A year ago, warning bells rang out across the league as attendance dropped precipitously in April, down nearly 3,000 fans per game from the previous season and about 2,500 fans per game from the April average from 2014 through 2017. The rough April came on the heels of a 2017 season that finished rather meagerly as well. From 2014 through 2016, total average attendance at the end of the season gained over 1,300 fans on average compared to the April numbers. But in 2017, the league added fewer than 500 fans per game in the summer months, ruining a once-promising season at the gate. A lackluster summer followed by a disappointing April was worrisome, though the weather might have been a factor. As it turned out, the summer made up a lot of the ground lost in April, but attendance still fell by 1,237 fans per game. This April has been met by slightly better weather, but attendance has not improved, and without a great summer, we might see a pretty big loss at the end of the season.

Before comparing previous seasons, here’s home attendance per game by team so far this season.

We see mostly what we would expect near the top, with the Dodgers, Cardinals, and Yankees checking in with the best attendance. The Dodgers and Cardinals have claimed the top two spots at the end of the season in each of the previous six seasons except for last year when the Yankees overtook the Cardinals for second-place. Philadelphia is benefiting from a decent record a season ago and a big offseason this winter, while the Cubs and Red Sox are still doing well, though they are limited by the size of their parks when it comes to attendance. They more than make up for it with the highest prices in the game. Milwaukee is hardly seen as a large market, but Brewers fans have long done a good job supporting their team, particularly when the team is successful. The most surprising absence from the top of this list is the Giants, who averaged over 41,000 fans per game from 2011 through 2017 and still had a fairly robust 39,000 fans last season but have dropped off pretty significantly. The Giants are coming off a very good run, and it is possible their fans and stadium might insulate them a little during a rebuild, but they will have to figure out how much losing they can stomach; the Phillies had half as many fans attend games in 2015 compared to 2010, and the Giants could be facing even bigger drops the next few years.

This next graph shows the change in attendance from last April.

The Phillies created a fair bit of excitement in the offseason with trades and free agency, including signing Bryce Harper, and that excitement has translated to the box office. Nearly 200,000 more fans watched the Phillies this April compared to a year ago. The increase is bigger than the total attendance for five teams this season. A year ago, the Pirates traded away Andrew McCutchen and Gerrit Cole and saw a pretty significant attendance drop. Contending in July saw a decent increase as the season wore on and that has carried over to this season. The Yankees have seen more growth as they return to perennial contender status. Oakland and Milwaukee are seeing some gains after solid 2018 campaigns, while the Padres and Mets are seeing an uptick after making some big offseason moves.

At the other end of the graph, Houston is seeing a dip, but they were coming off a World Series win in 2017 that likely goosed attendance last year. Cincinnati not seeing more fans is a bit disappointing given their moves in the offseason. The Angels really need to start winning, though their overall attendance numbers are pretty good. Baltimore and Kansas City are seeing drops commensurate with their rebuilding status. The Twins were supposed to be good last season, but disappointed. They are off to a good start and it wouldn’t be a surprise if they end up with more fans than they did a year ago. The Blue Jays drew extremely well when they were in contention, but do much worse when they aren’t in the running. The team did see about 18,000 more fans during Vladimir Guerrero, Jr.’s debut weekend series compared to how they did for a weekend series against the Rays two weeks prior.

While the factors for attendance are numerous, it is possible that teams’ plans for rebuilding are creating more big drops than in season’s past. From 2013 through 2017, there were a total of six attendance decreases exceeding 5,000 fans per game over the previous season; there were six of those drops in 2018 alone, and we might be looking at two more this year. As for how much April numbers presage those at the end of the season, here’s how last year’s April attendance looks when compared to the end of the season.

There are some minor outliers, but April numbers tend to do a pretty good job lining up with the rest of the year if you include a small increase from the April numbers. Last season’s poor April attendance numbers were bailed out a little by good numbers the rest of the way, but that is a bit of an outlier compared to the last few seasons, as the table below shows.

