https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/sports/baseball-mlb-strikeouts.html#c...
As a softball player who has been playing the game for 8 years (and also as a baseball fan), I took great interest in this article. I found it fascinating that the hit/strikeout ratio has become basically even, when 30 years ago, there was significantly more hits. The article debates whether this trend is good or bad for the game, and if the game's popularity will continue to decline due to the lack of "action." The fact that pitchers have become stronger over the years and now routinely throw 90-100 miles per hour is an indication of their athleticism. Hitters will eventually be able to compete against this level of play, which will increase the excitement of the game that much further.
In the last 5 years, baseball had degenerated because of analytics, contrary to the use, or rather misunderstanding how and why analytics are used in the wider world. The rise of strikeouts and the reduction of other run producing mechanisms has made baseball boring, stale and, in an odd Twist inefficient because of the players inability to put balls in play. Tonight in the Mets/ Giants game. In Giants inability to but a ball in elongated the game to 13 innings, leaving only friends and family to watch at the end. Pathetically, the failure players to realize the the current deficiencies in the game and managements drone like devotion to achieve run producing “efficiency” has alienated fans. Have watched too many games this year where the search for efficiency lead to loses or needlessly extended games.
I've been a lifelong baseball enthusiast. Now, i can' watch a game without a lot of fast-forwarding. Normal viewing is like a crawl through the desert.
As many here have said already, it's the cost of going to a game that has driven away fans. But owners and players aren't going to reduce those costs willingly. It will take a crisis to force them, and by then it might be too late.
As for the way the game is now played, I do think it's been perverted, and does need some drastic changes imposed, regardless of whether the players union agrees or not. Some things must be done for the good of the game, even if they're not popular with the players. Get rid of the shift; tighten the strike zone; these two changes would go a long way towards restoring balance, and encourage hitting for average and being productive at the plate, not just hitting a HR or striking out. One other thing might also be tried: limiting the number of pitchers used in a game, This would reduce the quick move to a reliever, and force teams to allow starters to pitch more complete games and allow hitters more chances to see the same pitcher, thus increasing his odds.
HRs and strikeouts are great, but not when they're artificially inflated by the way the game is played today.
One of the most wonderful things about baseball is its evolving from a simple game in the pasture to the hyper-analyzed game of today. Let it continue to evolve.
The solution to the shift is more Tony Gwynns and less Joey Gallos. Wake up MLB managers and MLB management and let our beautiful game continue to evolve, organically, without any rules thrown up in desperation.
1
One simple change would help to eliminate every problem mentioned - when a pitcher comes in from the bullpen, he must face the hitter immediately. No 'warm-ups'. We fans are not paying to watch practice.
This would improve hitting and speed play into the bargain.
1
There are likely many reasons why baseball attendance is falling. Can you show us the relationship over time between baseball team gross pay disparity and attendance?
Making outs harder to come by will, of necessity, improve offense. Several suggestions:
1 - If a sliding runner clearly reaches a base before a tag is applied, call that runner safe even if he momentarily loses contact with the base and is tagged 'out' by a fielder.
2 - When replay is invoked on close safe/out calls (mostly at first base), decide on a specific number of video frames within which a decision cannot be reversed (e.g. all calls stand if the decision point falls within 5 frames).
3 - Require umpires (and suspend or otherwise penalize them for failure) to call strikes vertically from the middle of the knee to 8 inches above the belt -- not lower and not higher.
4 - Require umpires (and suspend or otherwise penalize them for failure) to call strikes horizontally only when at least half of the ball is "on the black."
Limiting the number of pitchers would have a postiive impact without changing the on-field game. Right now, it is easy to carry so many pitchers on the roster, that a manager can usually keep bringing in relievers throwing 100mph without much restraint. Less pitchers on the roster would mean that pitchers getting in trouble would remain in games longer and there would be more hitters available on the bench.
The easy rules for bringing up pitchers from the minors for a single start or to be available in the bullpen also add to the oversupply of fresh pitchers.
3
@Ken Or make a rule that every pitcher who enters the game must face at least three batters.
—Prohibit the shift. Require the shortstop stay on the left side of 2nd base until the ball is hit, and the 2nd baseman on the right side.
—Lower the pitching mound.
Today baseball wants pitchers who throw high 90's and hitters to hit home runs. Back in the day if you hit 20 homers and hit 220 it was looked down on. Not today Gary Sanchez of the NY yankees was hitting 188 when he went on the DL he had 14 home runs, and you hear is how many homeruns he has hit since he came up to the majors. Everyone is in love with the Home Run, and strike outs. Pitchers like Jame Moyer and Sparky Lyle would be passed up today. They did not throw 95mp heaters. I'm tired of hearing people say "Baseball is a Slow Game" well yes That's baseball. Imagine someone saying hockey is too fast of a game? Nothing like a summer afternoon at a baseball game. But today it's all about TV and viewers. I'm old enough to remember us kids would listen to the World series in class. A transitor radio with the ear plug in our ear the school was ok with it. Today world series games first pitch 8:30pm ends too late for 10year old when he or she has school next day. Yep baseball has changed.
It's not the improvement in pitching (resulting in less hits) which drives people away from baseball, it's the unreasonable, exorbitant and ever-increasing cost of tickets and refreshments one must pay to attend a game in person, particularly with one's family!
8
Baseball is slow and dull. But sometimes that's what you want.
Great piece.
The one disappointing fact at the beginning:
40 million at minor league games vs. 70 million at the majors.
come on baseball fans, quit throwing your money at the greedy owners and players of the majors and enjoy great pro ball at a local minor league team.
You will see that MLB doesn't own this American pastime.
2
1. Stop juicing the ball. The claim that they haven't been juicing it is absurd.
2. Change the strike zone; but which way? Larger or smaller?
3. Ban from the vocabulary the metrics jargon: WAR, Launch Angle, OPS. These are junk stats masquerading as sophisticated analysis. Jibber-Jabber. The best analysis of great pitching I ever heard came from Greg Maddux: Make the balls look like strikes and the strikes look like balls
I don't see how you can ban shifts. What's the line between a shift and shading a pull hitter to pull? Shifts potentially create the interesting issue of hitters confounding the shift. That doesn't seem to happen much but I'd guess minor league hitters are working on that as we speak and analyze.
2
I play in a senior softball game where you walk after 3 balls and are out after 2 strikes , even if you foul off the 2nd strike. I don't especially like the 2nd strike rule but the game moves quickly and we can finish two 7 inning games in less than 3 hours.
So here are some suggestions ( in order of preference) for how to increase the action in a major league game.
*Award the batter a walk after 3 balls but still give the batter 3 strikes. With pitchers as good as they are, why should they continue to have the edge here.
*Consider limiting the number of foul balls with 2 strikes to no more than three, after which the batter is either awarded a walk or is out.
*Eliminate the infield shift by requiring 2 infielders on either side of second base.
*Consider eliminating the force out and requiring all baserunners to be tagged out.
*Consider allowing the batter a second attempt to bunt with 2 strikes, if the first bunt goes foul.
All of these changes would create more baserunners, which will increase the action, the excitement and the scoring. With more baserunners, a home run will be even more meaningful since it will increase the scoring.
Baseball at the park is great, but 4 people at Yankee stadium with food parking and bleacher or nosebleed seats costs upwards of $250with some food and drink. Good seats at least double that figure. Often in NYC the weather is less than ideal, and some games are not competitive so it makes sense to me that watching at home or at a local bar/restaurant seems the way most people chose to watch the games.
5
While being true that strikeouts will set a record if stays on pace. If you research there were many seasons that were just as close to this season.. So as usual this is just fodder for writers that do not have much to write about. Pitch count and defensive shifts and Mgrs dependence on metrics instead of good old baseball logic has taken alot of variables out of game. Tech puts pressures on players to specialize that stunt them from being well rounded players...except Mike Trout
Stop calling checked swing strikes. Umpires hardly ever called them back in the day. And the calls are wrong about 50% of the time.
1
Baseball will sort itself out. Always has, always will.
An old Warren Spahn and a young Juan Marichal pitching shutouts against each other for 15 innings before Wille Mays hits a HR in the 16th inning to win it.....great baseball.
The Big Red Machine crushing the ball up and down their lineup in the mid 1970's....great baseball.
Greg Maddux expanding the strike zone with hitters looking foolish chasing the bait.....great baseball.
Rickie Henderson drawing a walk and standing on 3rd base two pitches later....great baseball.
Tony Gwynn and Rod Carew just slapping the ball to where they ain't....great baseball.
Maybe a deft contact hitter bunting or slapping a single to reach first. Then an Olympic sprinter for a pinch runner that can steal 2nd and 3rd with few exceptions. Nervous pitcher. Sac fly. Run scores.
Somebody will figure something out..(my SF Giants certainly need to..... can't score runs to save their lives).
5
most exciting play.....is not a strike out.....a triple, a great defensive play......these show the talents.......i hate seeing pitch and catch.....at $60 a ticket i will stay home and watch only the high lites on mlb.com....you can actually watch only the innings you wish after the game is played....which is only usually 20% of the game......at least i see some hits that way
Smart pitching is pitching a ground ball, pop up or soft fly to the outfield. Smart hitting is adjusting your feet and hitting to the opposite field. If Ryan Howard had learned that to get some singles and doubles he would not have been something like an ever-flailing, strike out .230 career hitter unable to penetrate the shift whose advent was to thwart him.
The shift? Ban it. That's softball.
As a fan I grow increasingly bored with the contemporary game and the whole notion of pitch counts is ludicrous.
Think about the "Boys of Summer", the great Brooklyn Dodger teams of the 1950s. They played hurt because they had to or someone would take their jobs.
The starting pitchers pitched until they got in a jam; no closer, but a bullpen capable of sending anyone in to get outs the old fashioned way - ground balls, short fly balls. Starters pitched on four days rest. If someone strained a pinky had a cut, a sore back he played.
Solutions?Ban the shift; do away with instant replay --how many stolen bases would have been nullified back in the day by the camera catching a foot come off the bag when the point is that the runner got there before the tag - period end of story, stolen base.
Want a rule change? Tell a pitcher he has 10 seconds to throw the next pitch and bring games back to the 2 hours 20 minutes it should take to play a baseball game.
Put in a 10-second rule that on the 11th second automatically calls a ball. That'll get them pitching a lot faster.
5
The problem that owners and GM face is that this is not the 50s or 60s. Tastes and entertainment due to technology change rapidly. Baseball is a by nature slow paced and individualistic but fans want not just quicker games but action. I like home runs but baseball is about many other aspects that make it a great team sport. Pitchers and Hitters should be a part of the game, not the game.
70 million fans, or 70 million tickets? Some fans go to 81 games a season, and many go to a fair number.
Also, if MLB were so concerned about the fans, they wouldn't charge $16 for a beer and $50 for parking. And don't forget triple digits for decent seats for a meaningless game in September!
4
@GCT..oh one more comment...3 to 4 hours ...thats ridiculous when you have to work next moning.....i would limit the number of pitching changes.....after the starter.....only 3 pitching changes......But you know the league likes the commercial revenue from the break in plays for the tv stations.....its almost as bad as the kickoff in NFL...its a touchback and another commercial break....Seriously....the 6 th to10 th inning in Dodger - Mariner game had 8 pitching changes....each one took 5 minutes....thats 40 minutes wasted.....Maybe a rule like each pitcher has to pitch to 8 batters would help...none of this move the walls higher....its about the boring length of games
2
If you want more hits, making the strike zone bigger will cause batters to swing earlier in the count and at more pitches. The result will be fewer strikeouts, quicker games, pitchers lasting more innings, and fewer pitches per at bat. Whether you end up with more hits with all the overshifts and batters unwilling or unable to "hit it where they ain't," we will have to see.
1
Raise the outfield walls. Too many home runs landing in the first 10 rows of low-walled outfields. Turn them into singles and doubles (or triples or inside the park home runs: much more exciting).
Take a look at Fenway (left and center, anyway).
1
Sorry, but these pitchers are kidding themselves. They throw as hard as they can for what, five or six innings max, and then the parade of relief throwers begins.
