BOOMSTICK TIME

A few years ago, Nelson Cruz, popularized the "boomstick" bat.  It was a tribute to his frequent and long home runs.  Cruz has been a bona fide slugger with an explosive bat.  This season, MLB is seeing a real uptick in the HR rate, to the extent a new record will be set breaking the previous high accomplished during the "steroids era".  It looks like "boomstick" time all around baseball with batters hitting more frequent and longer home runs.  

In 2000 MLB hitters slugged a total of 5693 home runs which is the actual record for totals and also for HR rate of 1.17 HR/team/game.
The current rate of 1.26 HR/game, projects to a total over 6000, which is the first time this milestone would be achieved.  There seems to be more than one "rabbit" in the current baseball.  

So what gives?  We think "the juice" is on the downswing.  Some say the baseball is more "tightly-wound" making it travel farther on contact. MLB has been tinkering with the game for a while now, so is this a random occurrence or by design? Seems like "everybody and their dog" are hitting home runs nowadays.