[MFFL]

Interesting article from the NY Times. plffft! [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]
-----------------------------------------------------
July 1, 2001
By MURRAY CHASS

Bats aren't yet turning to sawdust, and pitchers haven't planted flags on the mounds and declared dominance over the diamonds. But Major League Baseball's offense has slumped this season.

Just about halfway through the season, the slump has not been severe enough for officials to start thinking about ways to counter the decline. However, any drop is significant when weighed against the steadily increasing numbers of recent seasons.

Compared with production through June last season, in games through Thursday, runs are down to 9.72 a game from 10.52, home runs (Barry Bonds notwithstanding) have fallen to 2.30 a game from 2.56, and batting average is down to .264 from .272.

Viewed from another perspective, in the first three months of last season, teams scored double-digit runs 292 times. That number this season was 206, or a precipitous drop a shade under 30 percent.

At the same time pitchers are holding down scores, they are walking fewer batters and striking out more. Walks have fallen to 6.68 from 7.67, and strikeouts have risen slightly, to 13.42 a game from 13.05.

Why is this happening? More often than not, baseball people who were asked cited the so-called new strike zone as the primary reason for the reduction in offense. But some managers said an equally, if not more, significant reason is an improvement in pitching. Who would have thought it was possible?

"I don't see a dramatic change in the strike zone," Larry Dierker, the Houston Astros' manager and former major league pitcher, said. "What I see is a significant increase in the pitchers who can throw 95- plus. We're starting to see some good pitchers come into the league. There are more hard throwers. Seems like everyone coming into the league throws 95. Even if you don't have great control, just the sheer raw stuff we're seeing is a significant improvement from a couple years ago."

Managers Bob Boone of Cincinnati and Jeff Torborg of Montreal echoed Dierker's view, saying hard- throwing pitchers are coming out of bullpens and thwarting hitters. It's the nicest thing anyone has said about pitchers in years.

But the attempt to return to the rule-book strike zone was the most talked about explanation. Slowing the offense wasn't the intention of officials, who instructed umpires last winter to enlarge the strike zone vertically and shrink it horizontally, but the reconfigured zone has prompted changes.

More strikes lead to more strikeouts and fewer walks. Fewer walks mean fewer base runners who can score runs. More strikes enable pitchers to get ahead in the count, putting hitters at a disadvantage more often than they have been in recent seasons. Knowing, or at least thinking, that umpires will call pitches above the belt strikes, some hitters have changed their approach at the plate.

"I think that hitters are going to the plate in a more aggressive mode," Mike Hargrove, the Baltimore Orioles' manager, said. "I don't mean they're swinging harder, but they know the high strike is being called and they have to go after it. Consequently, they're swinging at more bad pitches and getting into more pitcher's counts."

Boone said that "some people have struck out on pitches they might want to argue about but that were a strike, where it used to not be a strike."

Detroit Manager Phil Garner said he had not seen much of a change in the strike zone but thought that "subtleness of the threat of the new strike zone might have had an effect."

"Hitters have changed their approach," Garner added. "It seems to me I've seen more strikeouts on balls up. Hitters are chasing balls up that aren't necessarily strikes."

Of the strike zone itself, he said, "We have seen a few umpires who have called the higher strike and a couple who have called the lower part of the strike zone, but on balance I don't see it called much. In some cases they have brought the zone in a little bit. I think there's room for more. They can be more consistent with the higher and bottom part."

As executive vice president for baseball operations in the commissioner's office, Sandy Alderson has directed the effort to move away from a strike zone that had shrunk over the years to a figurative postage stamp. He has instituted a monitoring program to ensure the desired changes are put in effect.

"I think it has not been consistently applied," Alderson said of the strike zone. "I expect to see more consistency, and with that greater consistency I think you'll see more strikes called. My own feeling is there's room for more strikes to be called at the top of the zone, more room at the bottom, and we can be consistent on the inside part of the plate. That's the direction we're pushing the umpires. I think we're doing a good job on outside pitches."

Officials are so serious about having umpires get the strike zone right that, Alderson said, they hold daily conference calls at 11 a.m. to review what transpired in games the previous night. They have electronic help as well.

"One of my players came to me after our second game in Boston," Garner related, "and said: `You know, I've never had the strike zone called as good as I have here. I wonder if this is one of the places where the cameras are.' I found out it was. When I looked at the tapes, I found he was right."

Ralph Nelson, baseball's vice president for umpiring, confirmed that Fenway Park is the first place monitoring cameras have been installed. He said they are being installed at Shea Stadium in New York and will be placed at four other parks.

While officials are monitoring umpires, some managers and coaches are watching pitchers who they believe are contributing to the reduction in offense.

"I don't think it's the strike zone," Leo Mazzone, the celebrated Atlanta Braves pitching coach, said. "I think I'm seeing more good arms in the National League. I think staffs are deeper now. It runs in cycles."

Dierker has long talked about baseball's being cyclical.

"When there wasn't enough hitting, we put in the D.H.," he said. "And now we can't get rid of it when no one wants it. I think there are more good pitchers in the league."

Is this the start of a new pitchers' cycle? "Possibly," Dierker said. "I think it's a recent phenomenon. Whether more guys come along and you can call it a cycle, I don't know. We'll have to see. But with kids like Roy Oswalt and Tim Redding and Wade Miller, we have more firepower than we had before."

Boone and Torborg did not discount the change in the strike zone as a reason for lowered scoring, but they put at least as much emphasis on the development of hard-throwing young pitchers.

"We've seen it in the bullpens in our division," Boone said of the National League Central.

Torborg, who became the Expos' manager a month ago, concurred with Boone's bullpen observation. "Way back," he said, "guys spent time in the minors learning to throw a breaking ball. Now guys with real live arms who might have trouble with the breaking ball are brought up sooner and are used out of the bullpen. They throw as hard as they can as long as they can."

Garner sees nothing wrong with the offensive de-escalation. "I think there was a time when we needed more offense," he said. "Now we don't need more offense. We need a better-played game."