MLB Trends and Five New Records Set for Hitting, Pitching, and Fielding Rates in 2022
What trends continued in 2022 and which slowed or reversed? What five records were set across all of baseball for per team, per game statistics?
Issue #46
How did the 2022 regular season compare with recent trends, for both hitting and pitching? Were any records set at the macro-level, across all of baseball?
For this analysis I'm going to be looking at rate statistics, so that shortened seasons like 1981, 1994, 1995, and 2020 can be included, and we can also compare trends going far back, before the current 162-game season was put in place. So by rate, all numbers in this article are stats "per team game," and are obtained from Baseball Reference—see these batting, pitching, and fielding tables. I created the charts myself, with the first one going back to 1871, while all the rest start at 1901 because some numbers were extremely different prior to that start of "modern baseball," and in some cases we lack the statistics. (Note: these totals for "major leagues" now also include the various negro leagues that were recently awarded "major league" status.)
Home Runs
The powers that be messed with the ball to try and reduce the uptrend in HRs, and at least in 2022 -- Aaron Judge notwithstanding -- it seems they succeeded. There were 1.07 HRs per team per game, the lowest since the 1.01 hit in 2015, and significantly lower than the 1.39 hit in 2019 -- which was the all-time high (yes, far higher than even the steroid era, which peaked at only 1.17 in 2000).
Runs
Not surprisingly, with HR rates off by so much in 2022, so too were runs scored. The average across all 30 teams was 4.28, again the lowest since 2015 (4.25), and significantly less than the recent peak of 4.83 in 2019. In this case 2019 wasn't the all-time high, as several seasons from 1994-2006 saw more run scoring, with 2000 being the height during that era at 5.14. And even with far fewer HRs hit overall, the 1920s and 1930s were high run-scoring decades, with averages from 1921-1940 ranging from a low of 4.55 (1933) to a high of 5.49 (1930).
Batting Average
While no longer the critical statistic that it long was, most of us still track batting average with some interest. This metric usually starts out pretty slow in April and May, and it certainly did this year with some (me included) wondering if we might approach the all-time low mark of .237 set in the pitcher's year of 1968. But hitters hit their stride and recovered to some extent to end the 2022 season at an overall .243 mark. That is in fact the lowest since 1968, and continues a recent trend in being a point lower than 2021, which itself was a point lower than 2020 (.245).
Interestingly, the overall MLB leader in 2022 was also one point below the overall MLB leader in 2021: Jeff McNeil hit .327 this year and Trea Turner led baseball with a .328 mark in 2021. McNeil's .327 is the lowest top average since Tommy Davis led MLB with a .326 average in 1963.
Walks and On-Base Percentage
Similarly, OBP across all 30 teams in 2022 sunk to .312, its lowest level since 1972. Unlike BA, it dropped a more substantial 5 points from the .317 level of 2021, which itself was off 5 points from the .322 level of 2020. The low BA is part of the reason, but obviously there had to be a drop elsewhere. You can't blame hit-by-pitches, as guys got plunked in 2022 at a near record rate (0.42 vs. a modern-era high of 0.46 in 2020).
What was down was in 2020 was walks, with only 3.06 base on balls received per team per game. That is significantly lower than the 3.23-3.39 range from the previous five seasons, though above the 2.88 of 2014, which was the lowest since, you guessed it, 1968. Only two players in 2022 had 100+ walks, Juan Soto with 135 and Aaron Judge with 111. That isn't unheard of though, as only two guys topped 100 walks in 2014 (Carlos Santana and Jose Bautista) and only one did so in 2012 (Adam Dunn).
Extra note: Intentional walks fell out of favor in 2022, with only 0.10 received per team per game. That is exactly half the 0.20 rate from only five years ago, a one-third the 0.30 rate from 2002. And it is very nearly the all-time low, at least since 1928 when the statistics are available: the low mark came in 1930 at 0.09.
Doubles and Triples
The rate of doubles hit in 2022 was almost identical to 2021 (1.63 vs. 1.62). The last three seasons have been down a bit from the 1.76 of 2019, but even that level was down signifcantly from the 1.79-1.89 range for doubles that we saw from 1998-2009.
More interesting here is that 2022 set a new record for the lowest rate of triples. The 0.132 rate was lower than the 2020 record low of 0.134. 2022 also joined 2021 as the only (full) seasons where no player managed to hit double-digit triples. Amed Rosario led MLB with 9 this year, while three players led with only 8 apiece in 2021 (Shohei Ohtani, David Peralta, and Bryan Reynolds).