I have bern a fan for over 50 years, and I find the modern game boring. Thanks for nothing, Mr. Beane
All new ball parks that are on the table for construction now and for the future should have their center fields be a minimum of 420' feet from home plate. Too many baseball parks are ban boxes.
A radical thought perhaps, but why not require 4 outs to swith sides? One more out to work with to string hits together. Then move the mound back slightly to the exact middle between 2nd base and home plate, and deepen outfield fences. Et voila, back to small ball and exciting, eventful baseball, that is actually a team game (not a 1 on 1 that leaves fielders uninvolved). Six innings of 4 outs would equate to 24 outs, slightly less than the current 27.
Also, fouls used to not be counted as strikes. They changed that in 1914 or something. Just a thought concerning hitter agressiveness and stacked odds against the batter.
If all else fails, resort to Massachusetts baseball, a game that according to MLB's official historian is delightful to both play and watch. In any case, major league baseball as it currently played is dull and uninteresting and will only hasten the sport's demise.
Paradoxically, the combination of power pitching and a perhaps juiced baseball has changed the risk-reward equation for hitters, such that the best strategy is to go for the home run, even with an increased risk of striking out. This unprecedented combination of factors has made it true for the first time in baseball history that a more lively baseball is leading to less offense, not more. Whatever changes baseball can make to make home runs harder to hit (deeper fences, a less elastic baseball, etc.) will have the effect of reducing the likelihood of hitting a home run, and thus increasing the relative benefit of a ball in play, which will lead to more action and (to some) exciting baseball. Teams and players respond and adjust to incentives. If swinging for the fences just leads to more strikeouts but no more fences, tactics will quickly change.
One of the beauties of baseball was that, traditionally, you didn't have to be 7 feet tall or weigh 300 pounds to compete at the professional level. In fact some successful baseball players have been rather chubby. So it's a little sad to see this shift towards intensive athleticism, since it makes the game so much more one-dimensional.
2
Gourmet restaurants at the ballpark, rich vs poor seating, entitled athletes many of which can't speak the language. 100 mile an hour fastballs vs uppercutting musclemen who can only hit it out. The shift. Pitchers that can't make a complete game. The game I played learned and loved is dead.
8
Pitchers adapted to designated hitters. Good for them.
1
It should worry them. .
In the long run, fans will not continue to show up, if there are even Fewer things happening during the innings. .
The between-inning activities make it almost unbearable to begin with. .
6
No one listens to me, but the solutions to baseball's problems noted in this essay can be solved thusly:
1. deaden the ball slightly, to make it less likely to go so far and thus reduce the number of home runs and injuries.
2. limit the pitching staffs to 10 pitchers. Gradually reduce the staffs to 11 and then 10, forcing teams to train pitchers to throw longer than they do, reducing match-up pitching subs, and perhaps pitching velocity, and increase hitting. GMs and managers have changed the nature of the game by reducing regular player subs and increasing staffs to 12 and 13 pitchers. MLB shouldn't let them do that.
3. No matter the sentimental value, demand that ea stadium with short fences be moved back. Pry the Green Monster back 20 ft, destroy the right field wall in Yankee Stadium and move that fence back until it's vertically level with the second deck, and move the Crawford boxes in Houston to left-center. Do whatever it takes to compel these local stadiums to offer legitimate distances for home runs.
1
@Tom
I agree with points 1 & 2 absolutely! I loved the days of Jack Morris, who averaged 270 innings for like 9 years. I don't like the idea of modifying stadiums. It's oK if there are a few gems around the league where the game plays a little differently.
2
@Tom All new ball parks that are on the table for construction now and for the future should have their center fields be a minimum of 420' feet from home plate. Too many baseball parks are ban boxes.
@Eric
That’s “band” box
Look no further than baseball's own "management" for the injuries to baseball. Where one the commissioner was someone like AB Giamatti or Fay Vincent, who both genuinely loved the game and its beautiful aspects, they were been replaced by the likes of Buddie Boy Selig, Manfried, and Roger Goodell, who only care about mega-money and creating large and costly "spectacles".
Add in ear-shattering music and fake noises, endless techno-tampering with the umpires and running of the game, sky-high prices for fancy food, and players / managers who seem to have no concept of how to play / teach baseball that doesn't revolve around homers.
Watching minor legue ball used to be a good antidote (tix and snacks for under $20 a person) but they seem to be aping the Bigs too. Sad...
7
As an avid baseball fan, I read a new article every week or two on our doomed national pass time. Too many strikeouts, waning interest among African Americans, an aging fan base yadda yadda yadda (for the record, I just entered my thirties). And I've got to say: I don't buy it. All of baseball history has been characterized by the emergence of new trends, followed by (organically arising) compensatory measures. "Moneyball" was one such trend, and propelled the As to a string of better-than-expected seasons in the early 2000s. Then the rest of the league got wise, adopted its principles, and the As lost their competitive advantage.
I know Commissioner Manfred has said he thought strikeout/home run trends would have corrected themselves by now, but that's no reason to panic. No one knows how things will play out, but players, coaches, and management have too much incentive to keep innovating for the game to ever stagnate. Everyone: relax and enjoy the eternal ebbs and flows of the best sport out there. And I, for one, will keep looking for articles on all the great trends in modern baseball, like the "youth movement" that brings superstars like Mike Trout, Mookie Betts Juan Soto, and Ronald Acuña to the big time years ahead of schedule. If this doesn't get you going, you might be made of stone: https://www.mlb.com/video/devers-game-tying-solo-home-run/c-1726184983
5
@Thomas S
The focus of this article was on the dominance of pitching. That trend will not reverse spontaneously or organically because batting cannot improve (human reflexes won't get any faster), but pitchers can increasingly throw at blazing speeds that overwhelm batters because the pitchers know they will be pulled as soon as they fatigue.
Corrective rule changes will have to be made, and could involve either shrinking the strike zone, limiting the number of pitching changes per game, or both.
A good point, but also a cautionary source. Thomas, if you're in Bogota, you're a fan but not an in-stadium paying customer.
You might be an app or MLB.tv customer, but the many, many commenters who griped about costs face the game differently than you do.
Entertainment, for that's what baseball is among other things, is differently judged by the remote viewer when compared to the live audience member.
I agree that the game is great, but seeing consistently-underwhelming crowds at some ballparks, like the one in Phoenix, casts the concerns of those worried about the long-term viability of the game in a troubling light.
The excitement of Trout and Betts won't erase all of those problems.
1
Different problems mixed up here.
Shift: easy. Eliminate rule that bunts with two strikes that roll foul create strikeouts. Let em bunt with two strikes. Make bunting strategy more effective at any count. The shift is not that big a deal. Look at defense changes in cricket. Good for the game if hitters are not hobbled in responses.
strikeouts: a fetish for those who prefer fake certainty in a team game. Fielding and situations will always matter in baseball. Sooner or later someone will realize the value of outs per pitch for pitchers, and the sinker will be back for all those ground balls. Limit the number of pitchers on a roster and strikeouts will be come much less valuable than "pitiching to contact," and metrics will arise for distinguishing types of contact.
uppercut hitters: when will someone have the courage to play four outfielders and three infielders against a fly ball swing for the fences hitter? The numbers don't lie. There are also a lot of spaces between infield and outfield to consider for fielders.
2
@John Kelly "Eliminate rule that bunts with two strikes that roll foul create strikeouts." Intriguing idea especially because of its creativity and because it's easy to test in the minor leagues!
Thanks.
1
One other obvious reason for this phenomenon, not mentioned in the article for some reason, is that the vast majority of pitchers are now on sophisticated steroid cycles. Pitchers are finally catching up to hitters who have been doing this for years. All the euphemisms about the development of today’s athletes and older players reinventing themselves is all laughable. At what point are serious journalists going to question all this? I would start with the Players Association, the Commissioner’s Office and the dark underworld community of steroid purveyors. All of whom are likely to be complicit in this.
3
I wonder what evidence you have for this. There is certainly reason to be suspicious. 1. Can anyone explain the testing rules for MLB? When you test? How often you test? Is there a limit to how many times a player can be tested? Therefore a free pass after the last required one? Early testing for stars? 2. Same motivations are still there. Keep stars and local favorites in the game. More certainty on financial investment. No serious questioning of baseball owners. Which owners were questioned by Congress? 3. No one suspended at the peak of their performance and popularity. 4. Geographical proximity of the steroid industry and Moneyball.
I think changing the game to accommodate the possible steroid users is a mistake. The elimination of the high strike invited the muscle bound players to continue the practice.
If you want to get steroids out of the game and be sure you have just the balance of talents to consider, urine sample for starting pitchers, relief pitchers every 5 appearances and after every home run.
It's 1951. The NY Giants, 13 1/2 games behind the Brooklyn Dodgers in August, have won 16 in a row to catch the Dodgers on the final day of the season. They split the first 2 games of a 3 game playoff to determine who will play the Yankees in the World Series. In the 3rd game the Dodgers are leading 4-1 in the 9th inning. It looks like the Giants miracle is over. But the Giants score a run in the bottom of the 9th, and have runners on 2nd and 3rd. The Dodgers bring in relief pitcher Ralph Branca. Bobby Thomson steps up to the plate with rookie Willie Mays on deck. Thomson takes a strike. The play by play: "Branca in the stretch. The pitch- Thomson hits a long fly ball down the left field line. It has the distance! That ball is....gone! The Giants win the pennant! But wait. It looks like the Dodgers are saying the ball may have been foul. They're challenging the call. The umpires convene near home plate while Thomson is standing on second. The umpires have their earphones on and are waiting for the umpires in the film room to review the call. (2 minutes later) The home plate umpire is making the home-run sign. It was a fair ball! The Giants win the pennant!"
Baseball today.
5
I read the comments about cutting down home runs or even eliminating them all together and shake my head in disbelief. It's the most exciting play in the game, instantly bringing fans of the hitting team to their feet in delirious cheers, while the other team's fans clutch their heads in misery.
The over-worked adjective "majestic" describes the home run the best.
Somehow, MLB has to get more hitting while preserving the home run. The commissioner and no bb person in the article mentioned the obvious solution: tighten the strike zone. Lower the high strike line down six inches to cut down on the "rising fast ball (I know. Impossible according to physics, but a reality to a hitter's eyes) that causes so many swing and misses. Raise the low strike by six inches,, which hitters avoid to not hit a feeble grounder. Low strikes now are nearly unhittable. Eliminate them.
These simple changes will force pitchers to throw more balls into easy contact zones and produce quicker action and more hits (and more homers!).
2
@Frederick Kiel True. I remember when I was younger, what is a low strike now would be called a ball almost all the time. I still can't get used to those pitches being called strikes.
Of all the major sports, baseball holds statistics most sacred. This is why some insist on Barry Bonds home-run record listed with an asterisk, and why instant replay can be applied to close plays (which are almost always judged objectively) but not balls and strikes (which have always been judged with some subjectivity).
Any significant adjustment to rules will be met with a cadre of baseball purists - players (present and former), team officials, and especially writers who would understand how such a change would impact the historical measurement of the game and thus the greatness of a player or team.
The solution? Leave the game alone, and players will adjust. Some team will start bunting successfully in the shift and make the infielders play more true to their position. Others, like Jose Altuve from the Astros, will just keep hitting everything they see in a logic-defying display of talent.
1
Ban the shift!
1
Shrink the strike zone a little. Make 3 balls a walk.
American who watch sports, any sport, consistently want goals, dunks, hits, scores of all sorts- balls going through hoops, over nets, into holes in the ground or into stands.
It's the reason why soccer on this country, despite growing popularity, is not more mainstream as a spectator sport- low scoring, skill and defense the mainstays.
3
I am sick of whining about “the shift.” You are professional baseball players and can’t even lay down a freaking bunt. An utter disgrace! Lay down a bunt Joey and you could walk to first base. No sympathy.
8
Reduce the number of balls for a walk to three.
