This season has gotten off to a bizarre start. It's only been about 10-12 games, but the trends are very strange. For all of 2005, this was the team ERA breakdowns: (ERA, # of Teams) 0-2.99 ERA: 0 3.00-3.99 ERA: 11 4.00-4.99 ERA: 15 5.00-5.99 ERA: 4 The lowest ERA in baseball was St. Louis at 3.49, while the highest was Kansas City at 5.49. This year: 0-2.99: 1 (NY Mets) 3-3.99: 4 4-4.99: 11 5-5.99: 10 6-6.99: 3 7+: 1 You could chalk it up to small sample size, but then you'd generally have some really good pitching teams so far as well. Offense is up across the board in the majors, and the summer months are supposed to be the ones that are good for offense. Superstar pitchers all over the league are getting destroyed. Can anyone think of any reasons for this bizarre explosion?
Pitchers used steriods too... but they generally get a free pass from the media. That, and the fact that the AL just has a bunch of STACKED lineups, and they also have great pitchers (but their stats looks miserable in that league). The NL has watered down lineups, as well as watered down (to a lesser extent) pitching.
I dunno - I know's its only been a few starts, but check out some of these numbers: Santana: 5.73 ERA Peavy: 7.36 Pettitte: 8.18 Colon: 12.86 Smoltz: 6.75 Myers: 5.40 Zito: 8.59 Patterson: 6.30 Schmidt: 5.79 Sabathia: 11.57 Hudson: 12.38 Millwood: 7.36 These are all supposed to be top-30 type pitchers... Many of them don't normally have more than 1 or 2 games as bad as they've had this season so far. It transcends the leagues, the ballparks, etc. They said on ESPN that 48 homeruns were hit today - that's insane. But it's been going on all season so far. There are two *teams* that batting over 0.320.
Maybe the batters really want to prove that the sport is *clean* ? Or pitchers are off the juice.....
0-2.99 (METS) the mets are gonna win the world series!!!!!!!! (i know we havent played anyone yet, but we've sucked for 6 years. baseball is finally exciting again)
Santana is the best pitcher in baseball(along with Halladay), he'll turn it around. Myers was never really good. I don't even know who the hell Patterson is Schmidt was done 2 years ago, I honestly think he used the juice. I'd bet money on it. Sabathia was never great, on his way, but not there yet. Hudson was shown the door in the AL Rangers are pathetic, Millwood can never be counted on as a good pitcher. Zito and Colon, you have to feel bad for them. Having to face Murderers Row Part 554.
IF these are the best pitchers in baseball, then I will take this guy any day. Roy Oswalt (2-0) 3.14 era.
Are we sure they havent messed with the balls again to counteract all the steroid talk? Wouldn't surprise me in the least. MLB in the antithesis of integrity.
I'm not sure what this statement means at all. I do chalk this up to small sample size. I bet you could find whacked-out stats during a 2-week period in a number of seasons (and using a number of different stats). So if I do chalk it up to small sample size...then you're saying there are also some really good-pitching teams so far? One doesn't relate to the other. Small sample size basically says that there can be outliers on both sides (good and bad) and that the average and pretty much everything about the stats is skewed, since you need more time for the average to show itself.
(I said "you'd have some good pitching teams", not "you have some good pitching teams") I'm saying that if you had a small sample size, you'd tend to have it more scattered, but generally average out the same (some great pitching teams, some great hitting teams) - but so far this year, outside of 1 team (NY Mets) it's significantly skewed towards high offense. And ordinarily, April is a slow month for offense because of the colder weather, so if anything, it should be skewed towards better pitching which would then average out during the summer months. Just saying small sample size explains a single team, but it doesn't explain the entire league experiencing this phenomenon.
There's a new superjuice that as of yet cannot be detected by any drug test. The mouse is always two steps ahead of the cat.
I know you're kidding, but from what I understand, simple steroids like Human Growth Hormone require blood tests to detect, which MLB doesn't do. So as far as we know, all the players could be on HGH and there'd be no way to know.
HGH isn't a steroid...They are two totally different things. I get furious when writers think they are the same.
scoring has seemed crazy this year since day one. just huge numbers going up left and right. it will definitely be interesting to see if they can keep it up. in my 9 team fantasy league the lowest ERA is 3.21 and one person is up at 6.66, which are both very high numbers (someone usually jumps out to some incredible start but not this year). and with only 9 teams you should be talking about the cream of the crop in terms of pitching, not just the average. luckily i haven't started millwood or colon yet so i've avoided any huge hits so far.
That's actually a good point. I think they may have made the balls tighter, causing more bounce. I was listening to the radio today and a couple guys talked about this. how the ball seems to be shooting back towards the pitcher faster than normal, they don't have much time to react.
This post stands out the most to me. I find it hard to trust anything baseball does - thankfully that has not cahnged my love for the game. For all the self righteousness baseball has been showing lately they loved having steriod charged players. Baseball benefited from Steriods and I won't be shocked if they now doctor the balls in order to give it more jump. More offense is good for baseball.
