The last 15 years or so in the major leagues have been marked by huge offensive numbers. Feats which were rare in the past such as hitting 50 home runs became common place.

The early results this year show a swing back to the pitchers a bit.

If you look at team batting averages you'll see that currently 17 of the leagues 30 teams have a team batting average of under .250, last year there was not a single team that finished the year under .250, now obviously the season is young and I don't expect 17 teams to finish under .250 but it's definitely quite an interesting situation.

The overall major league batting average last year was .269, so far this year it's at .251, the combined MLB slugging percentage has dropped from .432 to .393!

Now these hitting struggles do not apply to New York City. The top two hitting teams so far this year are the Mets at a ridiculous .303 and the Yankees at .283

Another strange fact of this young season. So far the NL is out hitting the AL .253 to .247, usually of course the AL has a higher batting average due to the DH rule.

Here's a comparison of the past 8 seasons (including this one.)

YEAR - AL - NL
2007 - .247 - .253
2006 - .275 - .264
2005 - .268 - .262
2004 - .270 - .263
2003 - .267 - .261
2002 - .264 - .259
2001 - .267 - .261
2000 - .276 - .266

Most interesting to me is how much the AL has dropped. 28 points so far, the NL drop of 11 points isn't nearly as dramatic. Very interesting indeed. Any conspiracy theories you'd like to provide to explain this huge drop in AL offense?