Jim Henry: Has no prep baseball in 2020 affected 2021?
Apr. 17—In five Central Ozark Conference baseball games on Thursday, a total of 74 runs were scored.
Webb City led the way with 21 runs in its three-inning victory at Ozark.
Joplin, off to an 11-4 start, has averaged almost eight runs in 15 games after scoring 6.5 runs in 26 games in 2019.
"Some of it, I'd like to think we're doing a better job of teaching hitters," Eagles coach Kyle Wolf said with a laugh.
Offense has been trending up in baseball in recent seasons, but could some of this year's more potent offenses in high school be attributed to not having a baseball season last year?
After COVID-19 canceled the 2020 prep baseball season, some pitchers may not have done the normal workouts they would do during a normal season — Joplin's Josh Harryman being the obvious exception.
"When in quarantine, one thing it's easy to do by yourself is put a ball on a tee and hit," Wolf said. "It was a lot harder to work on defensive and pitching-type things compared to getting in a cage with a machine."
Defenses also appear to have been affected by missing last season.
"Not necessarily just fielding a ground ball and throwing it across the infield," Wolf said. "From a high school perspective more than anything, some situational things — not hitting the cutoff man, not throwing to the right base, not saving 90 feet — some of those things over time can lead to more offense as well.
"Not having practice every day and a consistent game schedule in the spring, the younger players didn't have the time to develop that understanding of situations. Our seniors this year were sophomores the last time we played a spring baseball game before this year. (Last year) was their time to learn a little bit more about those situations, and they didn't get that. We tried to do it in the summer, but it's just not the same."
More offense also is a result of hitters making more contact and putting more balls in play. Joplin has had 30 runners reach base on errors in 15 games this season compared to 36 runners in 26 games in 2019.
"I think part of it is probably continued increases in technology, increases in video capabilities," Wolf said. "We are continuing to develop better ways to train, and I think you're seeing it pay dividends with hitters just being able to do more things.
"That's been a general trend. If you go back and look over the last (several) years, I think you're seeing more offense. But I look in the major leagues and I'm still seeing a lot of 100 mile-an-hour arms. It's not like guys aren't throwing hard and aren't throwing good stuff. There are no-name guys coming out of the bullpen who are 98 (mph) with a dirty slider.
"Everything ebbs and flows. There's going to come a time when pitchers are going to figure out how to get people out, and you're going to see pitchers and defense dominate a little bit again."
Follow Sports Editor Jim Henry on Twitter at @Jim_Henry53.