If we only see an increase of 1,000 fans per game at the end of the season compared to April, baseball is going to lose more than three million fans in attendance. It’s possible slow winters have dulled early-season excitement for some fans, though some of the most active teams have seen pretty big rises this April. Some teams’ fans might be taking a wait-and-see attitude while others are simply staying away. Another factor in baseball’s overall attendance lag could be the lack of new stadiums, which tend to send attendance upward for a few years. The graph below shows attendance per game, and the number of new stadiums over the past 30 years. As new stadiums have stagnated, so has attendance.

Attendance is still well above where it was in the 1980s, and it grew by 20% in the 15 years following the strike as a new stadium was built basically every year. But those gains have stopped, and are showing some signs of decline that very well could continue this season. Whatever teams are doing, whether it is the slow winters or the lack of expected competitiveness or the price of tickets, it isn’t attracting more fans at the ballpark. The teams that are doing well this season compared to last had active winters or just won a bunch of games. The sport needs to do whatever it can to cultivate new fans and to get them out to the ballpark because without them, the television money that has made baseball less dependent on attendance will eventually dry up as well. Generating excitement about a team, through wins and activity in the offseason, is the best way to get more people to buy tickets.

The 2019 season, already something less than a banner one for Corey Kluber, went from bad to worse on Wednesday night in Miami. A 102-mph comebacker off the bat of the Marlins’ Brian Anderson struck the 33-year-old righty on his right forearm — OUCH! — reportedly causing a non-displaced fracture of his right ulna. It’s the second major injury to hit Cleveland’s rotation, at a moment when the team already finds itself looking up at the Twins in the AL Central standings.

Trailing 3-1 with two outs and nobody on in the fifth inning, Kluber couldn’t get out of the way fast enough on Anderson’s line drive. He had the presence of mind to attempt glove-shoveling the ball to first base after being struck, and while he didn’t show signs of being in significant pain when the Indians’ training staff examined him after the play, he departed immediately nonetheless:

X-rays taken at Marlins Park revealed the fracture. Kluber will be reexamined in Cleveland on Thursday, at which point a timetable for his return will be determined. Since he’ll be shut down from throwing while the fracture heals, he figures to miss at least a month. His streak of five straight 200-inning seasons, the majors’ second-longest behind Max Scherzer, is probably over. Read the rest of this entry »

Jesse Winker had a strange April at the plate. The Cincinnati Reds outfielder came into May with eight home runs — that’s already a career high — and a frustratingly-low .200 BABIP. As a result, his slash line is a far cry from what it was over his first two big-league seasons. A .299/.397/.460 hitter coming into the current campaign, Winker is slashing a more-akin-to-slugger .228/.311/.511.

What kind of numbers can we expect going forward? At age 25, with 574 big-league plate appearances under his belt, Winker profiles as a player well capable of merging the best of both worlds — on-base excellence and pop. That’s exactly what he’s looking to do. The sweet-swinging native of Orlando doesn’t want to be boxed in as a hitter. He wants to do everything.

Winker discussed his multi-dimensional approach when the Reds visited PNC Park in early April.

———

David Laurila: How have you evolved as a hitter? I’m thinking of both your approach, and your bat path.

Jesse Winker: “I use the ball to tell me where my bat path is at. The ball gives me the best feedback I need for that. What’s changed the most for me is the knowledge I’ve gained about opposing pitchers. That, and what I’m trying to feel at the plate. I’m more aware of how I’m feeling in the box, and what I’m trying to do.”

Laurila: What do you mean by ‘what I’m trying to feel at the plate’? Read the rest of this entry »

Take a look at a 2019 WAR leaderboard and you’ll see some familiar names at the top. Cody Bellinger is having a whale of a season. Christian Yelich is hitting like Barry Bonds and is somehow second in the majors in baserunning runs as well. Mike Trout — well, you know Mike Trout. Look a little closer though, and you might notice something strange. There are four shortstops in the top 10 for WAR this year, and they’re not the usual suspects. Paul DeJong, Elvis Andrus, Jorge Polanco, and Javier Báez are all having great seasons so far, and if you had them as the four best shortstops in baseball this year, you’re a better prognosticator than I am.

