The Fastball Is Dying. What Does It Mean for MLB's Future?

Quietly, and as it concerns hitters, in an all too literal sense of quiet, baseball has crossed a major threshold in how the game is played. For the first time in recorded history, fastballs no longer account for the majority of pitches.

The bread and butter of pitching is stale. The “fastball count” is no more. Country hardball is dead.

Its death did not occur suddenly. Fastball use has been declining every year since 2015, coinciding with the start of “The Statcast Era,” a shorthand for how technology and advanced metrics have changed pitching for the better–and perhaps baseball for the worse.

Fastball use held steady from 2010 through 2015 at between 56.8% and 57.8%. Then the fastball began…