Where Have All The Runs Gone?

Are you having an off year offensively? Don’t worry, a lot of us are. Run production is the lowest it’s been since records have been kept. Here are a total of runs per game for each year since 2010:

2010: 20.09

2011: 18.73

2012: 18.51

2013: 20.45

2014: 20.76

2015: 20.00

2016: 21.69

2017: 18.25

So are runs per game at its lowest of the decade one year after the league set a record for runs scored in a year? Were we using juiced balls the last few years without even knowing it? I think the answer lies in the one noticeable difference in the league this year vs. last year…..the new Marlboro Swim Club. What was once a field known for high scoring games has become a defensive haven.  How much has it changed? In 2014, I had kept statistics for each field in the league. Here are the runs scored numbers for each field compare this year to the averages from 2014:

Union Hill Right:

2014: 20.54 runs per game

2017: 19.60

Union Hill Left:

2014: 20.03

2017: 17.55

Municipal:

2014: 18.88

2017: 19.08

Marl El:

2014: 20.74

2017: 15.46

East Francis:

2014: 18.35

2017: 16.86

Middle School:

2014: 23.13

2017: 24.36

Swim Club:

2014: 24.40

2017: 14.94

 We are averaging a whopping 9.46 fewer runs a game on the Swim Club field than we were in 2014. That’s by far the biggest difference out of each field. Only Marl El can even claim to be in the same ballpark at a -5.28 difference. This decrease in production at the Swim Club is enough to explain why our total runs in the league are so low. If we replaced the runs scored this year at Swim Club with the runs average scored at the Swim Club in 2014 then the league’s run average per game would bump to 19.48. It would still be the lowest since 2012, but at least it would not be a record in futility.

One answer could be that it’s just a fluke year. Maybe the league catches on fire and runs per game will approach the levels of recent years. Are there other factors to take into consideration? Are pitchers better now than they’ve been in previous years? Is the influx of talent in the league having a bigger effect on the quality of defense than it is on offense? Although these are possible influences, I think the renovations to the Marlboro Swim Club are the biggest factor. It’s the one change that is based on actuality and not theory as well as the one with data behind it.