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re: MLB has to adapt or the league is going to die
Posted on 8/21/24 at 10:33 am to OU Guy
Posted on 8/21/24 at 10:33 am to OU Guy
quote:
One thought, and it won’t change due to minor league cities loving their minor league teams. In baseball it can take forever for a great college baseball player to get to pros so you lose a huge base of college fans.
has nothing to do with minor league cities loving their teams.
if that great college player was good enough, he'd be in The Show very fast (see Paul Skenes).
I don't think people grasp the sheer volume of baseball talent out there compared to football or basketball.
if you're an elite college football player, you stand a good chance of being good enough to make an NFL roster and get playing time immediately when you leave school. Because there is pretty much nobody else outside of American colleges that are producing NFL talent. You are among the best of the best available.
that's not the case in baseball.
Latin America and Eastern Asia are both pumping out a ton of talented guys. Plus you have the elite level High Schoolers coming out as well.
The number of guys good enough to compete for your spot is exponentially higher than the number of guys competing for your spot in Football.
quote:
Make gloves smaller (never happen but funny idea)
infielders already use gloves not much bigger than a little leaguer.
1
Posted on 8/21/24 at 10:39 am to Hondo Blacksheep
quote:
if better offensive numbers is the goal then maybe lower the mound a little?
I'm asking because I seriously don't know. Why would the mound height change anything?
Posted on 8/21/24 at 10:53 am to Saunson69
I will say that after going to my first MLB game in person this year since the pitch clock was implemented, that is the best thing they have done to help the game in decades. It has made a dramatic difference.
I would say anything that shortens the length of the games and reducing the number of games in a season would bring in more fans. No one has the time anymore to dedicate 3+ hours 5-6 nights per week to sit down and watch a game, and no one has the financial flexibility or discretionary income to spend what it costs to attend home games regularly. Football is popular because it's 1x week for 3-4 hours; people can budget time and money for that.
I mean honestly would anyone care if they changed games to 7 innings, made pitching changes happen faster, and reduced the season to half of what it is now? Play Fri/Sat/Sun series every week and that's it.
I would say anything that shortens the length of the games and reducing the number of games in a season would bring in more fans. No one has the time anymore to dedicate 3+ hours 5-6 nights per week to sit down and watch a game, and no one has the financial flexibility or discretionary income to spend what it costs to attend home games regularly. Football is popular because it's 1x week for 3-4 hours; people can budget time and money for that.
I mean honestly would anyone care if they changed games to 7 innings, made pitching changes happen faster, and reduced the season to half of what it is now? Play Fri/Sat/Sun series every week and that's it.
Posted on 8/21/24 at 11:00 am to Nutriaitch
quote:
has nothing to do with minor league cities loving their teams.
if that great college player was good enough, he'd be in The Show very fast (see Paul Skenes).
I don't think people grasp the sheer volume of baseball talent out there compared to football or basketball.
if you're an elite college football player, you stand a good chance of being good enough to make an NFL roster and get playing time immediately when you leave school. Because there is pretty much nobody else outside of American colleges that are producing NFL talent. You are among the best of the best available.
that's not the case in baseball.
Latin America and Eastern Asia are both pumping out a ton of talented guys. Plus you have the elite level High Schoolers coming out as well.
The number of guys good enough to compete for your spot is exponentially higher than the number of guys competing for your spot in Football.
Lets imagine there were no minor leagues. Never happen but for arguments sake. Players go from college to pros. Only so many slots. That means teams would have to pick and choose. And then they pick wrong and it hurts them but lesser teams pick right and it helps.
It will never happen but this would bring parity. You would have a draft similar to NFL and NBA where fans are engaged. You would need to increase rosters but would have more money since it’s the only game.
The minor leagues siphon off fans who follow their local team. If those didn’t exist you would have all eyes only on MLB. Of course the system is too big to change now many cities have built nice fields for their minor league team.
But if it was only MLB then it would get better attention. Drafts would carry a lot of college baseball fans like the other 2 big sports. And keep them to see how their college player does in pros.
Again, it will never happen but it works great for NFL and NBA.
Posted on 8/21/24 at 11:06 am to Sherlock Holmes II
quote:
One the game is not on a major network anymore. When was the last World Series on ABC, NBC, or CBS?
The same network that will broadcast the Super Bowl also broadcasts the World Series. Fox is a major network my man
Posted on 8/21/24 at 11:20 am to Kracka
quote:
I'm asking because I seriously don't know. Why would the mound height change anything?
Pitchers get some of their velocity by coming off the mound. In the past it has been lowered to tweak numbers.
Posted on 8/21/24 at 11:23 am to West Seattle Dude
quote:
20-year-old sports fans are not watching baseball. Their three top choices are football, NBA and MMA. Average baseball fan is about 50. Only going to get worse.
When I was a 20 year old sports fan I did not watch baseball either. Now I am 51 year old sports fan and I watch baseball daily. When I was 20 I didn't watch golf either, now that I'm in my 50s I watch golf daily.
It's almost as if people's viewing habits and interests change as they age. Remarkable.
Posted on 8/21/24 at 11:30 am to BHS78
quote:
Quit swinging for the fences if you can't hit it over
Pro sports is all about analytics now.
Baseball: pitching is so good, analytics says you will generate slightly more runs by swinging for the fences and hitting the occasional HR as opposed to stringing three singles together. The contact hitter with speed is no longer as desirable, its guys hitting 0.230 with 40 Hr's.
Football: defenses are so good, analytics say it is better to occasionally hit the deep ball than it is to dink and dunk. So now you have track stars at WR who cannot run routes and drop a lot of footballs but will take one to the house once in awhile.
