Baseball’s Great Loss

BY KEVIN KERNAN

Where have all the hitters gone?

Long time passing

Where have all the hitters gone?

Long time ago

Where have all the hitters gone?

Young Ivy League Nerds have changed them, every one

Oh, when will they ever learn

Oh, when will they ever learn

With apologies to Peter, Paul and Mary that is my ode to the death of hitting in Major League Baseball. You have seen the numbers; they are beyond frightening. And if not for superstars like Aaron Judge it would be even worse.

Only 10 players are hitting over .300 and Judge was third in the majors at .324. Bobby Witt was on top with a .346 mark, then Steven Kwan at .333. Only three NL hitters were batting over .300 with Shohei Ohtani the top NL batter at .306, sixth best.

There were way too many hitters hitting under .200.

You have seen all the strikeouts. There have been more strikeouts (28,555) than hits (27,888) this season. As a point of reference, 20 years ago in 2004, there were 31,828 strikeouts to 44,522 hits.

You have seen the videos of Jeff Frye and the subsequent arguments with those defending the loss of hitting in the major leagues as if hitting is not important.

That is what they do.

First, they devalue batting average, then they destroy batting average with a style of hitting that produces less contact, less action and act like it is all normal, the new way baseball should be played.

Don’t fall for it. Their default answer is “the pitching is better than ever.’’

No it’s not.

Again, don’t fall for it.

Pity the poor White Sox fan. It is going to be a long run of ineptitude.

There is nothing normal about the style of play in baseball in 2024.

There is nothing normal about the White Sox, who have all of 28 wins, mostly because they can’t hit. The White Sox are hitting .216 as a team and their on-base percentage is an equally pathetic .276.

Pity the poor White Sox fan. It is going to be a long run of ineptitude.

The art of hitting took another major – but not unexpected – blow, when injury-riddled Mike Trout was shut down for the season because of multiple knee issues.

Mike Trout used to be the face of baseball, now he is the face of injuries.

Aaron Judge has become the better draft pick.

Since Trout came into the league, he was regarded as the best draft pick in decades, taken with the 25th pick of the 2009 draft. Judge was taken 32nd overall in the 2013 draft. Since 2021, Trout has played in only 266 games, is batting .276 with 76 home runs and 156 RBIs. Over that same span Judge has played in 523 games, is hitting .298 with 298 home runs and 675 RBIs.

On Wednesday I was speaking to a scout and he causally mentioned exit velocity, the hitting Holy Grail of this era … but not in the way you expected to hear about exit velo.

“The new definition of exit velocity is the speed that people are leaving the ballpark after watching unwatchable baseball,’’ the scout told BallNine.

This was the week of the Manfred Bowl – the White Sox facing the A’s in Oakland. There was an announced crowd of 5,867 Tuesday as the White Sox ended their 21-game losing streak with a 5-1 win. Seven players in that game were hitting under .212.

Only two major league teams are hitting over .260, the Padres lead baseball with a .265 average, I call it the Luis Arraez Factor. Since coming over from the Bendix Marlins in a trade, the Padres, to a degree, are trying to emulate the two-time batting champion, trying to make more contact with the baseball and Jurickson Profar, who is hitting .302, is leading that charge.

The Yankees are the only team in baseball with two hitters batting over .300, Judge and Juan Soto (.306). They both hit for power too, so the Yankees are way ahead of the field.

But we all know what is going on in the major leagues. I needed to dig a little deeper on what is ailing hitting.

“You have to look at the numbers in Low A,’’ one scout told me. “Guys just can’t hit and a lot of it is because of the way they are being taught.’’

It is ugly and I’ve seen some Florida State League games this summer. I just didn’t want to pick on Low A, so I looked at three leagues: the Florida State League, a league that got demoted when Rob Manfred took over the minor leagues in 2021, High-A South Atlantic League and AA Southern League. No need to look at AAA for a few reasons, including the fact that AAA is a shuttle league because of the way front offices bounce players, and particularly pitchers, on the shuttle from AAA to the majors and back again. It’s a yo-yo league now more than ever.