Two things stand out in my mind that weren't explored. First, the author seems to believe that patience - plate discipline - is needed to drive more balls over the fence. I believe it's the lack of discipline that accompanies the emphasis on exit velocity, launch angle, and other trivial data. I see so many batters swinging at pitches well outside the zone who could easily wait out a pitcher with poor control. Also, the dismissive tone regarding player shifts - where does that come from? Why do far too many hitters insist on pulling everything? Why do we see so few "Punch and Judy" hitters who spray the ball to all fields? Anyone ever heard of Wee Willie Keeler's simple logic (hit 'em where they ain't)?
1
Soccer is stealing your lunch.
1
Hey, people, current MLB is not so bad. Just do the comparisons:
NFL football is continuous excitement and possibilities.
NBA basketball provides some nice moments, but uncalled traveling offenses and endless trudging up and down the court for foul shots is significantly enraging and boring, with very little middle ground.
Baseball is even more boring than the NBA, except to maybe younger kids and stat freaks.
SOCCER IS REALLY, REALLY BORING!! Deciding totally boring games via trivial tie-breaker kicks??? Just skip the game, cut to the tie-breakers.
I personally would love to see a major league hitter successfully bunt. Maybe that takes care of this shift nonsense.
3
The first thing I’d suggest is to take some of the “rabbit” out of the ball so it takes significantly more power to hit it out. Obviously, I’m not suggesting a dead ball but significantly less lively.
Smaller to average-sized hitters would find that swinging for the fences results in a lot of fly outs instead of home runs. They’ll need to level their swings and try to hit line drives, the old-school way. That way, the bat is in the zone longer, so they’re less likely to swing and miss. We’ll see more hits and fewer strikeouts. Big guys will reach the fences often enough but not as easily. Some might think more situationally instead of swinging from the heels all the time.
Except for big sluggers, the emphasis would shift to base hits, base running, and situational baseball. We could see more hit-and-run, base stealing, bunts, and so on—plays that make less sense if you can easily hit home runs. Maybe move the fences back some, as well, or at the least, don’t let clubs compensate by moving the fences in.
Dealing with the shift is trickier. You have less time to move your feet to drive the ball to the opposite field against 96 to 100 mph fast balls and high-speed breaking balls than when the average big league fastball was 90-91 mph, and few pitchers could bring 96+. I’m not sure how you address that short of banning the extreme shift by requiring two defenders on each side of second base.
1
All this hand wringing about the game is getting tiresome... They want to speed up games, but then they institute a replay that slows down every game... No easy answers here...Bauer and Scherzer are both right, this is the game the GM's have pushed the players towards and the hitters will have to compensate and improve or rule changes like mound height and distance, bat sizes and materials could change if they want a more offensively productive game. The elephant in the room that I don't believe I saw mentioned here is the sanctity of the statistics of baseball... Many, many fans, mostly old, but also some young, want nothing to do with modification of the game that changes the classifications and qualifications of how those statistics are gathered because they distort any historical comparison between future players and those from the past. And I have to say, that's a gigantic part of the legacy of the sport of baseball.
1
Let's look at MLB batting averages in a 2 strike count. 0-2 (.166), 1-2 (.178), 2-2 (.193) 3-2 (.216).
Now let's look at a right handed hitter. If he's a decent bunter, he can lay one down the 3rd base line in fair territory about 1 in 3 tries. If he's a really good bunter, 2 out of 3 is probably about right.
Since the 3rd baseman always backs up when the count goes to 2 strikes (after all, who bunts with 2 strikes?), any bunt laid down his way is an almost certain base hit, especially when facing a right handed pitcher who usually falls off the mound toward the 1st base side.
So with a 2-2 count, a hitter normally condemned to boast a .193 BA could now have a .333 BA--or possibly even .667!--if he bunts with 2 strikes. The hitter who does the math will win the batting title every single year just by bunting with 2 strikes.
And what if the 3rd baseman continues to play in with 2 strikes? Great! It increases your chances of blasting one by him. So either way, your BA goes up if you consistently bunt with 2 strikes.
So swing for the fences until you get to 2 strikes. Then, for heaven's sake, bunt!
Turn down the sound systems at stadiums.
I can barely have a conversation with the person next to me.
5
Please don't do anything that would reverse the increasing physical ability of the players. Don't go the way of the NFL with an inpenetrable multi-volume rule book that nobody except the priests of football can understand. That means don't tinker unnecessarily with rules like player placement, number of trips to the mound, changing the basic 4-3-3 structure of the game. I really don't mourn the days of fat pitchers and wheezing first basemen. Speed up the game by calling both high and low strikes. If batters can't focus on a tiny tin can sized strike zone, they will have to cut down on their swing.
Rule change: no pitcher may appear in consecutive games.
1
Baseball’s aging fan base is what keeps it alive. They have more disposable income than the young, who dislike baseball. But in 2-3 decades the old baseball fans will be gone, as will baseball.
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Aaron Judge, a relative MLB newbee, has more strikeouts (387) than Joe DiMaggio did in his entire career (369). But he's still a very exciting player. The shift can be handled by looking to baseball's distant past maxim "Hit it where they Ain't." For me the two worst things in baseball today are too many relief pitchers and instant replay. I would like to see a rule that any pitcher except the final closer has to face at least three batters, and relievers, except the first reliever and the closer, have to come in at the inning breaks. This would bring strategy back and save lots of time. As for instant reply, slow motion is not real. We don't see or react that way. All the fun of the ump getting it wrong (against your team of course) is gone. All the fun of the enraged manager being thrown out is gone. Seeing players celebrating a review call after a two or three minute break that has sucked the air out of the air out of the stadium is beyond fake. Instant reply should only be for playoff games, and then only done in real time. If the manager who asks for it is wrong, he gets thrown out for delay.
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How about the manager has to challenge WITHOUT seeing a replay first - my eyes against yours?
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The current trend flows from a single sabermetric statistic. Balls hit in the air are more likely to result in hits than balls hit on the ground. So batters are using upper cut swings, swinging at more high hard ones and increasing their exit velocity. That is a formula for home runs and strikeouts.
Trends like this are often started by individual successful teams. The value of a stacked bullpen was established by the Royals team that beat the Mets in the Series. The present trend has been reinforced by the 2017 Yankees.
The standout team this year is the Red Sox. They have 30 less home runs than the Yankees but they're hitting .270 to the Yankees' .250. And the Sox lineup has struck out 150 less times than the Yankees. Bottom line, about half the Sox hitters are swinging for the fences and about half are not. I expect that that will be the next trend, beginning as soon as next year.
While tickets at Fenway remain expensive, game attendance is within an eyelash of continuous sellouts. My prediction? Baseball isn't going anywhere.
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The analytics has killed all the fun. I constantly rant at the radio broadcast when hitters strike out because they are "placing" the ball. And whatever happened to bunting? Back in the days, bunting was used quite well to advance runners, or get a speedy batter down to first, or, as one of the best plays in baseball, the squeeze play--bunting with a runner on third.
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Forget strikeouts vs hits. What about standing around doing nothing for hours vs a few seconds of action.
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@donfitness Nahhhhhhh...that's football
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@Alan
Bingo!
Move the pitcher's mound further away from the base, make the infield smaller or even change the shape, and you've got a game with more hits and more runs. Part of any sport is for the players to try to hack the game in order to have the edge, and thereby win. Sometimes that results in shutting down an opponents ability to respond.
One of the best pitchers I ever saw was Catfish Hunter. He's in the Hall of Fame. I would guess his pitches rarely if ever hit 90 mph. He probably wouldn't get a chance to play today.
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Home run crisis? When my team does not hit enough home runs...that IS a crisis. If the opposing team hits a home run...that's one too many. I have nothing against pitchin' duels, but I wouldn't want to watch one every time I went to the ballpark.
No-hitters are exciting because they rarely happen. Home runs are exciting because it's hard to place a
cylindrical piece of maple or ash squarely against a round baseball moving at +/- 90 mph...and launch it 400+ feet at 110 mph.
10 HR's during the All-Star game? Who cares? It's
the All-Star game for Pete's sake. They're supposed to have a lot of HR's... or no-hitters. Aren't they? lol
Lower the mound more; move it back; shrink the strike zone. I like to see the ball put in play, but then, I watched baseball in San Diego, when #19 was playing.
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I grew up in New York going to Yankee Stadium on the subway from Brooklyn by myself at age ten in the heyday of Mantle and Maris. A reserved seat ticket was $2.25 and the bleachers were $0.75. Tickets are too expensive today. A Giants reserved seat is upwards of $75.00and beers are $12.00. No wonder attendance is down.
8
Baseball isn’t fun anymore? Really? Watch Javier Baez of the Cubs play anytime and then come back to tell me about the state of baseball.
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The reason attendance is down is the outrageous cost to go to a game. A decent seat is $120 to $200. And then there is the $16 hamburger. Or $11 beer. And $25 parking. Stadium owners should lower the cost of tickets and not have a stadium that is embarrassingly 75% empty (hope you are listening Tampa Bay Rays!).
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@Moderate In Florida
Yankee Stadium beer is $13. No deposit.
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1) limit number of pitchers to 4 in the first 9 innings, no limit after that. Once a week during the regular season a team may exceed the limit at their discretion.
2) move the fences out 10 feet
3) Two in fielders on each side of second (outlaw the extreme shift).
This would bring more hits, fewer homers. Pitchers are still free to go for the K
Pitching is the only thing interesting about baseball anyway. I am glad the quality of piching has improved.
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The sport we know today is worlds apart from the sport that almost died in the 20's, flourished in 40's, and exploded in the 90's. There are only a few reasons why each era happened the way it happened. Let's rewind to the 1919 World Series where the Underdogs prevailed because of the toxicity of gambling, and desire of money. This saw Major League Baseball crumble, but just barely survive. One of the most talented teams in history was left tainted. While all of it's star players received lifetime bans from baseball. However, something saved baseball from that dark time, the popular opinion points toward The Great Bambino, but baseball wasn’t saved by one man, it was saved by excitement made by many. Fast forward half a century, and here we are in a time deemed by most another stain on the MLB, but what the Steroid Era brought was good and bad. The home run races between McGwire and Sosa brought international popularity to the game. Furthermore, home runs have served our game as a lifeline and a hook. In addition to all this, people are accusing the owners of collusion, which is absurd. JD Martinez coming into this season turned down a 4 year 80 million dollar contract, saying it was, "Laughable." If a GM isn't from Harvard or Yale he has a team of people in the analytics department telling him a player's value. So, what is really driving away fans, that go big or go home mentality that has been displayed around the league for decades, or the crazy high ticket prices?
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Limit the number of times the manager can come out to the mound. In basketball, they limit the number of time outs. Whereas, in Baseball the entire game is basically turning into a time out to scratch or spit or adjust the batting glove or step out of the box to do all three of the above or a coach coming out to change pitchers because the data states that is what is best. Check out last years' World Series game 2 to watch the incredible Dodger data man find the right relievers to give away the game.
No shifts, lower the mound and a limit how many relievers can be called in any given game.
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UMPIRES! yes a big reason. Watching ball games on TV I see so many wrong calls compared to the actual strike out box projected. We have the technology, the umpire could watch each pitch just like we do in TV land. Add this piece of technology and it will really help.
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@RichardHead Ever notice how that box doesn’t change size regardless if the hitter is 5’7” or 6’6”?
Also, keep in mind that box is a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional area (the plate).
Is the box supposed to be at the front of the plate? The middle? The rear?
A pitch does not have to cross over the entire plate in the strike zone in order to be a strike. If it catches any part of the plate, it’s a strike.
That box is meaningless and should not be used.
Average length of game has increased. Much of it is the last innings watching reliever after reliever warm up. Limit warm-up pitches to 2. A manager will have to think ahead about warming up. That's what the bull pen s for - not getting splinters sitting but loosening up.
But baseball's longer term problem is that the younger fans are getting fewer and fewer. Baseball is rolling in money. They need to set up little leagues all over and put out some money for uniforms, coaches and equipment if they want to stay relevant.
Will they? Of course not, not until the television contracts start getting cut. It's going to be a rough 10 years until then. I drove by our best baseball field in town last night and one end had a bunch of 10 year olds with shin guards (soccer players) and the other side had a bunch of 10 year olds in pads (football). Not a baseball player in sight. Time for the league and players to pony up if they care at all about the game.
