Posted By:
Marc S.Ted:
They discuss this over on ESPN all the time. Among other factors - hitters today have to face a barrage of pitching specialists. Whereas in other baseball eras - a hitter may have to only face one, or maybe two, pitchers per game - now a hitter may have to face the likes of a fresh Billy Wagner or Mariano Rivera near the close of the game - and it's not unusual for a hitter to face three or four pitchers a game.
There also seems to be a bit of a reversion to the mean in overall hitting and pitching quality - namely, the hitters of present day baseball with leading batting averages have historically low differences between their batting averages and the league average. This, too, simply suggests that the overall playing field has gotten better, thus making it very difficult for a single hitter to be that much better than the norm.