It is tough to be an Astros fan. They’re fifty years old this year, and have never won the World Series. The Astros rarely even make it to post-season play.

I checked at baseball-reference.com, and the strike out rate has also increased significantly in the American League, in which pitchers have very few opportunities to bat.

I can think of two reasons:

1. Much more widespread use of relief pitchers. At any given moment, it’s possible to bring in a fresh pitcher.

I can remember 30-40 years ago when there were just starters and relievers. A reliever might pitch several innings. Nowadays there are all sorts of relief specialists: middle relievers, setup men, and closers. Sometimes a reliever will be brought in to pitch to one specific batter. With computers, it’s possible to analyze in detail how specific pitchers fare against specific batters, and managers take that information into account.

And in the very olden days, a relief pitcher was simply a pitcher who wasn’t good enough to make the starting rotation. Starters weren’t taken out unless they were getting creamed.

2. There are too damn many batters who try to swing for the fences every time up. Whatever happened to Wee Willie Keeler’s “Hit ’em where they ain’t”?

More and more in recent years, I have come to appreciate the “dead ball era” of the early 20th century. In those days, a power hitter was one who hit lots of doubles and triples. Home runs were the rarest kind of hit, and that makes sense if you think about it.

Occam’s Beard Says:
June 15th, 2012 at 1:23 am

So, the real question might be, why has the strike out rate increased?

My guess: pitchers now make essentially zero effort to hit. They’re not paid to hit, and by God, they don’t try to, and don’t even make any pretense of attempting to.

Second, contemporary major leaguers cannot bunt. None of them.

I checked at baseball-reference.com, and the strike out rate has also increased significantly in the American League, in which pitchers have very few opportunities to bat.

From the early 1950s through today, I believe bunting has not been a sufficiently big part of the game so as to effect strikeout rates.

So, I think something else is going on.

No wonder me & mine love it.

J.J. Putz strikes gold with Bieber autograph card

Well said. To those who know what’s going on, chess games can be filled with nail-biting tension, or rock-em, sock-em violence.

I find it annoying that baseball highlights on the TV news consist mainly of home runs.

As one who actually plays the game, I think you’d like this book:

But Didn’t We Have Fun?: An Informal History of Baseball’s Pioneer Era, 1843-1870

It’s an interesting contrast of the early amateur era with the professional game which developed later.