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As a fan of small ball, I'd love to see a game played where there were no home runs....any ball hit over the fence is the same as a foul ball. Wouldn't that be wild?
But that's not the world we live in. However, it should be remembered that changing both pitching and hitting can easily be accomplished without major rules changes by simply altering the physical makeup of the ball (if home runs were a problem) or the height or distance of the mound (which seems more likely to reduce velocity of pitchers and bring more balls in play to the game).
Hi,
The field of play is smaller......it is easier to hit a home run.
The small ball game with steals .....bunts .....sacrifice......keeps the fan in game, is gone. The new game of strike out -home run.......5 inning pictures is dumb ball.
TyCobb has got be rolling in his grave......he made fun of Ted Willams because he could not hit to all fields.
Move fences back. ........
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End the shift. Why minimize some of your most talented players? This reminds me of when the NBA stopped all the "clutching and grabbing" and this enabled players such as Curry to emerge. I don't think any other league would tolerate reducing the impact of its stars (e.g. NFL wide receiver rules).
I'd also (in some fashion) reduce the number of relievers. It's "really great" when announcers in their pregame say something like: "Well, if your down by a couple runs in the 7th, their bullpen lineup pretty much means the game is over." Great, just what I want, we're down 5 - 2 in the 6th, and I should just leave, as 3 bullpen "specialists" end the game. To go for another analogy, likely dating myself: This is like the four corners offense in UNC. Only fun if you're UNC!
At the least, outside injury, I'd say relievers have to pitch to 3 hitters....
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@Sam Johnson
If any rules adjustment is made, limiting relievers would be one I could support. The rise of specialist pitchers (set-up guys, closers) came about recently, and I can't think of anything slowing games down more than bringing a pitcher in, having him pitch to one batter, and than pulling him for the next batter. And consequently, more roster spots are given to pitchers than to any position player with a better bat.
Swinging for the fences seems to be the norm. I watched the A's and Mariners last night. Extra innings, a man on second, a single would be a walk off hit and Rhiki Davis is at the plate swinging out of his shoes. Yes, he has 30+ homers and 93 RBIs, but his repertoire apparently doesn't include simply making contact. Yes, he struck out and the A's lost. He's a nice, talented kid, but what a shame.
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Solution, 2 words, aluminum bats
I disagree with Trevor Bauer, who thinks that hitters will somehow adjust to the pitcher, hitter imbalance. Hogwash! It's time to lower the pitcher's mound. Again.
Baseball is too long and too boring. The sport is dying, just like Nascar and Golf.
It’s pretty simple what the problem is....greed! How can a family afford to go to a game and pay a fortune to park, a fortune to eat any food at the park and $12 for a beer!?$? It’s not the game it’s greedy owners, players and the mlb. Try to buy a hat or shirt at the game,$$$$$ ridiculous!
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Folks its coming...robots are going to take over sports..first you will see each team put one the field...then slowly the game will be taken over by human clones... What's to stop it???? We are close to having robot house servants...
Robot uber drivers, robot nurses the list is infinite. The machine has taken over..it can do nearly everthing and people are becoming obsolete...
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let me old-codger you all who insist umpires miss ball and strike calls.
a ball or strike is what the umpire says it is. so an umpire cannot 'miss' a call.
so the hitters are going to 'make some sort of adjustment', eh? like what?
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Theyre tired . Season is too long.
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Since I was a kid I loved baseball - played Little League, summers were filled with pickup games at the local school field, went to 10-15 games/season at either Oakland or SF.
I especially loved the statistics - I'd open up the Sporting News every week and check the stats of my favorite players.
But that was before sabrmetrics , and now it looks like that stat driven approach is choking the game to death.
There is an overemphasis on on-base percentage and slugging, so what do you get? - more walks, more homeruns and more strikeouts. That's at least 50% of all plate appearances now. No more hit and run, no more suicide squeezes, no more double steals, nothing. I loved watching the 80's Cardinals with Vince Coleman getting 100 steals/year, the same with Ricky Henderson ; every time a decent base stealer got on base, there was increased tension in the game, but those days are gone.
Now its 6,7,8,10 pitch at bats, foul balls, then a walk or strikeout. In that last sentence I just described half of all the at bats you'll see at a game.
The data scientists/OPS gurus killed the game.
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I've watched quite a few games this year.
I don't remember seeing so many batters' swinging at bad pitches - pitches out of the strike zone. I don't mean marginal, 'maybe the ump will call it a strike', pitches either. I mean pitches that are a foot out of the zone.
I can't explain why the batters are doing it. The pitches must somehow look better to the batter than they are.
Are the breaking balls breaking more now than in the past?
Do batters not like to take BB?
I don't know.
It's all about the 'juiced' baseball, which began after the All Star game in 2015, as ordered by MLB. In 2014 MLB produced 4,186 homers; in 2015 5,610, a spike of 46%, and the most since the 'juiced' player era in 2000. On average the new ball travels 8.6 feet farther than the old one*. All you really needed to know about the game was evident in last year's Home Run Derby (8 in 1 game; 24 in all) World Series when Kenley Jansen threw back about 3 baseballs in a row because he couldn't grip the lowered seams on a slicker ball. If pitchers are so overpowering, lower the mound again. MLB thinks people want to see home runs. In truth small ball has more tension and action. Here's the *'juiced ball' story.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/juiced-baseballs/
At least in the American League, I would guess one reason attendance is down is because almost everybody was effectively out of the playoffs before the All-Star break. Only 6 teams currently have a shot, and it's been that way for quite a while (it was 5 until Oakland got super-hot - and they notoriously have lousy attendance at home). The Central has been Cleveland's since May. Boston has put NY in their dust, and Baltimore is almost 50 games behind. Only the West has a real race.
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Three additional factors on televised games.
In the other major sports, almost everything can be seen on the screen. Not true for baseball: a lot goes on besides the focus on pitcher and batter.
Commentary is generally inane. I usually watch with the sound off.
Ads!!!
I agree with many others here that the old “hit it were they ain’t” philosophy seems to be totally gone from the game. Nowadays, with a man on, and 2 outs, you rarely see a batter go with the pitch and try to hit a single. No. They all swing for the bleachers – even the marginal hitters at the bottom of the order. The bunt with a man on first and no outs seems to also be becoming rarer. As the article points out, pitching is advancing faster than hitting. Back in the day, the over-matched batter would choke-up and try to just punch one through. More hitters need to go back to that approach. Rod Carew made it to the Hall of Fame that way.
Baseball---games are too long, players take too much time between pitches. Enforce a hard time clock on every pitch, and shorten these obscene breaks between innings.
This is not a crisis. The game is constantly evolving. Stronger pitchers, hitters swinging for the fences because of defensive shifts. Minor leagues need to teach raking to all fields and they will. If something needs fixing it's pitchers hitting in the NL. Total waste.
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Add MLB games to the growing list of things the middle class has been shut out of. When I was a kid, Shea Stadium was nearby and a morning of collecting cans and bottles could yield the $1.30 needed for an upper-deck seat.
Now a family of four going to Yankee Stadium needs to spend about $500 to go to a game. Insane. And is the product any better? I doubt it.
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The writer does not talk about solutions. Most of player comments come from Pitchers who naturally support the status quo. Some significant rule changes are needed. All of these no can do answers and comments will only put off the needed changes and continue the decline in the quality of the game. The problem is rather clear in the numbers. The recent records in length of the games seem to correlate with the recent records in number of pitches per at bat. This ties in closely with continuous records in number of strikeouts per game over the last 25 years. The answers are in the area of reducing the number of pitches per batter. This could be done in various ways or combination of ways. These include having an automatic full count after 5 pitches. Also reducing the number of balls to three for a walk just like a strikeout. Also reducing the strike zone which was increased about 30 years ago when this epidemic of strikeouts began. And of course a pitching clock. All of these changes would reduce the power of pitching and increase batting which is the basis of more action on the field. It would also believe it or not reduce the length of games.
Two ideas that don't fundamentally alter the game:
-- shorten the time between innings and pitching changes, and replace the ad revenue with uniform sponsorships. I'd prefer to watch men in ugly uniforms finish a game in under 3 hours.
-- tighten up the strike zone slightly, in conjunction with calling balls and strikes electronically. Fewer Ks, more baserunners, which add value to non-HR hits and incentivize aggressive baserunning. Further, the zone could be tweaked easily and uniformly season by season. Past directives to umpires regarding changes to the zone have been slowly and irregularly observed.
Both these practices are common in other successful sports -- soccer, cricket, NASCAR, tennis -- and don't infringe on creative management regarding shifts, number of pitchers, types of swings, etc.
I believe that hitting has to improve to match the pitching. Villanova has a hitting lab that helps players see the ball better. Eye-hand coordination to match each pitcher’s styles and pitches. The data is there to be mined. Something in that.
Poster child for this God-awful new development has got to be the Texas Rangers' Joey Gallo (Mrs. Gallo, what on Earth were you thinking when you named him??) - he hits about.200 if he is lucky, strikes out an insane number of times and has 31 home runs. Is he a player, or a wasted spot on the roster, like an enforcer in hockey?
If I recall, Joe DiMaggio struck out 13 times in 1941. That was better baseball by anyone's calculation.
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In order to justify the horrendous increase in ticket prices and the insane salaries, MLB has to provide 'junk' baseball along with the junk food it pedals at the parks. Rather than games that feature strategy and subtlety, they want more and more homers - what our horrid new age demands in every aspect of life. Low-content thrills.
5
When I first moved to the US 20
Years ago I was taken to a professional baseball game. It was like watching paint dry. This article and comments read similarly.
Through my work I have free access to a private suite at the stadium. I make it there about once a year and watch maybe 2 pitches or so before I lose interest and focus on the great food and drink.
Furthermore, “following a team” would take up a large percentage of your free time as they play almost everyday.
In 20 years, I’ve never understood this game
Time to shift to 3 balls, 2 strikes; ban the shifts; deepen the outfields, with higher fences, too, to curb home runs; long fouls should count as an actual strike (the third strike and your struck out or, if switching to 2 strikes only, you’re struck out); and change the interminable length of games and the seasons!
7 inning games; 140 game seasons — start mid-April, end mid-September. No more World Series in November, with freezing temps and snow falling. The Boys of “October” should be playing in late September!
The World Series should be played during the day!
Collapse the divisions into larger regional leagues; eliminate a bunch of teams: end coast to coast flights and playing games at late hours; drop at least one round of playoffs (i.e., get rid of wildcards); eliminate inter-league play; get rid of the designated hitter; drop the dumb a Homer Run Derby; and, maybe, even require starting pitchers to go 5 innings before they can be relieved!
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My perception of modern baseball is that it is no longer a sport but purely a business. My perception is that players who take drugs to enhance their performance are rarely if ever punished, so of course this adds to the allure of taking drugs. My perception is that baseball stats don't mean anything because you never know who earned them legitimately or because he took drugs.
If the sport is ever to have legitimacy in my eyes again, there will be extensive unannounced testing, and virtual capital punishment for anyone who is found with performance enhancing drugs in his system - expulsion from the game forever and his name erased from the record books.
This will be perceived by the money-makers in the business as draconian, unfair, blah, blah - so it will never be done. And I will never attend or even watch on TV another professional baseball game. There is no point unless you're a bettor with inside information.
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Maybe they just need to bring back steroids.
A lot of players took them even though "they didn't help with hitting" but now hits are down.
Lower the pitching mound height.
Ban the shift. Ban the shift. Ban the shift. Ground ball, and line drive hitters can't get the hits, so they are swinging for the fences now. That would help bring the game back toward historical norms. Unfortunately with analytics driving the managerial decisions, stolen bases, hit n runs, squeeze plays, all the fun "small ball" is likely gone from the game.
Thanks, Crash. yes, and now that they've become commonplace, homeruns are boring.
I was watching a game the other night and thought I was seeing hockey or soccer results posted in the score box. I'm no baseball fanatic but even I could see that something has changed.
Great Article - 2 solutions without substantially changing the game or it's dimensions.