Stolen Bases
The trend towards fewer and fewer stolen bases has perhaps finally ended, as 2022 saw an uptick to 0.51 SBs per team per game, the highest since the same level was achieved in 2018. While still quite low by recent standards, it is worth remembering that it is nearly twice the all-time low of 0.26 achieved in 1950. It just feels low compared to the Rickey Henderson / Tim Raines / Vince Coleman days of the 1980s. Interestingly, the peak of that era on a SB per team per game basis was 1987 -- the same fluke year when HRs spiked.
It is worth noting that while stolen bases are clearly down in recent years, one reason for this is that runners are being more conservative and/or smarter about when they attempt to swipe a bag. The CS% for catchers is near an all-time low, with the 24.6% mark in 2022 being only slightly higher than the 24.3% mark of 2021. It was between 25.6% and 29.8% every year from 2004-2019, was almost always over 30% every year before that, and often over 40% during the 1950s and earlier.
I'll also note that the overall MLB leader in SB in 2022 was Jon Berti with a relatively modest total of 41. Yes, the league leaders in 2021 were even lower, but Starling Marte swiped 47 across both leagues. For a lower MLB-leader in SB, in full seasons, you have to go back to 1963 when Luis Aparicio and Maury Wills each had only 40 apiece.
Sacrifice Bunts
Here the floor has completely fallen out. This rate was between 0.30 and 0.49 every year from 2012 back to 1957 (and much higher before that). But it has declined every year since 2012, except for a relative bounce back in 2021. In 2022 the rate was a mere 0.08, barely higher than the all-time low of 0.07 in 2020. Some might bemoan the lack of stolen bases, but it is bunting that has nearly vanished from the game.
UPDATE: A reader of this article noted what I think is one reason that 2020 and now 2022 would be the lowest ever—no pitchers in the NL hitting! The broader trend downward isn’t explained by that of course, but it does explain the record lows during these first two seasons with DHs in the NL.
Earned Run Average
On the pitching side I'll start with ERA. Similar to the situation with runs scored of course, the average across all 30 teams in 2022 was 3.96, noticeably lower than the 4.49 of 2019, but generally in line with the 2010-1016 years. The chart here of course looks similar to the above Runs chart.
Strikeouts
Strikeouts remain very high of course, but in 2022 the average of 8.40 is noticeably lower than the 8.68 of the previous two seasons, and the all-time high of 8.81 in 2019. Interestingly, given the drop in walks in 2022, the MLB ratio of SO/BB of 2.75 set a new modern-era record (post-1901).
Complete Games
Yes, NL Cy Young Award winner Sandy Alcantara became just the third pitcher to complete 6 games in a season over the past ten years. But overall, complete games continue to be at historically low levels. The rate of 0.01 appears tied with a few other recent seasons, so we need to actually look at the raw totals. Here we see that 2022 only saw 36 complete games, a record low if you ignore the shortened 2020 season. Yes, Alcantara had one out of every six complete games thrown in 2022.
Fielding
I'm not going to delve into fielding statistics too far, but it seems worth celebrating that the rate of errors per team per game hit an all-time low of 0.53 in 2022, just barely below the 0.54 level of 2021. That figure was 0.70 or higher every year prior 2001, and over 0.80 every year prior to 1987.
I wonder though: is this only a matter of defense improving over time? I have no doubt that in general it has, broadly speaking, throughout the history of baseball. But it is interesting to note that fielding assists were also at near all-time lows in 2022. The 8.79 assists per team per game rate was the third lowest ever, a bit of a rebound from the 2020 and 2021 seasons. Are players being more conservative lately and therefore getting less assists but also committing fewer errors? Maybe. But I assume the main reason that assists are lower is because of the focus on launch angle and hitting HRs these days, leading to fewer groundballs and more flyballs -- which I assume would correlate to some degree with fewer fielding assists.
Lastly... as noted earlier, catchers have not been throwing out baserunners at a very high rate the past few years. The all-time low was in 2021 at 24.3%.
Catchers did however set a positive record in 2022: passed balls. The rate of only 0.05 per team per game seemed to tie the all-time low record, which was last achieved in 1933, but also achieved every other year between 1925-1933. However, when I looked deeper, the rate in 2022 was actually .0475, the lowest of the six tied seasons.
So overall, amongst the areas I’ve looked at, I count five new records for per team, per game rates:
Fewest triples for hitters
Fewest complete games for starting pitchers
Highest SO/BB ratio for pitchers
Fewest errors for fielders
Fewest passed balls for catchers
Several other key statistics are near all-time records, including low batting average, low intentional walks, most HBP, low caught stealing %, low sacrifice bunts, high strikeouts, and low fielding assists.
All data is from Baseball-Reference.com.