A widget comes up, another widget goes down.

The scout was 100 percent correct about Low A. I could only bring myself to look at the numbers from one Low A League, so I picked the Florida State League; why reward bad behavior and bad planning and execution by wasting my time looking for trouble?

The good news for Tigers fans is that Lakeland is leading the FSL in hitting. The bad news is Lakeland is hitting all of .243.

Granted, that is much better than the major league Tigers, under lacrosse expert Scott Harris, who are hitting .230. The Tigers on-base percentage is a dreadful .295. Only the Bendix Marlins (.292) and Lost Souls White Sox (.276) are worse in the on-base percentage department. My favorite on-base percentage numbers though, belong to the Mariners.

How good is the Mariners pitching, especially their starters – they are battling for first place in the tepid AL West despite a .301 on-base percentage to go along with their “robust’’ .218 batting average.

Hello Randy Arozarena! Randy owns a .390 on-base percentage with the Mariners, so he is helping. You know who else who has a .301 team on-base percentage? The Pirates. The Pirates may be following the Mariners plan. They certainly are wasting rookie phenom Paul Skenes’ season by not adding any ability to get on base and score runs.

Back to the Florida State League where not shockingly, the Pirates affiliate in Bradenton, is at the bottom of the batting average pack with a .209 mark. Consistency is the mark of a great organization. I didn’t want to look at on-base percentage because I didn’t want the Pirates faithful (there are some, you know) to run to the cooler for an Iron City six pack. Fittingly, the marketing people at Iron City beer know what they are dealing with – offering an Pirates themed IC Light, only 95 calories per serving.

Tampa, the Yankees affiliate, is hitting .239 while St. Lucie, home of future Mets, is hitting .225.

Over in the High-A South Atlantic League, Jersey Shore, the Phillies affiliate, is leading the pack with a .251 mark. Wilmington, the Nats affiliate, is at the bottom of the league with a .214 mark.

Just for fun, I went back 10 years to check out the batting averages of this league in 2014, 11 teams were hitting over .251, which is the high-water mark now. Asheville was at the top with a .292 mark. But that is when there were hitting coaches who preferred and taught contact. Exit velocity was a thing, but it was not The Thing. Strikeouts were still looked upon as bad, but things were changing because Nerds were getting their claws into player development.

So let’s jump to AA and the Southern League. Montgomery (Rays affiliate) is at the top of the batting average list with a .257 mark, so in the three leagues checked, the top average ranged from .243 to .257, not exactly offensive fireworks material. Chattanooga (Reds) was at the bottom of the list with a horrendous .211 team batting average. Pensacola (the Bendix Marlins) was next near the bottom at .221.

I also spoke this week with a longtime minor league coach who was coaching in 2014 and he said the whole style of coaching has changed because before a game then coaches were actually running players through their paces, batting practice was a serious subject, not just trying to pull everything with a mighty “A’’ swing and fundamentals like fielding, base-running, situational hitting were an everyday practice thing.

“We did a lot of extra work,’’ he said of early practice before BP.

It’s not like that now. Sure, there are hitting labs, iPads, a focus on exit velo and lift for home runs – but the art of hitting has taken a back seat to the chasing of exit velo. “Hitters and pitchers are now robots,’’ he said. “MLB fans are being cheated of the skills these players have because of the Masters of the Keyboard. They are not being taught to hit. They are striking out, pulling off the ball. They don’t talk about hitting, it’s now a science class, it’s about a pitcher’s spin rate and angles, that’s not going to help a hitter learn to hit.’’

Ted Williams believed in the Science of Hitting, not the science of spin rate.

As coaches you have to give the front office gurus what they want to keep your job, and they want metrics. They want numbers. They want exit velo and lift.

They don’t want baseball. They don’t talk about hitting.

So here we are with the worst batting averages imaginable, more strikeouts than hits, not only at the major league level but in the lower minors too, where the the finer points of the game are supposed to be taught to the next generation of hitters, another lost generation of hitters.

Have at it, boys, and do not forget to work on your various celebrations if you do manage to reach base.