1. Umpires that have a proven proficiency in calling balls and strikes should be behind the plate, all others need to improve or stay on the bases. Batters will know what a strike is and pitchers will have to throw them leading to more contact.
2. Get rid of the shift completely or partially, either way it's got to go.
It’s boring and it’s a game.
Media greed is the only reason it’s marginally relevant.
Silly to say that we need a rule change to mandate 2fielders on each side of second. Did football outlaw the zone defense? No, the offense learned how to flood the zone. Hitters need to respond to the shift and learn to hit the other way-not simple but they need to retool in off season and spring training. Some can and will, others will not and continue to suffer.
2
No, but basketball did.
And then, you have the Orioles bucking both trends...
The enshrinement of the home run as the be-all of baseball gives us batters who strike out trying to hit a homer-or-bust, when all they needed was a single to score the runners on base.
Moises Alou had a lifetime batting average over .300, for seventeen years. He didn't hit "for power", though, so good luck getting into the Hall of Fame.
Very Good Article
If the problem is too many strikeouts and not enough action there may be a very simple solution to both.
Problem - Too many strikeouts - Many of the umpires are not even marginally good at calling balls and strikes. Some take the bat out of the batters hands consistently and others are wildly inconsistent with their calls. This leads to many of the strikeouts. Certain umps appear to be very adept at the skill of calling balls and strikes. All umps should be rated on that skill set and only the best get to go behind the plate. The batter would have confidence of the strike zone and the pitcher would have to throw more strikes.
Problem - not enough hits - See the above and get rid of the shift.
Easy solution but political issues to implement I know - they need to do it, I have stopped watching baseball because the game has changed so drastically I am not boycotting it's just that it has become unwatchable to me.
1
Lower the mound. Problem solved.
Baseball is loved by intelligent people ("The thinking man's game"). If America loses baseball, we've lost America.
It's fine if teams trot out deep bullpens every night but it's ridiculous that a reliever comes in in the middle of an inning and everyone sits around waiting for 2 1/2 minutes. These guys were supposed to already be warmed up!
How about 2 warmup pitches, tv gets to show a quick 30 second commerical, and let's play ball already.
Outside of the prices at games which have become outrageous,few mention, the increasing number of louts and obnoxious individuals who seem to be found all over the stands! Who wants a beer poured on them?!
4
As an "old-timer" I find the game frustrating to watch. Seems the fundamentals of my youth are slowly being replaced with a different set of fundamentals. Probably the most frustration is with strikeouts. Once was that striking out was considered poor play. Now they say a strikeout is just like any other out. Sorry - not a chance! Pitchers gotta pitch but teams deliberately burn out the hard throwers (Matt Harvey) with the promise of big dollars but many with high potential never get passed Tommy John. I remember managers putting on a shift for specific situations. Today it's like a dance where certain players get the shift no matter the game circumstances. Can you imagine what Mays would have done against the shift? Bunt! I forgot - players don't bunt anymore .............
1
The only thing MLB can do to reduce strikeouts is to insist that umpires stop calling strikes pitches that are clearly off the plate. Watch any game and you'll see numerous dubious calls that put hitters in a 0-2 or a 1-2 hole and announcers sheepishly saying "I guess it caught the corner..." ESPN has something called PitchQuest which reveals how often umpires call pitches off the plate strikes. With pitchers throwing in the high 90's, hitters need to be able to swing at pitches that are really over the plate and not several inches outside.
1
this goes way back to the transition from Ty Cobb's baseball to Babe Ruth's. Cobb loathed how Ruth changed the game. Hitters could go back to Cobb's game, but they won't so long as the big salaries come from the HR numbers. So, yes...this is how the GM's have formulated the game....ho hum. 90% of the game is now in limbo, held in abeyance. And this is the sort of decline suffered by any business when the bean counters take over the marketing department.
How about making a walk 3 balls instead of 4.
Listen MLB and listen good. You HAVE to structure contracts for pay for performance. It is simple. Show me a guy that gets paid a $2.5 million dollar bonus for hitting .280 and I will show you a guy that will learn to beat the shift. Pay for performance will bring intensity back to the game. Managers included. This outdated union model where players get out of shape with marginal motivation because of a guaranteed contract is causing you a lot of problems. Period.
As a former Little League pitcher who led his league in strikeouts, I might celebrate this development. Yet I worry about the possible additional burden it may put on pitchers, who already carry a heavy load whether they are starters, closers, or middle relievers. Every time they walk to the mound, they know it's primarily their job to keep the opposing hitters from getting on base. Giving up a hit grinds you down; a home run humiliates. And walking a guy unintentionally is the surest way to irritate your teammates. There are so many ways to to put pressure on yourself as a pitcher. And now failing to be a strikeout artist is just one more way to disappoint your manager, teammates, fans and yourself.
After getting hammered as the starting pitcher of our Little League All-Star Team, I lost the fire in my belly necessary to become a better pitcher and to achieve my childhood dream of pitching for the SF Giants. As much as I would have loved to have made it to the Majors, it wasn't that much of a loss in my life after all. For but for giving up baseball, I would never have started surfing, a far more satisfying avocation athletically, aesthetically, spiritually and otherwise.
Who cares? I haven't watched an MLB game since the Millionaire Crybaby Hissy Fit of 1994. When you have a job where the minimum wage puts you in the top 1% of wage earners in the country, you forfeit the right to go on strike. How can they even call themselves union members when each one negotiates his own salary? The union doesn't negotiate a set salary for every player.
And just to stir the pudding a little more, that strike is why Cal Ripken Jr never broke Lou Gehrig's record. Lou Gehrig never refused to play 50 games in a row.
Baseball players are much stronger, faster, more agile than they have ever been. The level of athleticism is amazing. So why this declining interest in the game? They're giving the fans what they want - every home run is a shot of adrenaline. (Fans *loved* the steroids era. Players and owners have just learned to keep it going another way.) Fans like 100 mph closers. Fan like seeing those 15 Ks hanging from the upper deck.
"Manufacturing runs" or "small ball" meant more strategic baseball. But that takes attention span, for the players as well as the fans. We live in a short-attention-span culture. Long gaps between home runs make perfect opportunities for texting.
But the very technology that makes this possible is taking the fun out of the game, or obscuring it. This article reflects that - home runs are up 13.3 to 14.5%. Watching a game recently, I realised that a lot of what the announcers say comes right out of a computer: line up, player stats, pitch speed, pitch type, release point, strike zone, exit velocity, angle off the bat, distance, average with RISP on chilly Thursday nights, only the 138th second basemen since 2014 to do whatever. In fact, 54.34% of what announcers say comes from a computer. That's getting into serious robot territory. The Elias Sports Bureau is the Enemy of the People.
Oh, and then there are the replays... litigating millimeters. Give the game back to the players and umpires, for better or worse.
I am frustrated by the number of comments saying "just bunt to the open side." If I were a GM looking at my first four batters (for example), I can get 4 contact hitters or 4 power hitters. If I use 4 contact hitters I need two or three of them in a row to be successful to score. If all but 1 of my hitters fails then I'm not scoring. However with 4 power hitters I only need one to succeed to score. It used to be that you put some contact guys in front and have a power guy hit them in. Again, you are relying on one bat instead of four.
Now as a defense facing a power hitter you apply the shift knowing if they miss the fence you will more than likely get the out. If you have your power hitters bunt to the open side you are taking the bat out of their hands. You are again dependent on your team stringing together several hits which has been shown to be statistically more difficult than the long ball, especially in today's pitching environment. So as a defense I would LOVE for your power hitter to bunt. I'll take that all day, every day. That's one less threat to me. The shift tempting batters to try to go to their weak side is just an added bonus of the shift - keep the ball in play where I can get an out.
It is interesting that while the number of strikeouts has increased and the number of hits has decreased the average number of runs hasn't really changed much.
1
I read or heard somewhere that this improvement in pitching has to do with more effective drug testing. In the past, players like Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron and up until the drug scandals more recently took performance enhancing drugs and this allowed them to hit the ball more effectively.
I don't know why the same drugs didn't help the pitchers pitch more effectively, but that absence of drugs were the explanatory theory of why pitching has seemed to improve recently.
1
I’ve been reading the comments. Those I’ve read ignore the fact that currently there are many hitters with .225-.250 batting averages with 16-20 home runs. Perhaps an obsession with swinging for the fences has contributed to the strike out epidemic. What happened to contact hitting? And yes, the tickets are too expensive.
2
@Kevin Garvin I agree this is the issue, not strikeout artists. Moneyball convinced GMs that a strikeout is the equivalent of a groundout, so we promote guys to the Majors who can't make contact but, when they do, watch out!!! (just kidding) The fact is, the teams with the least strikeouts (in order, Cleveland, Seattle, Houston, Atlanta) are better than teams that don't strikeout (Chicago, Texas, San Diego- also in order from worst). The last 5 World Series champs also were in the bottom 5 in strikeouts- not a coincidence. This will shift- not because of watchability but because of winning
1
The one sentence was very telling: "Amateur pitchers often train specifically to build velocity, inspired by examples ...".
I rarely watch professional baseball. I live near a college town with the No. 1 NCAA team. It is much more exciting to watch them because they are not "perfect". Yes, there are some slow games, but the road to the game final is not always predictable.
Furthermore, I see more and more young pitchers, high school and college, experiencing injuries that require Tommy John surgery. Two years ago a freshman pitcher at Oregon State University ended his freshman season having this surgery. He was drafted but the pro team wanted him to have the surgery again.
Are there statistics about young pitcher injuries? I predict that this injury will be compared to head injuries in football and soccer in the future.
The balance began to be upset when Mariano Rivera spent a year in the bullpen trying to figure out what would happen when he put just a little less pressure on one finger in throwing a fastball. The result was the “cutter,” the pitch that will put him in the Hall of Fame. Other pitchers began other experiments and developed other pitches.
Hitters have no such possibility. They can’t spend hours in the cage coming up with new ways to hit. Their activity is pretty well limited.
So it would seem the only possible fixes would be to lower the mound once more or, even more unlikely, increase the distance from the rubber to the plate by two or three inches.
As to how much it costs to go to a game... here in North Texas the Rangers are doing so poorly that amazing ticket prices are to be found on StubHub. The secret is to root for a bad team.
6
@Mark Oristano Indeed, Mo popularized the pitch but he didn't invent it. I remember Greg Maddux threw a nasty one and--because I'm old--I remember more than one or two hurlers of my youth spinning them up there. It's been around at least 50 years.
1
One problem is that, overall, basic "small ball" has gone the way of the dodo. Bunting is much rarer than it once was, and often doesn't happen even in situations where it should. What's more, since bunts can avert the defensive advantage of a shift, one would think that, as use of the shift goes up, so would bunting. But the opposite has happened. Teams are purposely missing opportunities in the name of fulfilling the "knock it out of the park or don't bother doing anything at all" philosophy.
As for live attendance, many commenters have said it, and it remains a problem: Cost! Who wants to spend the astronomical prices MLB charges for tickets, parking, concessions, etc.? I find it incomprehensible that all the stories about this subject purposely leave this consideration out, and that the media never address it when discussing it with MLB executives. It's an inexcusable omission.
20
@PsiCop the cost of going to a game can be reasonable. Be flexible. Dont buy tix in advance. Wait till day of game. Dont buy $12 beers and $6 dogs. Take public transport if an option. Or paRk outside stadium. A mets game can cost a couple $50 all in and might include that dog...
@PsiCop OMG!!! Yes, cost!!!
Limit the roster size when it comes to pitchers. This might not change the strikeout problem but the fewer pitching changes might improve the pace, of play.
4
It has long been a convention in baseball that "count leverage" is a significant factor in the pitcher/batter dynamic. And yet I constantly see batters let the first pitch go by even it is perfect and right over the center of the plate thus giving the pitcher immediate "count leverage' and causing the batter to swing at pitches later on outside the strike zone. This is one reason why strikeouts are increasing. Batters put themselves in the hole at the start of the at bat and try to come from behind. Managers and hitting instructors perpetuate this. Only the very few great batters are allowed to swing at the first pitch. Strike outs go up and the game suffers. Just my opinion, I could be wrong.
