How much are Home Runs down this season?

Question

It seems like the home run totals are much lower this year than in years past. Does anyone have a figure? This could be an indication as to how many players really were using steroids before.

Answer 1

The top 10 guys in MLB this year have:

35

34

33

32

32

31

30

30

29

28

In 2001 the top 10 finished with:

73

64

57

52

49

49

49

47

45

41

Now there are still 30 games to go but clearly the HR totals are down significantly.  It seems unlikely anyone will crack 50.

This doesn't indicate that everyone who hit all these in 2001 was juiced, maybe pitching is getting better now that there haven't been any expansion teams added for a while.  Or maybe they hit ahead of someone who was juiced and this got them higher totals.

Yankees Fan:  You're statistics still work because they're all based on the same innaccuracy, but there are really only 2430 games a year since the teams play each other.

Answer 2

Looks like they are down by a lot. It probably has to do with the stricter steroid tests and rules.

Answer 3

that beacsue the umpires have got the wrong calls on alot of homeruns  

Answer 4

This year: 4021 HR in 3988 games = 1.008274824 HR a game

Last Year: 4957 HR in 4862 games = 1.019539284 HR a game

2006: 5386 HR in 4858 games = 1.108686702 HR a game

2005: 5017 HR in 4864 games = 1.031879885 HR a game

2004: 5451 HR in 5451 games = 1.12252883 HR a game

MLB is currently on pace for 4902.232196 HR this year. That's almost 55 less than last year. That's only 1.825593467 HR per team. However, home runs are WAY down since the late 90's and early 2000's.  We are on pace for 622 less HR than in 2004. I do think steroids has alot to do with the drop.

Answer 5

Yes. Home run hitting is less. Approximately 10% to 15%, depending on which year you pick since 2000, but run scoring is almost the same.

This result of cracking down on steroid abusers would seem to favor the pitcher.

I am not saying that some pitchers didn't use them and gain an advantage over those who didn't.

What I am saying is, that, I feel that steroid abuse was more common among the hitters

However, baseball seems to be a cyclical sport of offense (Hitting) vs defense (Pitching). Fielding is a whole "nother" ballgame, as I feel that 95% of big leaguers are good to excellent fielders.

I don't think that any MLB club ever won a pennant, solely because they out fielded their opponents over a 162 game schedule. I am sure it helped, but team scoring (converting hitting into runs) and team run prevention (good pitching) are the foundation for winning ball clubs.