Are we living in a new dead ball era?

Is Major League Baseball in the midst of another dead ball era?You don’t have too look far to see how much baseball has changed in the past few years. We are far from the days of Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds blasting 70 home runs, instead entering an age where pitchers don’t even sniff the MLB ERA title unless they are well below 2.00.

Looking at the extremes doesn’t tell the whole story, however. The top slugger in baseball this year was Chris Davis, who hit a very respectable 47 home runs and the top pitcher has had an ERA below 2.00 in nine of the last 22 seasons. Where a bigger break is found is when you expand the field. This year, the 10th best pitcher in baseball was John Lackey, with…