1
I wonder how much the lack of interest in the Mets is driving down attendance. You have a major market team with fans so mistreated over the years that they'd rather watch Netflix and save a few hundred bucks.
1
There will always be a certain percentage of a given population that will be considered elite. Therefore, the larger the population, the more elite players that are available.
The solution is to dilute those players over more teams.
Add 12 teams to MLB, six each in a new division in each league. Post season will not change at all except to get rid of the wild card slot. The number of contests will be the same.
1
The game is becoming (more) boring, no doubt. Part of me wants to say, it's the swing of the pendulum. Give it a few years and we'll see it swing the other way, with more bunts, stolen bases, contact hitting, etc.
But part of me thinks, no, that's not going to happen. The brainiacs have taken over, and figured out what works and what doesn't.
So what to do?
It'll never happen, I know, but what if the diamonds and/or fields were bigger? One of the things I love about baseball is the seeming perfection of the dimensions, but they were created in a different age, when players' physical abilities were, measured objectively, on average probably less than they are now. Move the mound back a foot, and lengthen the basepaths accordingly. Move the fences back. Fewer strikeouts, fewer HRs, easier to get a base hit. It's a fantasy, and I know purists would scream, but am I missing something in thinking that it could make the game more interesting?
3
@Dave Somehow, that makes perfect sense...
Specialized pitching where the starter goes only 6 inn then turns it over to a fresher arm over the last third of the game ..equals lower scores.
4
@Rockdad Runs per game last year averaged 4.65. That's more than in any year from 1951 through 1993, and from 2008 through 2016. And a few years in between. So the numbers don't support your assertion.
@Rockdad, why not prohibit relief pitching until the 9th inning, forcing starters to conserve energy? One benefit is that a fading pitcher can give up a lot of runs so every game has a better chance for lead changes and comebacks. And the 9th inning would be exciting with its multiple matchups.
In most professional sports, as time goes by, the overall caliber of players continues to improve. Pitchers throw faster, batters hit longer, run faster, throw better, etc. Teams used to have a wider range between their stars and average players. Now the gap is smaller and there are few, if any, truly mediocre players. This creates the illusion that the game itself has changed, when in fact it's the players.
1
Bring back "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." Move it to become the fifth inning stretch. That will lull the pitchers into a nostalgic swoon and slow down their speeds. Which will in turn, make the 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th hitting extravaganzas. If that doesn't work, baseballs with built-in speed governors. Or, get used to it. It is still baseball and that should be enough for anybody.
1
I love baseball and I watch every game I can. A few things that could help the game--no more Facebook games. It really is infuriating to pay all that money for TV access and then be sidelined because MLB sold out to Facebook for money. I also don't like the shift. Having infielders on either side of 2nd would make the game more fun again for hitters who make contact but are not high home run producers. Some of those players are amazing athletes--Joe Panik comes to mind. Finally, forgive me players, but your salaries need to be reigned in. The reason fan attendance is falling is because many of us cannot afford the prices of the seats. In San Francisco, a bleacher can be $40+. I would go to more ballgames if the seats were more affordable and I'm probably not alone.
8
not to mention the $10 hot dog and $12 beer
I submit that attendance is down due to high cost to go to the game. Tickets + parking + concessions are crazy expensive. It is easier to turn on the high-def TV and head to the kitchen for snacks during the commercials.
Attempting to compare baseball with football and basketball doesn't quite work since the latter two sports are governed by a clock. Plus, if the NFL got as crazy passing the ball as some of the college teams, games could easily stretch into 3.5 to 4 hr marathons.
While there is a need to try to engage the next generation of baseball fans, I don't think making changes to the current product will necessarily do the trick.
2
Blame the number crunchers. Statistics have always been way more important in baseball than in other professional sports, but the sabermetrics crowd has taken matters too far. Fundamentally, I don't think these people care at all about the human aspect of baseball. They endlessly talk about "wins above replacement" but have any of them ever read a book or article by David Halberstam or Roger Angell?
I've tried discussing baseball with members of the sabermetrics crowd, but they are a painfully uninformed and disinterested bunch who apparently only know and care about "wins above replacement." No wonder their influence is turning live-action baseball into a one-dimensional video game.
In a similar vein, number crunchers are (in my opinion) adversely affecting academic subjects in the social sciences and humanities (e.g. history, political science, anthropology, sociology) by turning them into boring snoozefests that revolve around "big data."
9
I must be one of the rare folks who likes pitching. In baseball both teams play offense and defense at the same time. The "defensive" game is best when your pitcher and catcher, who are really more like an offensive players most of the time, doesn't give the rest of their team anything to do. And on the "offensive" side, the batter essential plays defense up and until the point they hit the ball in play or over the outfield wall.
MLB has tinkered with the intentional walk and in the minors with pitch clocks and runners on base to start extra innings. All are attempts to shorten/quicken the game and all are pointless. Real contraction only occurs if you speed up pitching changes and between inning breaks but since those come at the expense of ad time--forget it. But the league and owners ignore the elephant in the room; parking, ticket, and concession costs--as has been noted by others. They are astronomical in absolute terms and even more so when compared to other entertainment options. I would also echo points made by others as to the disparity between teams. The big market NY, Bos, Chi, and Calif areas will do well regardless of the quality of play although because of the disparity they usually field strong teams [it should not be ignored that Chi, SF and LA are essentially one team markets as the White Sox, A's, and Angels, respectively, are woeful in attendance]. But big market areas will attract fans regardless of price, while the KCs of the leagues will seen an ever aging and shrinking market.
The shift will be solved over time. Teams will realize that they can spend less on contact hitters (or power hitters will realize that with the threat of a bunt they can force the infield back to their normal positions) and winning teams will be built with non-power hitters. The the pendulum will swing in a different direction.
Use an electronically called strike zone. That will give take uncertainty away from the hitters and swing the advantage back their way a little.
Start games at 530 instead of seven. A seven o'clock game starts in primetime, but often the most exciting part of the game - the late innings - happens late at night, when few people - and no kids - are still watching.
And relegate the bottom team every year to playing in triple-A (then they would have two triple A teams, or move every minor league team of theirs down a league). The threat of relegation would solve teams willingness to undergo a "rebuilding" year.
3
It may be tougher to hit against a collection of 100 mph-throwing pitchers, but it isn't tough to beat the shift.
You just have to want to do it.
Shifts are the reason for the plunging batting averages, since the data helps teams take tendency-driven singles away from low-average hitters as well as from stars.
So the .240 hitter is now a .220 hitter.
It shows, and it stinks.
Here is the secret, easy enough even for the limited-skill hitter with no speed:
When the shift is on, bunt the ball at the open spot on the field.
Not complicated, and even a weak hitter should be able to improve his bunting skills more easily than learning how to take a pitch the other way.
Bunting will allow the mediocre hitter - I'm looking at you, Jose Reyes (or Bautista) - reclaim his old batting average in the ordinary fashion.
But until teams decide they want baserunners more than they want outs - because, let's face it, that is what these horrible hitters are delivering, in droves - there won't be pressure from the top to change.
Maybe if a team that actually has smart hitters wins the World Series, a new trend will start.
Here's hoping things do change. I'll miss Ron and Keith if things stay on the current path.
8
I played "pick up "baseball"" as a kid, was a member of both the Grumman and AIL industrial softball teams, and was a professional ASA umpire. Baseball is inherently boring if you are not personally involved. Example A - the time it takes the pitcher to pitch the next pitch. Wait, wait, wait. And yes there is a rule about how much time is allowed but it is rarely, if ever enforced. What is needed are more runners, more plays, and yes, fewer home runs which again are essentially non active events. So I am not surprised that attendance is down.
6
How about a punishment for striking out? Like every 5 team strikeouts results in an extra out -- in effect, a double play. Anything that placed renewed emphasis on having to make contact would reengage this particular fan...
5
I really enjoyed reading the memories of the fans who wrote comments! But look at their average age! If they can remember the 1968 season (I do, but barely), they are part of a disappearing demographic for baseball. Where will the next generation of fans come from? Given the length of games and the rarity of actual on-the-field action, it's hard to imagine today's 5-, 10- and 15-year olds riveted by televised baseball the way we were back in the 1960s and 1970s. Prices are absurdly high and there are few discount programs that share the game with young fans. Even watching on TV costs a lot of money in most major markets. Worse yet, competitive balance is non-existent. Many teams (cases in point: the Mets, the Rays) have owners who do not seem to want them to get better or who always seem to get in the way when they try. Owners will be hit in the pocketbooks, players will start to feel their pain and only then will we see change.
11
@Steve D. I think the game times are the biggest issue for kids. When games start at 7pm, they are ending between 10 and midnight. Every five to 12 year old is asleep well before the exciting innings. Start games at 530 - then you will get back kids.
I am an avid Diamondback fan and watch every game. My gripe is the bad calls by the umpires. How can you get into a competitive mindset when on a whim, the at bat changes drastically. What has made it worse is all the broadcast show the strike zone now. It is a slap in the face and yes, it works both ways. But does it really? Calling a ball (that is a strike) on an 0-2 vs a ball on a 2-0. Totally changes the strategy. It's time for remote calling of pitches.
5
and a smaller strike zone?
More strikeouts than hits? As I watch games on TV, it seems to me that umpires have widened the strike zone compared to past years. Pitches that completely miss the edge of the plate, inside or outside, are being routinely called strikes.
This could certainly explain the decline in hits. When a batter has to swing at bad pitches or get rung up, more strikeouts and/or weak grounders result.
I wonder if the league officials compile accuracy statistics on the umpires and try to correct the worst offenders? If pitchers are required to throw the ball over the plate, hits will happen more often.
8
@Chaps Smart answer best idea yet
It's ironic that with the availability of metrics baseball on the major league level has become dumbed down. We have exit velocity and launch angles, but have lost all the nuances that made the game special. No more hit and runs. No more hitting behind the runner to advance him. No more choking up with two strikes. The other night, the Cubs were trailing the Nats 1-0 in the bottom of the eighth. First guy singles and winds up dying on first. Strike-outs, pop-ups, swinging from the heels on almost every pitch. Not even an attempted sacrifice. You don't need a shift, the batters get themselves out.
Why is this happening? Economics. Dilution of talent and the disappearance of the Minors leads to our current state. Used to be the Dodger farm system taught how baseball should be played. Cards, Orioles and lots of other teams did the same. Now with Free Agency, why invest in player development, when you're going to lose him to another team? Sign a college kid and put him the minors for a year or two and bring him up instead of having him learn the game over several years. ROI! Result is a loss of nuance and finesse which has been replaced by sheer power. In addition to Hrs and Ks, we now have ZZZZs. It's unbearable to watch.
20
In an earlier era when a batter had 2 strikes he would choke up and put the ball in play. Also batters were taught not to pull an outside pitch. Now it is swing for the fences on every pitch.
If a left handed batter has the 3rd basemen in the short stop position a ball hit down third base is a sure single. Even a bad bunt. The shift is caused by the batter refusing to go with the pitch.
17
@I saltzman
Seems to me hitters could do away with the shift in a single season if they'd dedicate themselves to learning how to hit against it instead of hitting into it. This should be within the capabilities of all those "professional hitters."
20
@William Miller
I totally agree. To see these hitters still try to pull the ball when the shift is on is mind numbing. They should be able to hit the ball the other way!
Folks want more action on the field because they paid exorbitant prices for admission. I had a $65 ticket for a Yankee game that was rained out. When I went back to the stadium (a food court where they play baseball) they told me that they only had $250 seats left. I walked away. Grandparents in line behind me were fretful because they had two children with who they promised. $1000 was paid on their credit card.
For $1.25 I enjoyed the Yankees when Mantle, Maris, Ford and the rest of the immortal team played.
44
@David J
Actually, Yankee Stadium General Admission seats in the early 1960's were $1.30, not $1.25, but I might also add that those tickets entitled you to sit in the upper deck behind home plate.
Not to mention that in 1961 the price of the subway was10 cents, or 84 cents in today's dollars. There are plenty of reasons to celebrate today's game, among them the vastly increased talent pool from all over the world, but if you want real value, it's much better to stick to watching it on TV or your computer.
