The NCAA has done a study, at about the halfway point of the NCAA college baseball season (D1, D2, D3) and has found, not surprisingly, that scoring is down, home runs are down, ERA is down, shutouts are WAY up, and batting average is WAY down. I think most that have paid attention to the change expected the results, though the amount of shutouts at this point of the season (444) vs this point last year (277) is quite dramatic.
You will notice in the graph in that article, that even though batting average is way down and runs per game are down and home runs are down, strikeouts per game (compared to the same midway point in the season) are also slightly DOWN. That might surprise you, but it shouldn’t. The reason is strikeouts are down when all the other offensive stats are down is more pitchers are pitching to contact, throwing more strikes and throwing more strikes earlier in the count. One stat I didn’t see in the study is the amount of pitches thrown per game. My guess is that pitches per game are also significantly down.
The best comment in the article is this one… “But I’ve heard coaches say that the guys who are good hitters are still good hitters,” Keilitz said. “Guys who coaches didn’t consider to be good hitters but still hit for good average with the old bats aren’t hitting for good average anymore with the new bats.”