Of course, the bottom of lineups should be bad. Otherwise, as with a snowout in a domed stadium, something ain't right. But http://www.coltsfootballofficialproshop.com/WOMENS_YOUTH_DARIUS_BUTLER_JERSEY.html both leagues have so far seen unprecedentedly bad offense from the final spot in the lineup -- the eighth spot in the National League, the ninth spot in the American -- and, more broadly, from the bottom three spots.

The seventh-, eighth- and ninth-place hitters have hit .210/.287/.322 this year, excluding pitchers. That's only 73 percent of the leaguewide OPS, as measured by a stat called tOPS+.Last year's No. 7/8/9 hitters, by contrast, were 90 percent as good as the rest of the lineup, with a .245/.312/.398 slash line. This isn't something that tends to vary much year by year: Over the past decade, the bottom third of the lineup's tOPS+ has never been lower than 86 or higher than 90, until this year's collapse.

If it holds up, baseball's bottom-of-the-order batters will be worse than in any season in history. The second-worst group had a tOPS+ of 79, and that was way back in 1918. No other season's No. 7/8/9 batters have ever been worse than 82 percent of the league overall. And the falloff at the very bottom of the order is even more stark: NL No. 8 hitters: .199/.294/.296, down from .248/.324/.391 last year AL No. 9 hitters: .207/.272/.309, down from .233/.293/.366
So what's going on here? One hypothesis is teams are getting better at putting their worst hitters at the bottom of the order -- they're more correctly identifying their worst hitters, and they're optimizing their lineups better to give those guys the fewest plate appearances. That'd be a fun story about baseball intelligence in action, but this isn't some 20-year trend that tracks the increase of data-smarts in MLB front offices. It's an abrupt shift from last year, when bottom-feeders hit pretty well, all things considered.
Another hypothesis is these weaker, inferior hitters are particularly hurt by this April's low-homer environment. What made the apparently juiced baseball of 2015-17 so interesting is it benefited almost everybody, even little dudes and dudes who aren't even very good. This wasn't the era of a handful of changed players banging 60- and 70-homer seasons, but of guys who had been hitting two, seven or 13 homers suddenly hitting five, 10 or 20. Scores of hitters responded to the apparently juiced ball by hitting more fly balls. Rational players were doing rational things.
But the ball isn't carrying this month, and all those hitters who retooled their swings Womens Dale Hawerchuck Jersey are getting all the fly balls without all the homers. That might not matter much for sluggers who are really good at hitting home runs 85 feet over the wall, but it could matter for that subset of hitters who'd briefly found themselves credible home run threats. The juiced ball might have been a trap, targeting especially these hitters.
But the problem with this hypothesis is the decline in offense from No. 7/8/9 hitters isn't restricted to a drop in home runs or Womens Gary Zimmerman Jersey power numbers. The bottom of the order is hitting worse, relative to their peers, on grounders, too. They're hitting more grounders, relative to their peers, than they did in previous years. And they're Womens New England Patriots Jersey striking out more, relative to their peers, than in previous years. They're just bad. You'll want to see it continue a few more months before you necessarily believe it, but for now, it's a thing. It's complicated! The length of a game is the result of factors both in and out of the players' control, in and out of the league's control, in and out of nature's control. So, yes, the average game has taken three hours and eight minutes, matching last year's record length.
But ... that's in part because there have been more extra innings than in a typical season. In (most likely) a weird fluke, 11 percent of games have gone long so far, which would be the most since 1965 if it held up (which it won't). This is on track to be the first season since 1981 in which the average game is at least 54 outs long. Games are taking longer because games are going longer; control for that, and the average nine innings have taken only three hours and one minute. That's still the third slowest in history, but it's four minutes per day faster than last year. Clearly, the MLB pace-of-play initiatives are working!
BUT -- that's not proof that players are moving faster or pace is improved. Rather, it's proof that offense is down, which means fewer batters are hitting in each game and each inning. Leaguewide, on-base percentage is .316, eight points lower than http://www.cowboysofficialauthentic.com/WOMENS-CHIDOBE-AWUZIE-JERSEY.html last year and the second-lowest mark since 1972. It will go up -- offense always does as weather improves -- but it's a primary reason that games are taking less time so far. A lower OBP means fewer baseball events, and less time spent with runners on base, when pace of play slows down. Simple.
EXCEPT http://www.nfllionsofficialonline.com/Calvin-Johnson-Jersey -- this has been counteracted by the continued upward trajectory of pitches per plate appearance. The average batter has seen 3.93 pitches per plate appearance this year, up from Womens James Reimer Jersey 3.89 last year, which was itself up from 3.88 the year before, which was up from 3.83 the year before, and so on. If that 3.93 figure holds up, it would mean seven or eight extra pitches per game since 2014, each of them taking 25 or 30 seconds on average. Those seven or eight extra pitches per game are also part of why we're seeing a record 3.44 relievers per game, per team -- almost half an extra pitching change per game.So strip all this away, and let's focus on how long each plate appearance is taking, and how long each pitch is taking:
In 2018, a pitch is thrown every 37.2 seconds, including all the time between batters and between innings. That's more than eight-tenths of a second faster than last year. It's comparable to the pace in 2012. That's good. Major League Baseball has, it appears, partly arrested the increase in general dawdliness, and sent us all back to a faster http://www.officialpredatorsteamonline.com/Pk_Subban_Jersey time.But in 2018, a plate appearance takes, on average, two minutes and 26 seconds. That's two seconds faster than last year, but slower than every other year on record except for one -- 2014, which inspired the previous last round of pace-of-play initiatives. cheap jerseys free shipping wholesale nfl jerseys wholesale jerseys from china cheap nfl jerseys wholesale jerseys wholesale nfl jerseys cheap jerseys china cheap nfl jerseys