(1) League expansion, which has diluted talent. This means teams have fewer good pitchers and more weak pitchers.
(2) A smaller strike zone and a lower mound give batters an advantage over the struggling pitchers.
(3) A juiced ball travels farther, leading to new "longest ball" records in many parks.
(4) New "cozy" ball parks have shorter fences.
(5) Denver gets a franchise in thin air.
(6) Steroids are prevalent and favor batters over pitchers.
(7) Players know where their bread is buttered and frequently swing for the fences knowing league management wants offense and favors the long ball. Hit 40 home runs and check out free agency...
I know Bonds had a great year. I just can't sort out it's significance.
The cozy parks are a return to the dimensions of the 20s and 30s, before the cookie-cutter multi-use monstrosities of the 60s and 70s.
Also, the strike zone is bigger this year. They're finally calling the high strike after years of absence.
Now, about Barry...
Bonds has changed his game, and it started back in '98 when he got injured and saw his playing time really limited for the first time. He stopped stealing so many bases, so he adjusted his hitting approach and his power numbers started to climb (though his BA dropped to .262). If you look at his atbats to home runs ratio in '98 (just over 10 ab per hr), it's already in the Ruth/McGwire/Sosa range. But no one besides Giants fans noticed, because he'd missed a third of the season. Now look at his numbers for '99. His BA is up, and his ab/hr ratio is now below 10. Starting to see a trend? He's getting better at it.
This year, his BA is up another 15 to 20 points, and he's hitting a homer every 6.7 atbats. An improvement of about three less atbats per homer. But that's about the same as the improvement between his '97 and '98 seasons, when he went from just over 13 ab/hr to just over 10.
We just need to recognize that Bonds is one of the uniquely gifted athletes of our time. Go see him play next year when he comes to town. Impress your future grandkids with the tale.
Check out Bonds' Career Stats. They're current through this morning, and the numbers don't lie.
When Ruth was hitting more homeruns than some entire teams, he had to face the same pitchers over and over again because of the small number of teams in the league. That means that he would get 30-40 at-bats against the same pitchers year in and year out. And if you let a great hitter see the same pitchers tossing the same pitches over a long period of time, they're going to figure them out. In my opinion, that accounts for the much higher batting averages in the early part of this century. It doesn't entirely account for Ruth's power, but it does (at least in part) his .344 career average.
If you gave me a choice in September of facing a new guy just up from AAA at the roster expansion or a guy I had faced 30 times over the last 6 seasons, I'd take the latter (excepting the handful of elite pitchers currently hurling) every time.