Cast your eyes a little further down the board and you might see an interesting trend. Marcus Semien is 11th in WAR. Tim Anderson, Trevor Story, Xander Bogaerts, and Adalberto Mondesi are in the top 25, and Fernando Tatis Jr. isn’t far behind. Perennial stalwarts Andrelton Simmons, Corey Seager, and Carlos Correa are off to good starts. Shortstop, in fact, has produced more WAR than any other position this year.

Now, to some extent, that’s a referendum on how important shortstop is defensively. Only catcher has a higher positional adjustment than shortstop, and as a result only catchers have been worth more defensive runs this year. However, dismissing the prevalence of shortstops atop the WAR leaderboard as a defense-based illusion sells this current crop short. We could very well be looking at the best-hitting shortstop season of all time.

Let’s start at the very top with wRC+. This year’s shortstop class has produced a 107 wRC+ so far. That isn’t the actual best in baseball history, but it’s second only to 1874, and hoo boy are stats from 1874 weird. In that season, shortstops walked .9% of the time, struck out 1.2% of the time, and delivered a batting line of .305/.311/.372 in only 660 games. Let’s be reasonable here and throw out everything before the turn of the century. Cut those out, and the leaderboard looks like this:

2019 shortstops are on top, and it isn’t particularly close. Strip out everything pre-integration, and the recent rise of slugging shortstops jumps out even more:

Ask most baseball fans for the best shortstop-hitting season in history, and they’ll point to 2002. This was indeed a year of great shortstop hitters — Alex Rodriguez hit .300/.392/.623 on his way to a 10-WAR season, and Derek Jeter, Nomar Garciaparra, and Miguel Tejada all had sterling years. That’s all well and good — it was a top 10 season on the above leaderboard, after all — but 2002 also had 585 plate appearances of Neifi Perez’s .236/.260/.303 line, as well as a shockingly low-offense season from Rockies shortstop Juan Uribe, who hit .240/.286/.341 while playing half of his games at Coors.

This season has its fair share of laggards (Brandon Crawford is slugging .212), but it also has 16 shortstops with a batting line at or above league average. Freddy Galvis is hitting .297/.317/.485 and is the 14th-best-hitting shortstop this year. That 114 wRC+ would have been sixth-best in 2002. The depth of shortstop right now is simply stunning. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about the Hall of Famers Mike Trout just surpassed in WAR (featuring a story about Goose Goslin and Joe Cronin) and Trout’s recent improvements in plate discipline, then answer listener emails about Cody Bellinger’s extreme hot streak, whether most baseball fans notice the rising strikeout rate, a Statcast conspiracy theory, when it makes the most sense to trade Madison Bumgarner (and other players), and the level at which the best pitcher in baseball would be favored to throw a perfect game in every outing, plus a Stat Blast about pitchers hitting in high-leverage situations.

Audio intro: The Stroppies, "Better Than Before"
Audio outro: The Bees, "Hot One!"

Link to Sam on Trout’s April
Link to Adler on Trout’s April
Link to Jay on Trout compared to other Hall of Famers
Link to Sam on Trout’s 2012
Link to highest-WAR months
Link to Devan Fink on Bellinger
Link to Ben on strikeouts
Link to Sam on extra innings
Link to Dave on the cost of wins in July
Link to Dave on valuing relievers in the postseason
Link to video of Proctor’s walk-off
Link to preorder The MVP Machine

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On Tuesday night in Arizona, CC Sabathia claimed a little slice of baseball history. With his strikeout of the Diamondbacks’ John Ryan Murphy, the 38-year-old Yankee became just the 17th pitcher to reach 3,000 for his career, the first since John Smoltz on April 22, 2008, and just the third southpaw ever, after Steve Carlton and Randy Johnson. It’s a milestone worthy of celebration, a testament to longevity, dominance, and tenacity. It’s also inextricably a product of this high-strikeout era, a point worth considering when placing Sabathia’s accomplishment in context.

