To watch baseball in 2021 is to wring your hands about the historically meager and one-dimensional state of offense, and to argue about the frantically assembled laundry list of potential remedies being tested in lesser leagues or bandied about by fans, broadcasters and MLB-appointed savior Theo Epstein.
There are no main characters. There are simply main ingredients in the confluence of trends holding the hitters back.
As the league batting average slumps to .237 — tied for the lowest ever with 1968, the so-called Year of the Pitcher — baseball is reckoning with the need for massive changes to rebalance the sport.