The first full month of the 2018 season is in the books, and there is plenty to learn from a month that saw record strikeout rates, signs that another home run spike could be looming and another step in the launch-angle revolution -- when the weather was nice enough to actually play baseball.
April 2018 was the first full calendar month in major league history with more strikeouts than hits, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. There were 6,656 strikeouts and 6,360 hits. That's 296 more strikeouts than hits. Before this year, the smallest difference between hits and strikeouts in a full month was 138 -- but 138 more hits than strikeouts.
Last season, 32 qualified hitters had more strikeouts than hits for the season. And that was the most for any season in MLB history.
There are 56 such hitters this season (including March and April). There were 55 such hitters in April last season.
The Padres had 68 more strikeouts than hits in April, the largest differential of any team. Nineteen of the 30 MLB teams had more strikeouts than hits.
Last year in April, just 13 teams had more strikeouts than hits.
The strikeouts
There have been 7,335 strikeouts in the majors this season. We're on pace for 42,539, which would be 2,435 more than in any other season in MLB history. The strikeout record has been set each year since 2008 -- yes, that means a strikeout record has been set every season for the past decade.
The most strikeouts by a team in a season is 1,571 by the 2017 Brewers. We have three teams on pace to break that record: Padres hitters are on pace for 1,668 strikeouts this season, the Phillies are on pace for 1,614 and the Orioles are on track for 1,585.
Why have there been more strikeouts? For one thing, relievers are taking center stage. Starters are averaging 5 1/3 IP per game, down from 5 2/3 IP per game in April last season. When relievers come in, they're striking out batters at a higher rate. Relievers had a 8.9 K-per-9 IP in April last season; it's 9.3 to start this season.
Batters are also making less contact. There's a 74.8 percent contact rate in the majors. It was 75.7 percent last year and as high as 79.6 percent in 2009.
The hits we are seeing: home runs
What does this mean? In part, that batters have continued their home-run-or-bust approach that we've seen growing over the past few years.
There have been 912 home runs this season. We're on pace for 5,289 in the majors this season. That would be eighth most in MLB history, but remember -- more home runs get hit as the weather warms up.
Through April last year, we were on pace for 5,683 homers, which would've been second most in MLB history. We ended up with 6,105. The pace picked up in the summer months.
Why might the pace pick up even more than last season -- which started at a higher rate? Last year, two games all season were played in temperatures of 40 degrees or below at game time, both in April. This season, there have been 35 such games.
• That's the most games at 40 degrees or colder at game time in the past 21 seasons (as far back as weather data goes reliably).
• Over the past 10 seasons, there have been 1.5 homers per game in games that were 40 degrees or colder at game time and 2.0 homers per game in games when it was warmer than 40.
This year, the average MLB launch angle is 11.7 degrees. That would be the highest average launch angle across the majors since Statcast began tracking in 2015. In each of the previous three seasons, the MLB-wide HR total has risen, as has the MLB average launch angle.