How Has Each Offensive Position Changed Over Time?

Throughout MLB's 120-plus history, offenses have gone through many eras that have shaped the game as we know it. These eras have bred changes to both offense approaches (more home runs and strikeouts) and offense production of positions. To understand these changes let's look at some Baseball Reference data to see where the game is now and compared to where we started.

This graph shows how OPS has changed for each position over time. This graph highlights from 1960 to 1990 every ten years and from 1990 to 2023 around every 5 years. All the positions saw a major peak in OPS in the Steroid Era (from 1995 to 2005) in which players used steroids which led to home runs being hit at historic rates. There is also a smaller increase in 2019 OPS due to the juiced ball. The juiced ball enabled fly balls to fly farther leading to more home runs like the Steroid Era. Though, unlike the Steroid Era, the juiced ball only lasted one season and it led to major outliers in players' top home run season. As for the positions, the top 5 positions in OPS in 1960 had worse OPS in 2023 than they did in 1960. Meanwhile, the bottom 3 positions in OPS in 1960 had better OPS in 2023 than in 1960. As for the DH, it was only added to the AL in 1973 and the NL in 2022 so we can only look from 1980 in which we see a minute from that to 2023. While the differences in OPS across time are important to note one must realize that it is hard to pinpoint what the difference in OPS means since league average OPS changes at the same time. So let's get the full picture of these differences by comparing them across league average OPS.

This graph shows the 1960, 1990, and 2023 seasons OPS for each position compared to their league average OPS. The graph then compares OPS versus league average across the other years. As the positions go up the OPS versus league average in 1960 increases. Shortstops, Catchers, and Second Basemen all see improvement at one point since 1960 while the top 5 teams start at high OPS versus league average in 1960 and decrease in 1990 and 2023. 4 of these teams remain above league average across the three years while both Center Fielders and Third Basemen become below league in 2023. Finally the Designated Hitter their OPS versus league average increases from 1990 to 2023. All of these positions follow that increases in OPS lead to increases in OPS versus league average and vice versa. This might seem obvious but may not always be the case. It's also interesting to note that the positions that were outperforming in 1960 got worse versus league average in 2023 while the ones underperforming in 1960 mostly had better performance versus league average in 2023.

This final graph shows the relationship between average home runs across positions from 1960 to 2023. Similarly, to the first graph, there are peaks in 2000 (Steroid Era) and 2019 (Juiced Ball). All of the positions see increases in their average home runs though at different rates. This increase for all positions shows baseball's heavy emphasis and reliance on home runs in the modern game. The bottom three positions in 1960 have the greatest rate increase in average home runs. Meanwhile, the other positions in 1960 average home run fluctuations are consistent with each other. One final observation is that the DH is the only position to see an increase in average home runs from 2019 to 2023. This is due to the addition of the Universal DH which allows teams to have a DH hit in all 162 games allowing for more home runs to be hit.

Across these graphs, we see the common theme of the bottom three positions (Catcher, Shortstop, and Second Base) seeing the most improvement. Now this theme makes sense as home runs and OPS are intertwined. Now what makes this relationship important is that these are the most looked at and important stats in baseball today. So this tells us that these three positions have adapted and changed their offense profile to the modern. Gone are the days of these positions just being looked at as a majority of their players that are only there for their defense. For the other positions outside of DH, they have not seen any major changes as their numbers have stayed consistent with the norm or league average. For the DH offensive profile hasn't really changed but rather the use of their now being full-time DH all around the league. These stats provide interesting insight into how far the position in baseball have come but one could look at more stats to get a more full picture of each position over time