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Baseballs are flying out of major league stadiums like never before - and the exodus is causing more speculation than the ingredients in a ballpark frank. Conspiracy theorists, long skeptical of the steady rise in balls leaving the yard, have sprouted like crab grass.
If you ask the fan, somewhere in the leather, wool, and cork, they say, lies the answer to the power surge: The league's been juicing balls to fill stadiums. League officials of course say all the baseball-bashing is bunk, but you have to wonder why every year seems more offense heavy then the last.
On the other hand, batters have done plenty to help themselves without changing the baseball: the biggest contributor being the fact that they spend more time in the weight rooms bulking up. "In every sport, the athlete is much bigger and stronger," says Mr. Sizemore, a senior official at Rawlings. "In basketball, guards are now 6 ft., 6 in. In football, the linemen are all well over 300 pounds. And in baseball, the hitter is much bigger and stronger. They have developed at a much quicker rate than the pitchers have."
Regardless of where you fall in the debate, here are "just the facts". Below are the average ratings for rostered pitchers and hitters over the last few years. Judge for yourself whether the boom in homeruns is justifiable or just a lot of hype.
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Values will be displayed in the format: average (standard deviation)
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