[a_bonobo]

Stephen Jay Gould made a very similar argument about the disappeared .400 baseball hitter:

https://sabr.org/journal/article/can-stephen-jay-goulds-theo...

>Gould then supposes that the decline in batting average peak (the .400 hitter, the outlier) is due to decreased variation in the population of hitters. In other words, as the skills of both hitters and pitchers improved, and as the pool of talented players to choose from increased, the variation in talent (the difference between the best to the worst batting averages) should decrease. Therefore, players in Major League Baseball in more recent period are arguably reaching the “wall” of human performance. Gould’s analysis of the data supports this idea, as the standard deviation of league-wide batting averages has decreased steadily since the early 20th century.

[dessimus]

I think the improvement of pitchers has been understated. 30 years ago, a guy that could throw a 100 mph pitch 1 or 2 times a game was the Ace of the starting rotation. Now, pitchers that can throw 100+ come out of the bullpen in relief because just heat isn't enough.

[Ekaros]

Something like track and field sports might be best objective comparison. Excluding sports where equipment has been changed. The shoes might have gotten somewhat better, but still on top level it seems we have quite narrow band which is above previous record holders.