The 2023 season appeared to be studded with stars. Two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani turned in by far his greatest offensive season (to not point out an excellent pitching season earlier than succumbing to damage) en path to a unanimous MVP choice. Ronald Acuña Jr. made counting stat historical past with the primary ever 40–70 season, posting a .428 wOBA that was in some way 35 factors shy of his .463 xwOBA and incomes his personal unanimous recognition from MVP voters. This regardless of enjoying in the identical league as Mookie Betts, who had what would have been a career-best season for nearly anybody else, slashing .307/.408/.579 with a career-high 39 dwelling runs. Freddie Freeman had one of the best season of among the best energetic careers in baseball, in some way bettering on a 2022 marketing campaign that featured a .325/.407/.511 slash line and seven.1 WAR. And I may go on — Matt Olson hit 54 dwelling runs, Marcus Semien and Corey Seager anchored a championship lineup, Francisco Lindor quietly put up one other 6.0-WAR season, and Corbin Carroll wasted no time in establishing himself as a bona fide celebrity.
With all the eye given to the historic achievements of the sport’s ultra-elite, it was straightforward to overlook that the subsequent tier of baseball’s greatest was really comparatively skinny. Whereas the 9 gamers above turned in spectacular performances, they had been the one gamers to succeed in 6.0 WAR in 2023, a traditionally small cohort. The final time fewer gamers reached that focus on in a full season — not shortened by strike or pandemic — was 1958:
Sure, the final time there was a thinner crop of 6.0-WAR superstars in a given season was properly earlier than WAR was conceived — earlier than there even was a 162-game season. The names of the eight that reached the mark in that yr included Mays, Mantle, Banks, and Aaron. Till final yr, each full 162-game season had featured a listing of 6.0-WAR gamers that bumped into the double digits, together with a minimum of 12 in yearly since 1990.
Was final yr’s relative dearth a fluke, or an indication of issues to come back? I’m struck by the patterns of the chart above — there’s some randomness, to make sure, however there are clear peaks within the Seventies, ’90s, and the early 2000s, and a relative valley by the ’80s. For almost the final twenty years, the variety of 6.0-WAR gamers hovered between 12 and 20. It is sensible for there to be some patterns — the make-up of the league solely adjustments a lot yr to yr, and superstars don’t are inclined to disappear in a single day.
However that’s a part of what makes 2023 so unusual. There have been 20 gamers at that stage in 2022 in comparison with final yr’s 9, probably the most dramatic single-year change within the period of the 162-game season. So what ought to we make of that?
As arbitrary because the quantity 6.0 could also be — and sure, Zack Wheeler and Julio RodrÃguez each completed at 5.9 WAR in 2023 — it does appear to be a milestone gamers had a very onerous time hitting final season, a minimum of in comparison with the earlier yr. The identical variety of gamers posted 3.0 WAR in 2022 and 2023, however a better proportion of gamers had been in a position to produce twice that in 2022. In 2023, extra fell within the 3–6 WAR vary:
There’s one apparent potential offender. There aren’t any full-time pitchers on the 2023 record, and simply 2.4 of Ohtani’s 9.0 WAR got here on the mound, making final season the primary season since 1981 wherein no one recorded 6.0 pitching WAR. Pitchers are clearly taking over lighter hundreds on common, which makes accumulating counting stats like WAR a definite problem. Right here’s a have a look at the notorious drop in qualifying pitchers per yr:
With rule adjustments boosting the run setting and a brand new pitch clock to handle, pitchers had a good harder highway to six.0 WAR. And that’s to say nothing of the slew of accidents that struck pitchers who went into 2023 as high starters and doable candidates for large seasons, together with (however not restricted to!) Max Fried, Jacob deGrom, Brandon Woodruff, Drew Rasmussen, Tyler Glasnow, Luis Garcia, and Carlos Rodón.
Nonetheless, in 2022, when an identical variety of pitchers certified, with out the burden of latest guidelines, simply three of the 20 6.0-WAR gamers had been full-time pitchers, so these elements might not inform the entire story. We don’t discuss this as a lot, however hitter workloads have additionally trended down within the final twenty years, albeit extra regularly. Final season, 133 hitters certified for a batting title — really a tick up from 2022’s 130, however that 2022 complete was the bottom within the twenty first century. The league’s greatest hitters handled their justifiable share of accidents in 2023 as properly, together with 2022 6.0-WAR males Mike Trout, Yordan Alvarez, and Jose Altuve all lacking time:
Put very merely, the best way to get to six.0 WAR is to play properly and play rather a lot, and fewer gamers are enjoying rather a lot by latest historical past’s requirements. However is it getting more durable to play properly? Or extra particularly, to play that a lot better than alternative stage over the course of a full season?
The 133 hitters who certified in 2023 averaged 2.8 WAR in 610 plate appearances, about .25 WAR/600 PA lower than within the three seasons prior. However this appears to be like prefer it’s extra inside the vary of regular than a sign of a significant pattern — common manufacturing has been that low or decrease a handful of instances within the final twenty years:
Qualifying pitchers, in the meantime, have been accumulating extra WAR on a per-inning foundation within the final 5 or so years than in many years previous. Their 3.6 WAR/200 IP in 2023 was down a bit from 2022, and was the bottom common manufacturing charge since 2018, however was nonetheless greater than in any yr from 2000 to 2018. That is in all probability associated to the lowered variety of qualifiers. It takes a greater pitcher to throw 162 innings in right now’s recreation than it did 10 or 20 years in the past:
In actuality, the shortage of 6.0-WAR stars in 2023 was in all probability some mixture of randomness, accidents, lightened workloads, and a few regular variation in how productive the league’s regulars are in any given yr. Lighter workloads are right here to remain, so we might by no means get again to the heady days of the early 2000s, when 25 gamers had been reaching that mark in a yr, however we might properly see a bigger cohort in 2024.
There are many methods to succeed in superstardom in baseball, not all of which equate to the buildup of WAR. And there’s solely a lot use in counting what number of gamers get to an arbitrary threshold of a single statistic — this can be a topic ripe for January and never the center of the summer time. However superstars do serve the game — as followers, we like to marvel at the easiest of one of the best, the gamers who separate themselves from the merely good and even the good. It’s why we not solely award MVPs and Cy Youngs however accomplish that with additional fanfare once they’re determined unanimously, why the Corridor of Fame is the last word pinnacle however a first-ballot Corridor of Famer is much more revered. It’s necessary to the sport that gamers proceed to succeed in the best ranges of efficiency in comparison with their friends. After one skinny season on the high, it’s not time to sound the alarm but, nevertheless it’s one thing price maintaining a tally of in 2024.