How the game has changed…

How the game has changed…

I was recently checking out some numbers over at the great baseball reference site. Being a bit of a baseball geek, I realized that strikeout totals for pitchers were low in the 1930’s. I also realized that walk totals were relatively high for a select group of star batters. But what I didn’t know was the league wide lack of strikeout-to-walk ratios. For example in 1938 no AL pitcher posted a SO/BB ratio of even 2.0! The leader was all-time great Lefty Grove at 1.90.

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What really threw me for a loop was the top ten. At #10 in the American League a poor pitcher by the name of Lefty Mills. His SO/BB ratio? 1.16. 1.16 nets 10th best in the entire league.

To put things into perspective with todays game, 10th place in 2008 belonged to Zack Greinke, with a 3.27 SO/BB ratio. How the focus on various facets of the game has changed…



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