I count a total 5,017 home runs for the 2005 season, which is over. Baseball's sluggers topped the 5,000 total on the very last day of the regular season.
The 5,017 home runs is the lowest season total since Major League Baseball expanded to 30 teams in 1998. Last year, the total was 5,451 home runs.
The 2005 dip in home-run production clearly is related to the so-far minor penalties (up to 10 games off) for steroid cheating and to hints from Congress that it is about to get tough about steroids in baseball. The threats have persuaded some sluggers who once used steroids to stop.
Conseco vindicated. Today, Jose Conseco announced he will be publishing a new book, "Vindicated," in four months.
On July 6, I predicted that, based on this season's early trend and the likely faster pace in the late-summer heat, this season's home-run total would be 5,101. OK, wrong, but not by much!
Frank Warner
The record: The home run totals since 1998, when the league expanded to 30 teams:
1998: 5,064
1999: 5,528
2000: 5,693
2001: 5,458
2002: 5,059
2003: 5,207
2004: 5,451
2005: 5,017
Frank,
Since the variance attributable to random effects is greater than the differences you are talking about, no conclusions can be drawn from the results. Quoting myself from http://frankwarner.typepad.com/free_frank_warner/2005/06/major_league_ba.html> your post of June 3: “If the number of homeruns at the end of the year is between 4,750 and 5,950, then it's safe to say, by traditional statistical standards, that nothing important has changed. The background noise has drowned out any clear effect.”
It's hard to find effects when you're only looking at 7 years of predictive data. You need more data or more variables.
Posted by: jj mollo | October 03, 2005 at 05:55 PM