Major League Baseball

Why are there so many no-hitters in Major League Baseball this season?

Updated May. 23, 2021 6:50 p.m. ET

By Ben Verlander
FOX Sports Baseball Analyst

The record for no-hitters in one season in the modern era is seven, a number poised be surpassed in 2021.

We are currently about a quarter of the way through this Major League Baseball season, and there have already been six no-hitters.

Seven if you want to include the Madison Bumgarner complete game with zero hits that doesn’t officially go down as a no-hitter because it was a scheduled seven-inning game.

So what's up? What exactly is going on this year that is resulting in so many hitless nights? It feels like every other night, we are being told to turn on the TV because another pitcher is in the ninth inning of a no-hitter.

Let’s start with what we know for sure.

Heading into this season, MLB sent a memo to all teams stating that "in an effort to center the ball within the specification range, Rawlings produced balls that loosened the tension of the first wool winding."

The result was a ball that weighed 2.8 grams less and had a slightly reduced bounciness that was, on average, "more in the middle" of the league's previous balls.

Honestly, I couldn’t tell you what any of that means or what effect that would have on the baseball. One thing I can say for sure, however, is that the actual baseball used to play this beautiful game has been changed, and undoubtedly that is a factor in what we’re seeing so far this season.

Now let’s consider just how good pitchers have gotten.

Year in and year out, pitchers continue to get better and better and throw harder and harder.

This April, the average velocity of fastballs was the highest of any April in the history of the Statcast era. What's more, not only are pitchers throwing harder, but they are also learning how to make the ball move while doing so.

Dodgers starting pitcher Dustin May, who is out for the year after undergoing Tommy John surgery, is known for having a 100 mph sinker that moves like it’s dropping off a table. He also sports a wipeout slider that moves 92 mph in the opposite direction.

One word to describe that combination? Unfair.

As pitchers get better, hitting becomes harder.

I remember my first year in pro ball, when every single team, no matter the level, would have at least one guy coming out of the bullpen throwing 100 mph. At a certain level, though, everybody can hit a fastball. I would always think, "I would much rather face a guy throwing 98 mph than a guy throwing 92 mph with lots of sink on it."

Well, now pitchers are throwing 98 mph AND it’s moving with tons of sink.

Why exactly is the average fastball velocity going up year after year?

Well, more and more teams are looking for pitchers who have a lightning bolt as a right arm, rather than a Greg Maddux-type of pitcher.

What I mean by that is if you aren’t throwing mid-90s these days, a lot of teams will pass on you or certainly not give you as long of a shot.

While playing with the Detroit Tigers organization, I remember pitchers telling me that they'd been told if they didn't throw a certain velocity, they didn’t really figure into the future plans of the organization.

It seems harsh, but that’s the reality of what’s happening in a lot of organizations today. More and more guys who don’t throw hard are being pushed out of baseball, and guys who throw hard are sticking around and making it to the big leagues.

Naturally, that leads to a velocity increase league-wide.

When you think about all that goes into hitting a baseball and then think about how much pitchers are improving, it’s no wonder we are seeing what we're seeing in today’s game.

We’re seeing major-league hitters looking quite simply overmatched, and that’s because they are.

And that’s not all.

It isn't just the ball changing and pitchers getting better that has resulted in this huge bump in no-hitters. It’s also all of the numbers and analytics that pitchers now have access to.

The analytics across baseball now are incredible. I’m not saying that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but what I know is that when you do something on the field, you immediately have access to every sort of number you could imagine.

For instance, every single stadium in MLB – and in the minor leagues, for that matter – has what is known as a "TrackMan." It's this little black square that you’ll find hanging up on the stadium somewhere behind home plate.

What the TrackMan does is track every single thing that happens on the baseball field. Those magical little boxes are the reason we have access to things such as spin rate, tilt, release point, where a pitch landed, swing plane for the batter, bat speed, exit velocity, launch angle … the list goes on and on.

When I was hitting in the minor leagues, I could finish an at-bat, go back to the dugout and immediately sit down and see exactly what was going on out there.

Now you might be saying, "Both sides have access to all of these numbers, so why is that an advantage for the pitchers?"

In baseball today, the second a batter walks up to the plate, the pitcher knows his exact weaknesses, where to throw him, what pitch he struggles with and where to throw that pitch.

Essentially, pitchers are constantly aware of what a batter doesn’t do well, and they're trying to exploit those weaknesses at all times. The pitcher is in control; he is allowed to throw whatever he wants and wherever he wants. As a batter, I might have all the numbers in the world explaining to me the pitcher I’m facing, everything he does well and everything he does poorly, but I can’t make him throw a pitch he struggles with.

I might know as a batter that the pitcher I’m facing struggles throwing a changeup low and in, but he doesn’t have to throw that changeup low and in. On the mound, he might know that I struggle with a fastball low and away, and he can throw that exact pitch three times in a row if he wants to.

A hole in my swing is a hole in my swing, and when it gets exploited, it’s a very helpless feeling. That’s what we’re seeing today – a lot of exploitation of weaknesses in batters.

Another thing I hear often is that "launch angle" is a big reason for what we are seeing in baseball these days. Launch angle became a trendy term a few years ago, when the number of home runs started skyrocketing. Now, people are saying launch angle is the reason for all the home runs, strikeouts and no-hitters we are seeing across the game today.

That is not exactly the case.

My last offseason playing, I went to a hitting coach by the name of Craig Wallenbrock. Wallenbrock is known as "the father of launch angle," and he's the man behind the total revamp of J.D. Martinez’s swing and career.

The common misconception is that launch angle is all about swinging up and is sort of an all-or-nothing approach.

That isn’t the case. The launch angle swing is essentially about getting yourself in the "slot" quicker and having a swing that stays on-plane and through the zone longer.

It isn’t about dipping your shoulder and swinging up, and it certainly isn’t to blame for all of these no-hitters. In fact, without the launch angle type of swing, I fear the Three True Outcome (strikeout/walk/home run) problem would be even worse in baseball.

No-hitters are happening at an alarming rate this season. Although they are very exciting, the rate at which they are occurring so far this season certainly brings about some questions.

No matter what the exact reason, one thing is pretty certain: We are going to break the all-time record for no-hitters in a season this year, and it could very well happen by the time you finish reading this story.

Ben Verlander is an MLB Analyst for FOX Sports and the host of the "Flippin' Bats" podcast. Born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, Verlander was an All-American at Old Dominion University before he joined his brother, Justin, in Detroit as a 14th-round pick of the Tigers in 2013. He spent five years in the Tigers organization. Follow him on Twitter @Verly32.