The Evolution of Baseball from the 1998 to 2010

While watching Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN, Dan Shulman asked Joe Morgan why we are seeing a return of the "stolen base" (code word for small ball) in baseball. Morgan's response was "Well, now that they've taken steroids out of the game, people are stealing bases". (paraphrase) To me, I felt like his response was poorly thought out, knee-jerk, and sensationalistic. In other words, par for the course for Morgan. But I'm sure he'll enjoy his back slaps at Cooperstown later in the year for the comment.

First of all, unless Morgan truly believes that Manny was the only guy in MLB still taking steroids, he is either naive, short-sighted, in denial, or has way more confidence in MLB's drug testing than anyone in the world should have. I'm sure he would say, "Hey, that's Manny being Manny."

But enough Morgan bashing- there's a whole 'nother blog for that. The question by Sulman is what I want to focus on because I thought it was a good question. And as you probably have figured out, I believe that steroids have very little, if any to do with it at all. I'm mainly basing that on the fact that I believe that many players are still using them. If my assumption is correct, then that throws Morgan's theory out the window.

So what's going on here? Why has the game changed, or at least why is there a perception of why the game has changed? Put yourself in a time machine and let's go back to 1998, the year that McGwire and Sosa battled for the Great Home Run Chase. And here are my answers to the question, and I say answers because I don't think it's just one thing.

• Pitching is better now, in general. When you arrive to 1998, one of the hottest topics in baseball that year was talk of "the lack of pitching". In 1998, there were very few pitchers that I would consider to be true front line aces. You had the trio in Atlanta- Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz, then you had Randy Johnson, Pedro, Curt Schilling, Kevin Brown, David Cone, Andy Pettitte and then some guys who I'm calling aces, but I'm being a little generous- Al Leiter, and Mike Mussina. You also had some guys who were pretty good but very young like Kerry Wood. Most of the "aces" then were guys like Andy Benes, who while he was a very good pitcher, really falls more into the "workhorse" category. Looking to 2009, we have Tim Lincecum, Brandon Webb, Roy Halladay, Chris Carpenter, Cole Hamels, Johan Santana, Dan Haren, Zack Grienke, Mark Beuhrle, CC Sabathia, Josh Beckett, Justin Verlander, and Cliff Lee. Then on top of that, look at the young pitching talent now- Stephen Strasburg can throw 103 for Heaven's sakes, and then there's David Price, Tommy Hanson, Josh Johnson, Chad Billingsly, Clayton Kershaw, Matt Cain, Rick Porcello, Scott Kazmir, Adam Wainwright, Joba Chamberlain, and Taylor Buchholz. What happened was in the late 90's, pitching was at such a premium, that baseball people realized, "Hey, you can make a ton of money and get to the Big Leagues quickly if you can pitch". Also, scouts started looking at guys like Micah Owings, a very good hitter in college, and developing players like him into pitchers because of the need. Also, baseball instuction in the area of pitching has come a LONG way since 1998, and pitchers are being trained better in high school and Little League, and we're starting to see the benefits of that. Better pitching leads me to my next point, becuase the offense responds to better pitching, how?

• Because the pitching is better, it's forcing teams to try to create more runs. And how do you do this? By playing small ball of course. Whenever a team goes into a game, normally, they know who the pitcher is that they are going to face. They also typically know how good or bad that pitcher is. Another thing that factors into the mindset of the game is who the team is pitching and how good he is. For example, if you have Johan Santana going up against Tim Lincecum, and you're a hitter or manager, your thought process going into the game has to be, "If we can score one or two runs, that might be enough today". That's to make the player's and the manager's mindset going into the game lean more heavily towards bunting, stealing, and doing things like hit and running. Contrast that to 1998 where you may be facing Steve Trachsel and you're pitching Kent Merker. In that case, the thought process is going to be, "We don't need to run ourselves out of innings, because there's a good chance that we're going to get some runs tonight, and we may very well need them."

