It’s not really the ball, it’s déjà vu (all over again)

The Braves have started their title defense season quite poorly. At 12-15, literally no team save the woeful Reds has shaved more wins off its expected end-of-season win total, and only two teams (Red Sox, Phillies) have presently shed more playoff odds since the start of the season. Sound familiar? We wrote similar sentences a bunch at the start of 2021, as well.

At the same time, the actual experience of MLB baseball games has undergone a drastic change, right before our eyes. While acknowledging that it’s still early, and comparing full-season stats to one-colder-month-of-games stats skews the results, we are currently experiencing the biggest year-to-year change in offense since 2000…