MLB offense per game, 1901 to 2025

In 2025 a major league team averaged 4.45 runs, 8.26 hits, 1.16 home runs, 3.16 walks, 0.71 stolen bases, and 8.36 strikeouts per game. The strikeout line crossed the hit line in 2018 and has stayed above it every season since.

How it is measured

Each rate divides the league-wide season total by team-games (each game counts once per team), from the team batting tables of the SABR Lahman Baseball Database (updated each December, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0). Per-game rates are what make eras comparable: the league grew from 16 teams to 30, so raw season totals roughly doubled on expansion alone while the per-game numbers did not move.

What the curve shows

Offense breathes in long eras. Runs per game peaked at 5.55 in 1930, bottomed at 3.39 in 1908 and again at 3.42 in the 1968 Year of the Pitcher, and sit at 4.45 today. The two lines that never stopped moving are the home run and the strikeout: homers went from 0.11 per game in 1908 to a 1.39 peak in 2019, and strikeouts more than doubled from 3.15 in 1901 to 8.36 in 2025, passing hits in 2018 (8.48 against 8.44). The stolen base tells the newest story: 0.47 per game in 2019, 0.71 in 2025, a revival that followed the 2023 rule changes.