Establishing a new Mendoza Line

Photo by Dustin Satloff/Getty ImagesIt seems there are just two things that have escaped this high-inflation economy we find ourselves in: weed, and offense in baseball. MLB’s OPS is just .680, the third-lowest since 1968, but OPS gets a boost from power at the expense of plain ol’ hitting, and sure enough, leaguewide batting average is just .234, the lowest of any season from 1968-2022, inclusive.

Just as inflationary pressure causes us to accept that certain prices are never coming back — I’m never paying below a dollar for a liter of gas again — we’ve got to accept, at least temporarily, a shift in what we think good players can do at the plate. This is true at the top of the…