Explaining the disappointing end of the Orioles 2024 season
Empty seats and no rallies – why the Orioles and baseball both need to change (photo credit: Kevin Richardson, Sun Staff)
As the curtain comes down on the 2024 season, we are left with two bitter memories: a powerful offensive team unable to muster more than a single run in 18 innings against a very good Kansas City pitching staff; and thousands of empty seats at Camden Yards. I submit that these two seemingly disparate facts are connected to a baseball-wide problem that calls out for drastic change.
The issue for the Orioles offense, in a nut-shell, is this: the O’s are a one-dimensional team built for power – they are quite adept at whacking mistake pitches onto the flag court. But what happens when the opposing pitcher does not make mistakes? They flail and fail. This team (like most modern-day teams) does not scratch out runs on a walk, a stolen base, and a bloop hit.
There were a total of about 15,000 empty seats at Camden Yards for the two-game series. A little embarrassing, but this Orioles team tested fan loyalty (including my own) to the breaking point. There are two main reasons that fans turn out: winning and the beauty of the game. When the home-run happy Orioles stopped winning games with the deep flies, there wasn’t much left in the beauty department. Home-run-derby teams that are not winning games can be deadly boring.
To state the obvious, with a home run, there is no fielding and no baserunning – it’s a one act play with no time for the evolution of baseball drama. The beauty of baseball is the competition between the offense and the defense, all rolled up into what happens after the ball is hit. The home run nullifies the defense, but just as important, it also nullifies a key part of the offensive side: can the runner take an extra base, or will the defense cut him down?
Using a 2024 vs. 1983 comparison, here is the case for the incredibly disappearing rally. The 2024 team scored almost 50 percent (49.4 percent) of their runs via the long bomb. The 1983 Oriole team was a line drive offense, with only two players (Eddie Murray and Cal Ripken) garnering more than 20 round-trippers. Although they led the League in home runs, they scored only 36 percent of their total runs by whacking the ball over the fence, meaning that 64 percent of their runs came on exciting plays like the one described at right.
With everyone swinging for the fences, the 2024 Birds struck out a whopping 1,359 times, flailing and failing in more than 24 percent of all at-bats. The 1983 team struck out only 9 percent of the time.
Baseball statisticians who focus on “balls in play” have invented a stat called “three true outcomes” (TTO)— strikeouts, walks, and home runs, representing the baseball events where nothing happens (except for the occasional slow trot around the bases). 2024 O’s fans had to endure these somnambulant-producing at-bats 37 percent of the time.
These are baseball wide issues that threaten fan loyalty and limit the appeal of the game to a younger audience that wants more action on the playing field. Batting averages are down 18 points, while strikeout rates have almost doubled over this same time. Home runs are up a colossal 65 percent. The overall TTO rate has climbed from 27 percent to 38 percent.
“The Orioles are down two runs in the bottom of the 8th. Bumbry on first and Ripken on second, two out, Singleton at the plate. Singy swings and whacks a liner to right center… it finds the gap… rolling toward the wall… Lowenstein scores easily… Bumbry tearing around the bases representing the tying run… the centerfielder fires a bullet toward the cut-off man…all eyes on the third base coach – he’s sending Bumbry… the relay comes in a little high…Bumbry goes into a headfirst slide… he’s in there, under the tag! And the crowd goes bonkers!!!”
That was a hypothetical (but also typical) for 1983, the last time the Orioles won a world championship. It was exciting baseball, at its very finest. But these kinds of crowd-pleasing rallies have become rare events.
Most observers attribute the strikeout and home run problem to improvements on the pitching side, especially higher fastball velocity but also tighter (high spin rate) breaking balls. The better pitching has changed the calculus for hitters – rallies have become more difficult, so batters are trying to make up for that with a single swing of the bat.
MLB has successfully tackled the length of game issue, and reforms like banning the shift and widening the bases have produced a modicum of gains, but the balls-in-play problem persists and requires more drastic action. Surveying the opinions and solutions that are out there, my hope is that MLB will consider fairly radical measures:
- Deaden the ball – more than a few commentators think MLB brought this problem on themselves by changes in the makeup of the ball.[1]
- Move the pitching rubber back – the fathers of baseball ordained 60 feet 6 inches, but they did not anticipate 100 mph fastballs.
- Limit the roster to 12 or 11 pitchers – make the pitchers pace themselves instead of throwing as hard as they can as long as they can.
- Ratchet up the minimum number of batters a pitcher has to face – three was an improvement – try four or five.
- Move back the fences – give teams an incentive to modify their ballparks and adopt bigger dimensions for new parks.
Some will dismiss this column as a nostalgic call for the return of “small ball.” However, I purposely chose the 1983 team for my comparison because it was not a “small ball” team. They only swiped 63 bases, they led the league in home runs, and they ranked third in slugging percentage. But it was an exciting team because of the run-producing rallies that are now an endangered species.
I hate to say it, but MLB needs to make changes that will reward teams that produce runs with rallies instead of round-trippers, which will be tough (but needed) medicine for my Orioles.
Bibliography and resources for further discussion
All statistics cited above: Baseball Reference.
Ben Lindbergh, “When It Comes to Balls in Play, MLB Is Striking Out,” May 5, 2023, The Ringer. https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2023/5/5/23712536/rule-changes-2023-strikeout-rate-balls-in-play.
David Brandt, “Strikeout numbers still stubbornly high in MLB despite rules changes,” Associated Press, July 9, 2023. https://ktvz.com/sports/ap-national-sports/2023/07/09/strikeout-numbers-are-still-stubbornly-high-in-mlb-despite-rules-changes/.
Neil Paine, “Baseball Is Overrun By Adam Dunns,” Aug. 24, 2017, Five-Thirty-Eight, https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/baseball-is-overrun-by-adam-dunns/.
Matthew Gross, “MLB Needs To Take a Sledgehammer To Its Strikeout Crisis: Here’s A Few Ways They Could Do It,” overthemonster.com, Jul 17, 2024, https://www.overthemonster.com/2024/7/17/24199496/mlb-needs-to-take-a-sledgehammer-to-its-strikeout-crisis-heres-a-few-ways-they-could-do-it#:~:text=So%20far%20in%202024%2C%20a,way%20until%20the%20early%201990s..
[1] According to the Baseball Hall of Fame, “In February 2021, The Athletic, reported on the contents of a MLB memo that stated it would be subtly deadening its official Rawlings baseballs – in part by loosening the tension on the first of three wool windings within the ball – with lab reports stating the new balls would fly one to two feet shorter on balls hit over 375 feet.” My comment on that is that MLB took a scalpel to a problem that requires a machete.