How bad has MLB hitting gotten?

[JonathanW]

There is currently only 1 career .300 hitter (Altuve at .306)
There are only 7 career .290+ hitters (none have <10 years)
There are just 28 career .280+ hitters (less than 1 per team)
There are 50 career .270+ hitters (1.5 per team)


These are all with a minimum of 3000 PA's which can be achieved in as little as 5, even 4.5 years.

 

[NociHTTP]

Some of it is that starting pitchers have become pussiefied. They seemingly rarely ever go beyond 5-6 innings now. And they're out forever with a hangnail. The pitchers of olden days sucked it up and got out there. Teams throw one relief pitcher after another out there, which has helped to drop batting averages.

EDIT: I think getting rid of the on-field shift was supposed to help produce more hits, but how often do guys spray the entire field?

 

[vhcat70]

There's a lot mor P injuries imo and I think due the combination of harder throwing with more breaking even hard. Both hurt batting and increase injuries. Both hurt the ability to throw a lot of pitches.

 

[vhcat70]

EDIT: I think getting rid of the on-field shift was supposed to help produce more hits, but how often do guys spray the entire field?

Stopping the shift was intended to open more space for pull hitters - which almost are now due to the emphasis on power and big runs innings. If hitters sprayed the infield you'd want INFers to be spread out, not mostly in the pull hitters' alley.

 

[NociHTTP]

Stopping the shift was intended to open more space for pull hitters - which almost are now due to the emphasis on power and big runs innings. If hitters sprayed the infield you'd want INFers to be spread out, not mostly in the pull hitters' alley.

I didn't say "spray the infield", I said spray the entire field. Getting rid of the shift does help to spread guys out.