Major League Baseball made plenty of rule changes to try and make the game more enjoyable and watchable for fans, but the main problem in 2018 has simply been the performance of the batters.
According to the Associated Press, MLB is on pace to have its lowest league batting average since 1972. In August, the league BA was up to .249, but it must move up to .251 over the final month of the season. Otherwise, it'll be the lowest in 46 years, when the league batting average was just .244.
Per the Associated Press, the months of April and June saw more strikeouts than hits. The 16.47 strikeouts per game in August were lower than July, June, May and April (17.5 per game that month).
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According to ESPN.com, As of Monday, only 15 of the 30 teams were batting above .249. Even then, the St. Louis Cardinals and Oakland Athletics (both likely to make the playoffs), were only batting .250. The New York Yankees were batting a mere .251, while three teams were batting .252. The Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs and Atlanta Braves were the only teams batting .260 or better.
Obviously, the decline in league batting average can be attributed to the dominance of pitchers. As of Monday, seven pitchers had recorded 200-plus strikeouts, and Luis Severino of the New York Yankees sits at 199. Aaron Nola of the Philadelphia Phillies (188), Carlos Carrasco of the Cleveland Indians (187), and James Paxton of the Seattle Mariners (186), are close to reaching the mark.
And entering play on Monday, only 49 qualified players were batting .250 or better. Seven of them were batting between .250 and .253. Indeed, it's been a very porous year for the majority of MLB hitters.
Obviously, this is just one year of bad hitting from the vast majority of MLB teams and players. But the league batting average can really only go up in 2019, especially as more and more young stars continue to develop and take over the game of baseball.