In baseball, an Arms Race was the assembly of the best starting pitching rotation. Teams invested heavily on aces and strike out pitchers. But the game has now evolved into data sets, analytics and pitch counts. Starters no longer eat up 7 innings or more per start. Most are lucky to finish five.
The trend is to bolster the bullpen and find a quality set-up man and closer.
The new Arms Race is getting a stacked line up of home run hitters.
The Twins led the majors last season hitting 307 HRs in 162 games, or 1.90 HRs/game.
The White Sox rebuild has focused on getting more power hitters in the line up. So far in 2020, it seems to have worked. In 2019, the White Sox hit 182 HRs (15th in the AL) or 1.13 HRs/game. In 2020, they have hit 38 HRs in 24 games, or 1.58 HRs/game. That is approximately a 40 percent jump in HR production.
The Twins have hit 37 HRs in 2020 in 24 games or 1.54 HRs/game. This is approximately a 19.5 percent decline in HR production.
Suddenly, the offensive playing field has leveled off between these two AL Central rivals.
Emphasis now returns to pitching to off-set hitting thereby setting off another Arms Race.
