
a good read and you should check it out. And this theory might be the one best suited to explain why the increase in home runs would begin at an All-Star Break and not before any one season or gradually over time.
2. The players are juiced: What hath Mark McGwire wrought? The sad truth about Major League Baseball in 2017 is that every breakout campaign will come with suspicions, somewhere, that the player is using steroids. The league tests vigilantly now, which was hardly the case in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but there will always be performance-enhancing substances that are out in front of the test. And, yes: Some guys playing Major League Baseball right now are undoubtedly taking PEDs, because there are always going to be some guys taking PEDs as long as baseball and PEDs exist. But I tend to think the widespread stigmatization of their use, especially among outspoken players and the players’ union, means there’s no way the home-run increase could be explained by the emergence of some new wonder drug.
3. Changes in approach: This is another one that comes up a lot as teams, players, media and fans gain access to data provided by Statcast. A handful of players, including prominent stars like Kris Bryant and seemingly out-of-nowhere power hitters like Justin Turner, have made it clear that they are attempting to hit fly balls — a practice that breaks with the long-held belief that line drives should be a batter’s goal. But despite all the anecdotal evidence for the fly-ball revolution, leaguewide fly-ball rates are no higher than they were from 2006-2011.
One possible solution to that mystery: If pitchers are throwing more sinkers and more pitches down in the strike zone in an effort to yield more ground balls, hitters’ emphasis on hitting fly balls could exist as an adjustment of sorts to that trend. And attempting to put loft into a sinking pitch might lead to more hard-hit fly balls if not necessarily more fly balls total.
Additionally, the leaguewide strikeout rate is on pace to set a new record high for the tenth straight season. All the home runs could represent the byproduct of a generation of hitters trained to “sell out for power,” worrying less about making contact and more about hitting the ball harder when they do connect.
4. Hitters are just stronger: This is probably true. Athletes across all pro sports appear bigger, stronger and faster than ever before, and there’s no doubt the physique of your average utility infielder in 2017 looks a whole lot different than it did in 1987. From 1901 to 1991, there were only nine total players who took the field in Major League Baseball at a listed weight of 250 pounds or more. This year alone there have been 50. In addition, better understanding of offseason conditioning and nutrition (not to mention the fact that big-league players no longer have to work regular jobs in the winter) likely means fitter baseball players across the board.
But home runs as an indication of increasingly strong players would likely increase gradually, and there’s nothing terribly gradual about the current spike. It’s not like every dude just doubled his bench press all of a sudden in July of 2015. Plus, pitchers are stronger now, too.
5. Faster pitches mean harder contact: This one comes up sometimes, but this one I feel pretty comfortable dismissing out of hand. Yes, Major League pitchers throw harder than ever before, and yes, a squared-up 99-mph fastball is going to travel further than an 85-mph pitch hit the exact same way. But 99-mph fastballs are a whole lot harder to square up. No one’s asking Aroldis Chapman to be their Home Run Derby pitcher.
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