The pitcher's mound was lowered 1968 due to Bob Gibson. How about backing up the pitcher's mound 5 feet? Perhaps it might be beneficial to stretch the base lines by 5 feet to help counter the effect of the shift. Today's baseball players workout year round as opposed to the offseason of the players of yesteryear. They have changed the game. Maybe the "game board" need tweaking.
4
The game has become a slave to stats and data. Nothing is more frustrating that watching a team bring a pitcher out of the bullpen in the 8th inning in a close game, to simply pitch to one batter (ie. bring in a lefty to face a lefty batter), before themselves getting pulled. It ruins the momentum and tension. There's also nothing worse than watching a great pitching performance, to only have that pitcher pulled after 6 innings because their pitch count is approaching 100.
MLB could limit the number of pitchers allowed in a game (say 4) as well. This would allow teams to get away with fewer pitchers on staff in favour of adding another bat or two on the bench. This would also require pitchers to throw more pitches on average, which translates into more times through the order and slower velocity, both of which should lead to more hits.
The fielding shift should be banned (just like how the NBA banned zone defense).
Oh, and learn how to choke up and punch the ball into play OR bunt. For god sakes' learn how to bunt. Please. How many times have we seen bases loaded late in a close game, infielders playing deep (or playing the shift), and the batter strikes out with a mighty whiff? A bunt - even a bad one - would almost guarantee a run. But no... Coach tells them to swing away.
It's not hard. Simple fixes will make the game soooo much better.
19
You have hit the nail right on the head. I do like that the pitchers are throwing harder nowadays, but at what cost? Pitching mechanics aren’t taught until that UCL pops...
Pedro Martinez said it best the other night about an Dodger pitcher. Drop and drive. deGrom is doing that, his ERA is showing it.
Simple mechanics, instilled in pitchers in their formative years.
Also, baseball players, play another sport besides baseball. Your body will show the results later.
1
@Cathex Sounds funny but I would like to see the batting coach throw some hulu hoops in the shallow outfield (base hit zone) and make players try to punch the ball into them. Home runs are exciting but base hits win games. Remember Gonzales in the bottom of the 9th in the greatest world series ever, 2001!
1
Yes, yes, and yes!!
Picking HOF in the future is going to be difficult. With the increase in strikeouts due to hitters not even trying to avoid them is that any longer a correct measure of the effectiveness of pitchers? With the all or nothing approach of hitters who have no problem with a strikeout every 4 times out of 10 at bats as long as they get one homerun every 30 to 40 times, how do you adequately measure a hitter's effectiveness?
Watching the defensive shifts that teams used against Barry Bonds, it always occurred to me, and to the announcers Kruk and Kuip, that the way to negate the efficiency of the defensive shift was to teach hitters to bunt down the 3rd base line.
Bunting has a far higher percentage of success than does hitting away into the shift. And just a few successful ones and the defense will be forced to play it honest from then on.
44
My sympathies are often with labor, but in this case... I think the owners and League office get it, and understand the long-term danger to the game. I think the players and Players Union either don't get it, or don't care, because their aim is to maximize compensation right now, today, for themselves and their members. It would be nice to see the players accept that, as the article says, they're in the entertainment business, and that the appeal of their product is declining. But probably, they've been in such a baseball-centric bubble their whole lives, that they don't understand how few kids are interested in baseball today -- because compared to other games they can play and watch, today's baseball is boring.
3
The SF Giants ballpark is comparatively hard to hit home runs in due to the design of the field. (This must have led to fewer homers for Barry Bonds at the end of his career.)
The teams with parks where it is comparatively easy to hit a home run might reconfigure their fields (without building a new stadium) to make it harder or raise there outfield walls by 10 or 20 feet. This will bring more action on the field.
This article may not say it (there are important angles that aren't covered), but doesn't the current batter emphasis on hitting home runs in itself result in more strikeouts?
Personally, I would like to see more inside-the-park home runs. It's one of the most exciting plays in baseball. (More triples would also be nice.)
I would also like to see more attempts at stealing bases, which I understand are way down across the league as compared to a decade or two ago. (Talk about putting pressure on pitchers and making it harder to pitch!)
I would like to see more aggressive base running. Some of the most thrilling and memorable plays this year for the Giants have involved the base running, not so much steals, of the swift and daring Alen Hansen.
6
@NA: I heartily agree with your comments. But your note about Barry Bonds and the design of what is now called AT&T Park sent me to baseballreference.com. Based on his stats, it is fair to say that he was not at a disadvantage there. And from what I read in Baseball Reference, AT&T Park is equally balanced in that it does not favor hitters over pitchers, or vice-versa.
The ball park opened in 2000. Bonds hit his career-best 73 home runs in 2001 -- 37 at home, 36 on the road. His season totals were the 40s each of the next three years, as had been the case in 2000. During those four seasons, he averaged about the same number of home runs at home as on the road. He missed almost all of 2005 with a knee injury, and in 2006 and 2007 hit 26 and 28 home runs, respectively. Of those 54 homers, 28 came at home.
Pitchers throw as hard as they want because they don’t have to last very long. How about limiting each team to three pitchers per game, with an exception if the game reaches 15 innings, and if the third/last pitcher is injured they can be replaced but the injured pitcher will have to go on the DL for at least 15 days?
5
Add 5’ to every dimension on the infield, lighter bats and deaden the ball slightly.
Baseball has lots of threes, so here are three, plus a bonus, solutions to its problems.
If a team shifts the infielders, then the batter should get an additional strike in compensation. This would not apply if the team in the field brought one of its outfielders to the infield, however.
Also, teams should make bunting a mandatory part of batting practice. Bunting to an empty second or third base gets a single every time.
Since baseball is a team sport, include basing compensation of the players, managers and coaches, and general managers on the record of the team including its position in the standings.
Finally, adjust beer prices downward when the team is doing lousy, and upward when things are going well.
3
@Cap’n Dan Mathews
Greg Bird has quietly decided to play the shift against itself. He is getting a lot of bunt-hits to empty bases. Bravo!
Using an old baseball adage "take what the pitcher gives you", is one way to neutralize the shift. If the pitch is outside go opposite field. Baseball needs more Carews, Gwynns and Suzukis not a rule change. Also, with those hard thrown sliders, cutters, etc. more discipline at the plate, would result in more walks. With men on, runners should start stressing the pitcher with long leadoffs and stealing. In otherwords, make it hard on the pitcher to concentrate, a la Jackie Robinson and Ricky Henderson. Having to go to the plate quickly out of the stretch diminishes some of the pitcher's "great stuff". The game has a way of correcting imbalances, without changing the rules.
4
Rogers Hornsby had a solution: deaden the ball: fewer golf swings, more base hits, more exciting fielding.
Personally, I much prefers a good pitchers’ duel to cheap home runs.
7
In 1941 Joe DiMaggio in 622 plate appearances over 139 games, batted .357 ; 125 RBI; 30 HR; slg .643; and struck out 13 times for the season; obviously the gold standard for the 20th century.
Though such performance is unimaginable in today's game, the strikeout has become trivialized and marginalized with respect to the play between teams. The individual matchup warps the supposed supremacy of team over individual player.
One strikeout is one out and represents 1/27th of the batting order, but does so without putting the ball in play or advancing a baserunner, the equivalent of conceding one move to your opponent in chess.
I don't know the ratio of Joe D's salary over his years as a Yankee to the team's revenue, but I'd bet that it's far smaller than that of pretenders like Mr. Judge or Mr. Stanton, both of whom are well capable of striking out 13 times in 3 games.
10
No panic necessary. When compared with basketball and football, sports where the athletes seem to be overwhelming the very dimensions of the game, creating undreamt of changes in how those sports are played decade by decade, baseball remains baseball. A speedy player hits a bouncer deep in the hole and a good shortstop guns him out on a bang-bang play. That 90 feet between bases works today as it worked in Ricky Henderson's day or in Ty Cobb's. Hitting remains difficult. And as for homers and strikeouts: Who has hit 60 since the steroid era? No one. Few make it to 50! Further, only Max Scherzer has threatened the single game strikeout record (20) since the 1990's and the record for consecutive strikeouts in a game (10 by Tom Seaver in 1970) has not been approached. Truly a magical game, now and forever. -E.Drangel
34
@Edward Drangel If you think the steroid era has ended I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you.
1
Attendance is down because of the cost of the games. It cost $25 just to park at Citi Field. I used to save the back of milk cartons to mail in for free tickets to Shea. Double headers were 2 for 1. Now I have to want to spend almost $100 to see a game with a mediocre team.
80
@aimlowjoe - Several years ago - and I’m sure it’s more now - I spent $95 for a ticket behind the third base foul pole. Fortunately, the game was so boring that I went into the fantastic museum by the 6th inning. Missed nothing. But it was my last game in the Stadium. Of course, living in Santa Monica makes that an easy promise to keep...
1
@aimlowjoe - You didn't even mention concession prices. I was at Target Field to see the Twins v. the Pirates on Tuesday. A burger with fries, a brat, a water, and a pop totaled over $46.
5
Today, kids and young adults would much rather play online video games with their friends than go to a professional sports game.
A video game is cheaper to play all day and every day than to go to a single baseball game.
I only see attendance dropping more and more as more and more kids grow into adulthood and continue to play online games.
7
@I Am The Walurs I agree my son is 40 years old and plays video games all the time. Has no interest in going to a pro game of any kind. I enjoyed taking my kids to see the Braves back in the 90s. Now I couldn’t afford it.
19
Regarding the downturn in MLB attendence, I have yet to hear anyone mention the outrageous cost of tickets and concessions at MLB parks these days.
When I was in high school a ticket to sit in the bleachers at Wrigley Field cost $5. Now that same ticket can run as high as $74! Add a $10 bratwurst and a couple $12 beers and you are in for over a hundred dollars for one person to attend a game. But who goes to a game alone? Take a family of four and you are looking at a car payment to attend a 3 hour baseball game.
And they wonder why fewer people are going?
122
@adam peters
I can’t (won’t) even pay for the televised games anymore. The cost of the cable packages to watch a game in HD are as exorbitant as the cost of going to a game. Not equal in price, but equal in gouge. Especially since I am old enough to remember games being often free on local stations. I adore this sport, but I hit my limit on what I am willing to pay to watch it.
1
@Adam Peters True enough, and that's why I haven't been to a Yankees game in years, but they care more about revenue than attendance. So far, increased TV revenues have more than offset whatever they've lost from decreased attendance.
1
@Adam Peters 2 bucks when I was in college in the early 80s. A plus if Lee Elia blew his stack.
I would like to have the technology reduced.
Let umpires be umpires. Bad calls in baseball
from Little League to the World Series add to
the games narrative. No reviews, no clocks,
no speed guns, turn down the sound systems
in the stadiums if you want to see more beauty.
40
@stevengiles - I couldn't agree more on the turning down the sound systems. Nearly every second where the ball isn't in play there's some kind of noise being generated. I want to watch a game, not suffer through a three hour long auditory assault. Most of the time I'm barely able to carry on a conversation with the person sitting next to me.
7
Agree 100% on the sound system!
We go to the game to appreciate the play, not be bombarded by Muzak and demands for “CHEERS”!
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Modern baseball as a live spectator sport is starting to fail for basic reasons transparent to any psychologist. As the article states "People don’t come to see the umpire call a ball or a strike..." Few in the stands have ever been able see for themselves whether a pitch is in the strike zone so there's little in these critical actions for them. A batter fanning at yet another pitch gets boring after a while, especially when you can see that they have forgone finesse to try for a home run. And now home runs are so frequent that their novelty is being lost. It is action in the field and on the bases that captures people's attention. And there there's so little of it...
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I think the shift has had the biggest impact on hitters. I also think relying on the BP has allowed the starters to let it all hang out in terms of velocity and mix of pitches. They know they arent gonna finish the game even if they got a no-no going in the 7th or 8th. SO's arent fun to watch esp if your team is walking away from the dish with runners on base.
