[DC 86]

How bad is hitting this year?  10 teams have averages over .240. 10 have averages under .230. Ariz is hitting.185. I repeat One Eighty Five. A team hitting below the Mendoza line.   And pitchers don’t hit anymore. 

I know BA is not the metric of choice these days.  But it tells us something.  HR’s are, I’m relatively certain, well down.  

As you surmised, it's not just batting average (.233 league-wide, which is the lowest ever), but slugging percentage (.370) is also historically low, resulting in the lowest league-wide OPS since the introduction of the DH. Runs scored (4.08 per team per game) is the lowest in 41 years. Home runs per team per game (0.91) are at the lowest point in eight years.

Meanwhile, statcast data tells us that batters are hitting the ball just as hard as ever (exit velocity is at its all time high) and squaring up (measured by barrel rate) just as much as before, which confirms that the issue is the ball and the fact that humidors are being used at all 30 parks.

Unfortunately, MLB seems to swing between extremes as it manipulates between a ludicrous rabbit ball (such as the one used in 2019) or the current iteration. Home runs are down 35% from 2019 (despite batters hitting the ball harder and at higher launch angles) which some may view as a good thing, but a league wide batting average of .233 isn't really fun either. Teams occasionally stringing together a bunch of hits and succeeding with small ball is great, but it's not happening very often this year.

[DC 86]

How bad is hitting this year?  10 teams have averages over .240. 10 have averages under .230. Ariz is hitting.185. I repeat One Eighty Five. A team hitting below the Mendoza line.   And pitchers don’t hit anymore. 

I know BA is not the metric of choice these days.  But it tells us something.  HR’s are, I’m relatively certain, well down.  

As you surmised, it's not just batting average (.233 league-wide, which is the lowest ever), but slugging percentage (.370) is also historically low, resulting in the lowest league-wide OPS since the introduction of the DH. Runs scored (4.08 per team per game) is the lowest in 41 years. Home runs per team per game (0.91) are at the lowest point in eight years.

Meanwhile, statcast data tells us that batters are hitting the ball just as hard as ever (exit velocity is at its all time high) and squaring up (measured by barrel rate) just as much as before, which confirms that the issue is the ball and the fact that humidors are being used at all 30 parks.

Unfortunately, MLB seems to swing between extremes as it manipulates between a ludicrous rabbit ball (such as the one used in 2019) or the current iteration. Home runs are down 35% from 2019 (despite batters hitting the ball harder and at higher launch angles) which some may view as a good thing, but a league wide batting average of .233 isn't really fun either. Teams occasionally stringing together a bunch of hits and succeeding with small ball is great, but it's not happening very often this year.