The Curious Case Of The AL’s Missing Hits

In case you hadn’t yet seen for yourself or been told by someone else, offense is down again this season. It’s crazy. Hitters are hitting like pitchers. Pitchers are hitting like you and me. It seems like every other day or so we’re having to keep track of the latest no-hit bid, and it hasn’t just be Josh Johnson. After 2010’s alleged Year Of The Pitcher, it’s looking like 2011 could be The Other, Slightly Better Year Of The Pitcher.

Now, early-season offense is down in the National League by a little bit, but in this post I want to focus on the American League. I know that seems weird but you’ll see why in the end. Here’s a quick comparison between the AL’s hitting numbers from April 2010 and April 2011:

April 2010: 8.9 runs/game, .736 OPS
April 2011: 8.6 runs/game, .710 OPS

It’s a 3-4% drop in both numbers. A 3-4% drop isn’t huge or even necessarily statistically significant this early in the year, but it is curious, and worthy of further investigation.

Upon further investigation, three things stand out:

(1) AL batters have been getting fewer hits than they were a year ago
(2) AL batters have been drawing fewer walks than they were a year ago
(3) AL batters have been hitting for less power than they were a year ago

Well, gee, there are your contributing factors. Early-season offense in the American League is down because hitters haven’t been getting as many regular hits, extra-base hits, or walks. It’s almost like there’s a direct relationship in there some place.

Now, personally, I don’t know how to explain the drop in walks. I don’t know how to explain the drop in power. “Better pitchers” and/or “worse hitters” might strike your fancy. But something about the drop in regular hits caught my eye. While I was sorting through the league splits available at Baseball-Reference, I noticed that, as of this writing, AL hitters have posted a collective Batting Average on Balls in Play - BABIP - of .283.

If you’re not familiar with BABIP, that may not mean anything to you. But an overall BABIP of .283 is extraordinarily low. As a matter of fact - and I know the month of April isn’t over just yet - it’s the AL’s lowest BABIP for a month in this millennium. The leaderboard:

(1) .283 - April 2011
(2) .286 - June 2009
(3) .287 - April 2007
(4) .288 - May/September 2002
(5) .289 - September 2003

Since 2000, the AL’s average BABIP for April has been .293. A year ago, it was .292. Clearly, what’s gone on so far is unusual.

I decided this was worthy of further investigation, so I broke the BABIP down by batted ball type - ground balls, fly balls, and line drives. Have AL hitters been losing hits across the board? Have they been losing hits in one area? Have they simply been hitting fewer line drives than they were a year ago? Here’s what came up:

AL hitters have been ending up with fewer hits on fly balls and fewer hits on line drives, but they’ve been ending up with way fewer hits on ground balls. Historically, ground ball BABIP has hovered in the .230s and .240s. So to see it down at .218 is somewhat shocking, if nerdily so. That’s definitely been a contributing factor to the league’s reduced level of offense.

Is it going to continue? I can’t answer that. I’m inclined to say no, at least not to this degree, as time brings regression. Teams might be a little better at positioning, and they might be playing slightly better defenders, but I’m not buying that they’re suddenly 6-7% better at turning grounders into outs. That would be a pretty extraordinary leap. I expect that, as the sample of data grows larger, so will the batting average on grounders.

What of the league’s overall level of offense, though? That I’m less sure about. A reduced BABIP can easily be tied to simple luck. A reduced walk rate or number of extra-base hits is harder to explain. I’ll leave that for another, freer, more inquisitive day.