• The rise of the five-tool player. Does anyone remember the 80's when the big thing was to be a 20/20 guy or a 30/30 guy? Anyone else remember when Jose Canseco broke the 40/40 barrier, and many people considered him to be the best all-around player in the game because of it? Considering Canseco's lack of defense, that's pretty laughable even now. Then Cecil Fielder made his grand return from the Hanshin Tigers in the NBL of Japan in 1991 and he crushed 51 home runs. Then the thought process became, "If you hit 40 home runs, why risk getting hurt running the bases?" That saw the rise of the power hitters, but then in the late 90's, a new term became vogue in baseball. "He's a five-tool player". As we all, know, the five tools are- Power, being able to hit for average, steal bases, have a strong accurate arm, and play very good defense. Because the five-tool players became very attractive, players began to try to hone their skills accordingly to get to the Big Leagues, and eventually get paid more. I think Albert Pujols is a good example of this. When he came into the Big Leagues, he was considered a guy who was going to hit for power and average, and had a pretty good arm, and so he was a third baseman. He also was considered to be average to below average defensively, and was going to be a slow runner. Over the years, what Pujols has done is continue to hit for power and average, still has pretty good arm strength, especially for a first baseman, but now, he has become a Gold-Glove caliber first baseman and now, he has 10 stolen bases to date. If this was 1998, I'm not sure that Pujols would worry so much about the pilfers. (Another word for stolen bases for those stuck in 1998.)

• The evolution of lead off hitters. Back in the 80's, leadoff hitters were pretty much ecpected to get on base and steal bases. Vince Coleman was probably the stereotype of this. Rickey Henderson was the premier leadoff hitter at that time- mainly because he could steal AND hit home runs. What happened in the 90's, the value of the leadoff hitter diminished to the point where guys like Coleman were toiling in AAA. Teams started to want guys that could steal bases and hit for power, like Henderson. Now, a guy like Ian Kinsler is the prototype. Someone who can hit 20 home runs and also steal 20 bases. Most teams are settling for someone who can hit 10 home runs. Because of this evolution, lead off hitters are starting to increse in value.

• The composite bat in college. When in doubt, blame Skip Bertman. 1998 was the height of Gorilla Ball, mainly because of the metal rocket launchers disguised as bats. What happened was MLB was having a hard time evaluating pitchers because they couldn't pitch inside. And the coaches, who call the games for almost all college pitchers unless a pitcher is exceptionally mature and has a high baseball IQ- refused to call pitches inside becuase it would get them beat. As a result pitchers, weren't learning how to pitch inside at the collegiate level, and it was hurting pitching at the professional level. While the composite bats are hardly dead, it has at least made college baseball more like, well baseball.

OK, but what do the numbers say?

Player's with 40 home runs 13 in 1998, 15 on pace to hit 40 in 2009

MLB average for team home runs 169 in 98, 168 in 09

MLB average for team ERA 4.43 in 98, 4.30 in 09

MLB average for team batting .266 in 98, .260 in 09

MLB average for team stolen bases 109 in 98, 104 in 09

Player's with 60 or more home runs 2 in 98, 1 on pace to hit 60 in 09

The disclaimer here is that the 2009 numbers I basically doubled or typed what the numbers were on pace to be since it is the midpoint of the season. I do think it would be interesting to revisit this at the end of the season because there are certainly some things that could change. Interestingly, though, the numbers are strikingly similar. And this could be because of the Baseball Law "Everything evens out in the end". I think what it suggests is that the rise of the stolen base and small ball is more about perception than reality. You have different players now, and in the late 90's you had two players McGwire and Sosa, and you could throw in Ken Griffey, Jr. who ended up with 56 in 1998, and then in later years Barry Bonds into the discussion, leading a highly publicized home run assault. Today, the only player that can even come close to challenging that home run record is Albert Pujols, and he's not even that close to McGwire's pace in 1998. Although, if he does indeed end up with 60 or so, that's only six off of Sosa's mark and that's only three off of what Sosa did the next year, and is far better than most people even in that day. Today, you are seeing players that have different skill sets, and better overall pitching, and I think it's leading to perception rather than reality.