The month that was: July 2025 | Baseball Prospectus

Translated by José M. Hernández Lagunes

In this series we analyze the most important trends of the MLB in terms of annotations, picheo of position players and injuries, as well as the consequences of changes in the rules in this season. This analysis is performed per month to identify trends per season.

I don’t intend to alert you, but the Marlins achieved the best record of the East Division of the National League for two consecutive months.

Julio is a peculiar month in terms of records, for two reasons. First, because of the game of the stars, fewer games will be played in July than in another month (now of course in March starts in March). A smaller sample generates greater variability. Secondly, the deadline for exchanges changes the rules at the end of the month, which weakens the correlations between July and the following months. That said, these classifications underline that we should not really pay attention to the April figures that give rise to countless stories.

Racing Annotation

In July the teams scored 4.50 races per match, a fraction less than the 4.57 last year and 4.64 of 2023. This places them in 19th place under the 27 Joules of the era of the 30 teams that started in 1998 (excluding 2020).

But those races were not all the same. Those 4.50 races per game are 4.58 per nine submissions.

Until the end of July, 369 races were scored in 365 and ⅓ Zombie runners, which is close to an average of less than one race per input. That had never happened in a full season. And in July the position players were remarkably less bad than normal in the hill. For some reason that became common in July: 6.89 in 2023, 7.71 in 2024.

The pitchers allocated 3,320 races on 6,519 and ⅓ tickets released in the first nine entries of the Julio Games. In extra tickets they allowed 63 races in 66 and ⅔ submissions. And the position players – a subset of the totals of the first nine entries – launched 30 games, launched 21 and ⅔ tickets and were 19 races.

Consequently, you write down in July this year …

… it looks less impressive if you remove the zombie runners and the Field Players Picando.

(Keep in mind that in previous reports I showed a racegraic for every 27 outs. Changing the denominator into games makes an equivalent comparison between the two sets of numbers possible. I am thanks Lindbergh for inspiring this review).

As for the races per match, Julio occupies the 19th place in the age of the 30 teams that really play baseball with real pitchers, such as in the total racing per match, but the difference between the figures is 0.11, 4.50 races per match in total, compared to 4.39 without zombie -throwers or position players.

Subsequently, the breakdown appears through the implementation of the universally designated seizure.

Position players who are launching

The teams that lose can only use a position player if they lose for eight or more races; The limit for 2023 was six. The teams that win can only use a position player in the ninth inning, and only when they win for 10 or more races; There was no limit for use until 2022 (there was no and there is still no limit for the use of position players in extra tickets).

This has caused a decrease in the number of position players in general. In July, however, the number of position players showed an upward trend.

This is not aberration. Until the end of July the managers had called the position players to launch 89 times this year. That is the largest amount in history until that time of the season, despite the limitations.

The teams used 21 position players, who appeared in the hill in July. Jon Berti launched four times and Jake Rogers” Kevin Newman y Luke Williams They launched two. In the two Williams competitions he did not allow hits or balls for balls and threw two in two entries. In general, the position players in July allowed .358/.411/.663, which sounds terrible – and it is – but it is also the best they have done this year.

Damage

Last week Derek Rhoads and I noted that the most important trend of injuries of the 2025 season (more batters, less pitchers injury) was reversed in July. The total number of injuries in July also increased and reached the highest level since March/April.

From July 2 to August 1, where players were injured in July in the list of injured the number of injuries by 18 % with regard to July 2024. There was considerably less than in the 2021-22 season, but fewer competitions were played in July of this year (738) than in those seasons (742 and 780, respectively). However, by adjusting the figure per game, it is observed that last month’s injuries were lower than in most previous seasons.

Lave the bases

With the decoupling rule next to the launch clock implemented before the 2023 season, the stolen bases increased dramatically. But that also applies to the success rate of stolen bases, well above the balance. This led people, including me, to wait even more stolen bases in the following seasons, with a lower risk aversion that reduced the success rate to the cost-benefit balance of around 75%.

They don’t listen.

No, look, I said stolen base They went up and the success rate lowNot vice versa.

0.68 bases were stolen per match in 2025. That is the sixth most in the era of the 30 teams. But the success rate rose to 78.7%, only behind 80.5% of 2023. There are people in the equipment analysis departments that can explain this better than me, apparently better than me: risk of injuries? Better launcher/receiver -mechanics? More Home Run (continues to read), making the robbed bases superfluous?

Playing time

The launch clock considerably reduced the duration of the competitions in 2023, but the duration of the games gradually increased in every month of the season. That’s why I was waiting for longer games in 2024. I was wrong. But this year you are right. The competitions (a little) lasted more for the fourth consecutive month.

In July, the nine -in -Int -competitions in which the local team hit the ninth, on average 2:42, slightly less than a year and a half than last year, but almost two minutes faster than in 2023. The same thing happened with the matches of nine tickets in which the local team did not reach the Novena. They lasted an average of 2:34, just over a minute slower than last year, but about three minutes faster than in 2023.

Damn torpedoes!

With the controversy about the quiet Torpedo Bates – that was brown March – I thought I would put this part aside. I followed his track, although there are evidence that the home runs have been shot.

Here the scale is reversed. The higher the red line, the more often the home run. It has certainly been like that. The barriers once went over the 27.8 spider to hit the fence in July. That is the sixth highest percentage in the age of the 30 teams, making it also the sixth highest percentage in history. (The 15 Joules with the highest home running speed as a result of bat, but nothing is out of place with the past seasons. The last July and the previous one had more often homers. Also those from 2021 and 2019. It seems that there is nothing to do here.

Thanks to Derek Rhoads for injury data.