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While baseball continues to rake in the revenue, the writing is on the wall. I went to my first baseball game at Shea Stadium in 1967 at the age of 9 and got to see Tom Seaver pitch, against the Pirates as I recall. Been a fan ever since, having had Mets season tickets for years and watching every game on TV before moving away from New York. When I moved to Chicago 21 years ago I made it a point to get out to Wrigley every year when the Mets were in town. It has now been a handful of years since I've been to a game (not all of that attributable to the team's declining performance) and I cannot imagine sitting in front of the TV to watch a game. Unless of course I need a nap or am suffering from insomnia, in which case baseball is now the perfect antidote.
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Baseball has always ebbed and flowed between pitching/defense and hitting as players and management look for new advantages that will help them win -- and each new trend has been accompanied by howls of dissent from the Good Old Days Syndrome crowd.
Those critical of the shift are missing the point. From Day One, fielders were positioned where batters were most likely to hit the ball. The way to defeat the shift is not by enacting rules against it, it's by hitters adjusting their approach.
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Remember 1968? The pitchers totally dominated. Carl Yastrezemski was the only batter who hit for .300 in the American League. His average was .301. In the National League, the leader was Pete Rose who hit for .335. Fives players hit for .300 and more. Only one team had two .300 hitters: the Reds with Pete Rose (.335) and Alex Johnson (.312). Of course the pitchers fared a lot better. Bob Gibson (Cardinals) has an ERA of 1.12 in the NL, which is still the lowest in the history of the major leagues since 1901. In the American the leader was Luis Tiant(Indians) with an ERA of 1.60. So welcome back to 1968.
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Except where are the pitchers with ERAs of under 2.00, even!
@Wilbray Thiffault So true. In response, was it the very next year, they lowered the mound. Problem solved (if indeed it was a problem). Wouldn't want to face Bob Gibson even if he was standing in a hole!
Great article. Would have been a bit better with some reference to the importance of changing the location of pitches, and to old Richie Ashburn thicker-handled bat which was great for getting base hits. The first of these is just as important as speed; Greg Maddux made a great career changing location as well as speed. A few players are rediscovering the greater control given by Ashburn-type bats. The best part of the game is between the extremes of strikeouts and home runs.
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Since the story was about analytics, the author could have added a calculation on why going for home runs makes sense. I suspect it has to do with the chained probabilities of the multiple hits that are required to get someone from first base to home. The story somewhat mentions it, but does not make it clear. You compare the percentage of a HR vs. getting 2 hits in an inning to score a runner. The story also might add while plays such base stealing, sacrifices, bunting, etc. are not doing their part to advance runners. Those plays need hits to be effective. Curious on why no mention of number of walks? If hitters are learning to wait on pitches or foul off near strikes to extend the count, why are not more runners on base from walks? If hitters are extending at bat pitch counts, how are pitchers able to stay in the game?
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I love going to games, but the shift just robs batters of hits. I really think they need a rule to rein it in. Otherwise, we're going to see game after scoreless game until the seventh inning, when the starting pitcher begins to tire.
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You're not alone in this thinking, but I hope there are more who feel that the game needs fewer rules, not more. The problem isn't the shift, it's the stubbornness of batters (and managers) who insist on going up against the shift instead of taking advantage of its weakness - a bunt or short swing to get the ball up the opposite/unprotected side is the obvious adjustment to the shift. It's the standard, unrefutable logic of "Hit it where they ain't." Hitting into the shift is stupid.
The most exciting moment in baseball is the play at the plate. By producing more HRs and strikeouts, analytics and athleticism have made MLB less entertaining than amateur baseball leagues. I’d say lower the pitching mound and make the strike zone smaller, but the zone is already too small and you’d likely just end up with more HRs. Baseball is in a real conundrum.
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If managers want base hits, rather than home runs, they would be working on teaching all players to "hit it where they ain't" in the minors.
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In Wednesday night's Mets game, Brandon Nimmo went from 1st to 3rd on a successful hit and run play, when Jeff McNeil beautifully hit a single into the vacated hole at shortstop. What a pleasure it was to see that unicorn.
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Together the Rules Committee and the owners have managed to ruin the pro game. They failed to adjust to the times, made the game longer, and as a result made it boring. I don't waste any time on it at all, not even attending minor league games. Women's softball has baseball beat all to hell.
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"bassball have been berry bery good to me"
No one watches any sports anymore. Why watch the sleepiest sport on the planet, when you can text your friends and let them tell you how they feel, and read their pontifications on the state of ..... politics of all things,... ???
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Simple solution:
Only two pitchers allowed per game.
One starter, one reliever.
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@Steve Miller I don't think that is feasible. Starters are pulled around 100 pitches or about the 6th or 7th inning. Many relievers only pitch one inning.
How about allowing two pitching changes per team and any additional changes cost the team a run.
Complete games should to be a meaningful indicator of a pitcher's quality. No longer.
I like the idea of only one pitching change! It's even better than my notion of requiring the starting pitcher to go 5 innings. Or, combine the two!
But, we really need to deepen the outfields and raise the fences to stop the homers. One other improvement would be to make it take only 2 strikes to get a batter out. That would require far more finesse by the batters and penalize free swinging!
@Steve Miller I could see reducing the number of pitchers allowed on a major league roster, but limiting the number of pitchers allowed in a single game would probably shorten most pitchers' careers. No one wants to see a bunch of 20-something pitchers with dead arms.
It seems to me that shifts don't work, or aren't used, against the likes of Mookie Betts or JD Martinez. They hit the ball to the so-called opposite field frequently. Also Benentendi and Holt. Seen Nunez go the other way a lot. And Devers. That historic homer against a 102 mph fastball went to left center. He's a lefty. Maybe that's why the Red Sox, who hit a lot of doubles, are squeaking by in first place. They only have a few 100 mph pitchers, and one of them isn't reliable.
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I watch nearly every Red Sox game and my conclusion is that this team, as a whole, understands how to hit. J.D. Martinez not only leads the A.L. In home runs but hits as well. Good players adapt to the conditions presented to them. Excellent players (Martinez, Betts) do it quickly, others will catch on eventually. One dimensional players (Chris Davis of the Orioles currently hitting around .160) maybe never. The old rules still apply- choke up on the bar, look for an outside pitch to hit to the opposite field and be patient in your at bats.
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@Dave DiRoma, I'm not a BoSox fan, but watching your team is fun this year, because they know how to have fun playing the game!
It would seem to me that "boring" depends on your perspective. I doubt the home team fans think it's boring to watch their pitcher strike out the side. But in the end we're talking about the evolution of the modern athlete, which we can't hope to regulate away through rule changes. Bigger, stronger, faster - the human being is constantly improving. Hitting a big league pitch has probably been the hardest thing in sports since forever, but batters have succeeded. Perhaps instead of swinging for the fences they just need to get smarter? "Small ball" I think is the term?
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@Kyle Battle - Many are also juicing. It's not just evolution that shows today's baseball players as huge and beefy compared to players in the 50s & 60s, for example.
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From what I see, the main reasons for this are: 1) baseball has been largely reduced to every batter wanting to hit home runs - to swing for the fences every time. And home runs are better if the travel farther - 400 foot homers are somehow seen as more meaningful than those that barely clear the fence. 2) Pitchers want to throw 100 MPH, or as close to it as possible. Combine the two and you get loads of Ks. The All-Star game this year was a great example of this and one of the managers even remarked at the time that the game had been a microcosm of baseball. Little is seen of "small ball" strategies of bunting, base stealing, hit & run, etc. The Royals were quite good at that a few years ago and won back to back pennants, but have now fallen into an obscurity shared only by the hapless Orioles.
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The game is always changing, in physical, mental, and technical ways. While I can accept those changes as a fan of the sport, I do miss the emphasis on fielding, running, and hitting for average. Those things provided the most exciting moments back in the day. Even during the steroid era, you had a team like the '99 Mets that had an infield of fielders so good some said it was the greatest ever. There are no teams these days with fielding like that. And I miss the days of spray hitters like Tony Gwynn and Wade Boggs. Those guys wouldn't even sniff the majors in this day and age, but I bet they could hit these 100 mph fastballs better than the guys who have the launch angles going. I'm not sure what baseball can do, but hopefully players like Altuve will change the way the league thinks about how to win. Would love to see more like him.
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No need to worry about the robots taking our jobs, they're already here. The overuse of analytics and mathematics to quantify the worth of every job function is ruining everything from teaching to movie production to cooking to sports, and on and on. I work in a field that is considered creative and yet I constantly have to quantify the amount of what I have done regardless of quality. I grew up a baseball fan and played softball from childhood to through college (I am female). I don't watch it now because with 2 small kids, a career with commute, and a home to take care of, I find more productive uses for the time it takes to watch a full game.
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I love baseball. I watch or listen to almost every game in the season. The cost of going to watch it live is killing the attendance. For two of us to go it runs about $100 every time by the time you pay for parking, your seat and a meal for each of us. That is not in a typical family budget more than once or twice a year. We used to go 8-12 times a year but no more. I REALLY miss it.
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We go to the Park and Ride. RT on the bus is $3.50 each senior. Right to the door, no hassle, no annoying traffic worries. Pack a lunch. Works fine.
@Chuck Burton With the cheapest tickets about $25, it still is around $60-70 for a couple to go to a game. Throw in a couple of kids and it becomes outrageous. A couple years ago I took my son-in-law and grandson to a Twins game. Sat in the third deck and could almost see the ball when it was in play. Cost over a hundred bucks for the three of us with a small snack and drinks. At the beginning of the season all the emphasis seems to be on the food. At Target Field it seems the atmosphere is to have a party with a game in the background. No thanks.
Tyler. Would lowering the mound again help? I watch a ton of baseball and it is very frustrating for runners to get on with no outs and not score due to strikeouts. Also, can’t hitters train to hit against the shift? They are really talented...
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In addition to the ever-more-dangerous pitchers' arsenals, I imagine the rule changes to quicken the pace of games may be rushing batters somewhat as they adapt?
I no longer follow baseball as I did when I was a kid, so maybe I'm "offbase" here, but it seems obvious that the reason pitchers keep getting more overpowering is because they no longer have to pace themselves to pitch complete games. If a pitcher knows he will be pulled after 100 pitches or less, he can throw at speeds that would fatigue or injure a pitcher who is pitching complete games.
Does anyone remember "Spahn and Sain, then 2 days of rain?"
In the 1948 World Series between Boston (the the Braves) and Cleveloan, Johnny Sain, who had shut out the Indians in the first game, came back with 2 days rest to pitch a complete game in which he gave up only 5 hits and 2 runs.
Warren Spahn, whom many rate the greatest left-hander of all time, pitched an incredible 382 complete games in his career despite losing 4 years to the army during WW II. He was born in 1921, and won his first major league game in 1946 after the war; his two no-hitters came in 1960 and 1961! After war, he said, nothing he was ever asked to do in baseball could be considered hard work.
Those were the days!
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@Charley Darwin
Complete games are great but, if you like baseball strategy, as I do, relief pitching decisions are debated for years. Should Harvey have pitched the ninth, how badly did Francona outmanage Maddon in pitching decisions in Game 7? And should Grady Little have been fired for letting Pedro pitch to one batter too many?
Football strategy is over my head. Basketball strategy can be fascinating, but the game moves so fast that by the time you figure out your team is in a zone, they have changed to man to man. Baseball strategy is transparent. In baseball, knowledgeable fans recognize a bad decision in the 4th that can make all the difference. Do you pitch to Judge with runners on second and third? How many solid left handed hitters do you sit when a lefty is pitching? These are the kind of questions that make baseball a thinking persons game.
Generally, whatever eliminates strategy -- except for the DH which I love (Go Papi!) -- is unwelcome for me. I have no nostalgia for complete games. They take Mariano Rivera and Goose Gossage out of the picture. And there never would have been a matchup between Eckersley and Gibson if the A's starter had gone 9. I understand your nostalgia. But the game is so much more exciting and so much more interesting when the bullpen comes into play.
@Charley Darwin I remember it as "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain".
An over-reaction. An out is an out. Batting averages, runs, HRs, and so on all are far from historic lows. As the games evolves and styles change, how players make their outs has changed. Not a big deal.
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