But first, to savor the moment. Sabathia, who entered the night three strikeouts short of 3,000, collected all three in the second inning, first freezing David Peralta looking at a sinker, then whiffing Christian Walker on a high cutter. After yielding a solo homer to Wilmer Flores and an infield single to Nick Ahmed — the latter on an 0-2 changeup well outside the strike zone — he induced Murphy (who caught Sabathia’s 2,500th strikeout in 2015) to chase an 84.2 mph changeup:

Alas, while Diamondbacks starter Zack Greinke — himself a potential 3,000 strikeout club member, more on which below — held the banged-up Yankee lineup to a single run over 7.2 innings, Flores also added a fourth-inning RBI double off Sabathia. The big lefty departed on the short end of a 2-1 score, and the Yankees ultimately lost, 3-1, putting a mild damper on the celebration.

Of the major traditional milestones among pitchers and hitters, 3,000 strikeouts is the least common. Thirty-two players have notched at least 3,000 hits, and 27 have swatted 500 home runs. On the pitching side, 24 pitchers have collected 300 wins. Nearly all of the players who have reached any of those round numbers have been elected to the Hall of Fame, with the exceptions generally related to performance-enhancing drugs and other bad behavior. Among the members of the 3,000 strikeout club who have preceded Sabathia, only Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling remain outside, for reasons besides on-field performance. This could very well be the big man’s ticket to Cooperstown. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

By now, most baseball fans are probably aware of Cody Bellinger’s start to the 2019 season. Through 31 games and 132 plate appearances, Bellinger has put up an almost-immortal .431/.508/.890 slash line, with a 256 wRC+, swatting 14 home runs, drawing 19 walks and striking out just 15 times.

He’s leading baseball in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, wOBA, wRC+, home runs, RBI, and runs scored. (He’s even stolen five bases so far this year, good for 15th.) As the calendar has now officially turned, Bellinger has tied the record for most home runs before May 1, and has set the record for most RBI before May 1.

Now, this season, baseball’s March 28 Opening Day was the earliest that it has been in history, giving Bellinger (and, Christian Yelich, who also tied the home run record) a few more games than their historical counterparts to set these marks. And, as we know, more games equals more opportunities to pad one’s numbers, especially counting stats like home runs and RBIs.

(Warning: I’m about to talk some about RBI. I also know that RBI isn’t an especially illuminating stat. I am writing about this for historical sake, so just bear with me.)

Consider this: Bellinger set his RBI record on April 29, his 30th game of the season. Mark McGwire and Juan Gonzalez — who previously shared the RBI-prior-to-May-1 record with 36, each doing so in 1998 — had only played 25 and 24 games, respectively, upon reaching that pinnacle. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last decade, hitters have been fighting a losing battle against incredibly talented pitchers who throw at higher velocities with even more effective offspeed and breaking pitches. Faced with the increase in talent and velocity on the pitching side, position players have done their best to adapt. The emphasis on launch angle, so as to hit balls harder and farther to get an extra base hit, is a fight against hitters’ inability to take the ball the other way or string together rallies, which are increasingly blunted by the strikeouts. Hitting an 89 mph fastball on the outer edge of the plate to the opposite field is a strategy that might work well. Unfortunately, those 89 mph fastballs aren’t as prevalent as 89 mph sliders that dart away from the outside corner and the fastballs that are routinely in the mid-90s. Hitters are continuously adapting to changes in pitching in order to be successful, and this season, they are getting better by not swinging.

Hitters tend to get some blame for their role in there being fewer balls in play, what with the proliferation of strikeouts and homers and three true outcome players who seek walks and power and have a willingness to swing and miss, but much of what hitters do is simply react to what pitchers do. The increase in strikeouts over the years isn’t due to hitters actively choosing to strike out, but to pitchers who have gotten much better at striking hitters out. When I looked at the issue last season, the rise in strikeouts was due to primarily two factors: the increase in the number of pitches at 95 mph or greater, and the increase in the use of non-fastballs to get hitters out. It’s hard to catch up to velocity, and it’s really hard to lay off breaking and offspeed pitches. This season, pitchers are still throwing hard, and as Ben Clemens demonstrated, they are throwing even fewer fastballs.

To go along with the increased use of non-fastballs is an accompanying decrease in pitches in the strike zone. The graph below shows the number of fastballs and non-fastballs in the strike zone over the past few years. Read the rest of this entry »