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warshawlawChChChanges: There are so many changes over the years that it is impossible to derive a single factor that affects things: changes in mound heights, ball doctoring, use of old balls in games, artificial lighting, expanded schedules, new ballparks with better designed sight lines, sensitivity to inside pitching, relief pitching, etc.
Juice or Training: Setting aside the debate over whether steroids work, there has been an incredible expansion in the number of players capable of feats that were considered extraordinary in earlier years. For pitchers, throwing into the middle and high 90s; for hitters, reaching the fences. I think a lot of it has to do with the development of systematic training techniques and tools. Look at video: Tony Gwynn swore by it as a tool for sharpening his swing and most pitchers are coached in mechanics using video. It is a hell of a lot easier to make a player's technique better if you can show him exactly what he is doing and provide immediate feedback that he can study.
Older Player Performances: We are in a golden age of older player performances. As a newly-minted 40-year-old, I am particularly sensitive to the question of whether there are ballplayers older than I am. There are quite a few and they are playing at levels that lead me to believe that I still have a few good years before I am older than any MLB player. A lot of the change has to do with advances in surgery, training and nutrition. In the old days, a rotator cuff or elbow injury was all she wrote for a pitcher, a knee injury would destroy a career, there was no weight lifting, off season training consisted of whatever the dude was doing at the time, etc. A guy like Roger Clemens, who busts his ass every day, maintains his high level of fitness to complement his experience-increased skills. That, to me, is a lot of why we are seeing older players doing so well; they are able to maintain a much greater % of their physical skills to go with the increased expertise that a long career gives them. That is also why performance enhancing drugs disproportionately benefit the best players--it lets them hang on to the raw physical tools (speed, strength) that they need to complement their already superior skills. There also really isn't any substitute for experience. The two biggest examples of age improvement I can think of, McGwire and Bonds, both refined their batting techniques considerably as they got older. Look at film of their swings from early on and later; there are dramatic differences in the efficiency of their movements.