Kansas City, Mo. — Is there a more beleaguered figure in Major League Baseball these days than the hitter?
Batting averages are down, strikeouts are up, extra base hits are down. There’s been six no-hitters thrown in the first seven weeks of the season.
Debates are now springing up across the industry about whether MLB went too far in its attempts to normalize (aka, de-juice) the baseball, about pitchers increasing their advantage by using sticky substances on the baseball to facilitate more spin, about how launch angles and shifts are sucking the energy and, frankly, the joy out of baseball.