Basketball: analytics says that it is better to shoot more 3's than play good basketball.
This post was edited on 8/21/24 at 11:33 am
Posted on 8/21/24 at 11:46 am to EyeOfTheTiger311
quote:
No one has the time anymore to dedicate 3+ hours 5-6 nights per week to sit down and watch a game, and no one has the financial flexibility or discretionary income to spend what it costs to attend home games regularly
This wasn’t an issue in the past
Posted on 8/21/24 at 11:59 am to SECSolomonGrundy
quote:
Baseball is just too damn boring. I would rather watch golf
Baseball is not boring
They’ve ruined it with wokeness and rule changes
Posted on 8/21/24 at 12:42 pm to Saunson69
quote:
MLB has to adapt or the league is going to die
Exaggeration there.
Posted on 8/21/24 at 12:53 pm to TeddyPadillac
quote:
The anal litics tries to tell us that hitting .240 with mostly homers and doubles is better than hitting .350 with a ton of singles. Ichiro isn’t allowed in this new modern baseball.
0-2 count doesn’t matter, try to hit a home run still.
OK, we can play this game. In 1966, Matty Alou won the NL batting title with a .342 average. But 154 of his 183 hits were singles, he walked only 24 times the whole season, he drove in a whopping 27 runs and he scored 86 runs.
Harmon Killebrew that year hit only .281, but 93 of his 160 hits were for extra bases (I'm not even going to mention his home run total), he walked 103 times, he drove in 103 runs and he scored 89 runs. He also slugged 117 points higher than Matty.
Who was the better offensive player, the BA guy or the guy who could do more than slap singles?
Posted on 8/21/24 at 1:06 pm to InkStainedWretch
League average OPS is very poor as well. Game has gotten quite stale.
Posted on 8/21/24 at 1:15 pm to UltimateHog
Agreed
Posted on 8/21/24 at 1:26 pm to OU Guy
quote:
Lets imagine there were no minor leagues. Never happen but for arguments sake. Players go from college to pros. Only so many slots. That means teams would have to pick and choose. And then they pick wrong and it hurts them but lesser teams pick right and it helps.
then teams will only be drafting guys from Latin American and asian professional leagues since those guys are more "ready" than college players.
our best college players are very rarely the best baseball players available. that's why they're in the minors.
with no minor league teams, those guys don't magically become big leaguers, they become unemployed and out of baseball.
because like I said, if they were good enough to play in the Big Leagues, they would be in the Big Leagues already.
quote:
The minor leagues siphon off fans who follow their local team. If those didn’t exist you would have all eyes only on MLB. Of course the system is too big to change now many cities have built nice fields for their minor league team.
and how many people do you honestly believe are watching a minor league game on TV instead of a Big League game?
Hell, I live less than 15 minutes from a AA team and can't watch them on TV unless I subscribe to their online streaming.
I haven't found a link with actual numbers for everyone, but in 2021, the Louisville Bats (only article I found that even lists viewership) finished 6th in all of minor league baseball for views on their streaming platform.
24,000 unique viewers during the course of the entire season.
not per game. TOTAL unique views have watched any game all year long.
and that's in the top 10 for all minor league teams across all levels.
even if you just want attendance numbers, the top 15 Minor League attendance teams are teams mostly that aren't reasonable driving distance from a big league park.
That list is littered with cities like:
Indianapolis
Nashville
Charlotte
Albuquerque
El Paso
Durham
Buffalo
Posted on 8/21/24 at 1:42 pm to InkStainedWretch
quote:
Who was the better offensive player, the BA guy or the guy who could do more than slap singles?
You mean who was the better baseball player? One is obviously better than the other. If Matty Alou could hit like Killebrew, he would, but he couldn't.
I'm not saying everyone should hit .350 and hit singles.
You have to have guys in the lineup like Killebrew, but that doesn't mean everyone should try to be Harmon Killebrew.
The traditional lead off guy that slaps a ball to get on base and steals bases doesn't exist anymore. You don't need 9 of those guys in your roster, but having 2 guys who hit for contact and get on base a lot, while 2-3 guys behind him are going to swing for the gaps would seem to help balance a lineup. When you're down 1 and you have 1-2-3 up to bat today, your hope to tie the game is only with a homer, yet the odds are none of them get a hit since they all hit under .300
1996 who was better comparison (games played just 4 games difference):
BA .297 vs .341
Hits 172 vs 197
HRs 50 vs 13
Doubles 37 vs 35
Triples 5 vs 14
Singles 80 vs 135
SB 21 vs 45
BB 76 vs 98
SO 106 vs 74
RBI 110 vs 72
Runs 117 vs 140
WAR 6.9 vs 8.7
One guy led the AL in homers, the other guy was a traditional leadoff man, and was 4th in BA in the AL.
I don't think one guy is that much better than the other (although the most blessed WAR stat says the leadoff guy was better), but the point is having a balanced roster and a guy that can get on base and give his teammates 2-3 good chances to drive him in is still a position that's useful in a lineup today.
Guys back in the day were still hitting over .300 while belting 40 homers. How come hardly anyone can do that anymore?
in '96 ARod lead the AL in BA at .358 and had 36 homers.
Frank Thomas hit 40 and .349, second best BA in AL
McGwire hit 52 homers at .312
Mo Vaughn, 44 homers, .328
Griffey, 49 homers, .303
Albert Belle, 48 homers, .311
Juan Gonzales 47 homers, .314
and that's just the AL
The fact there are only 6 players hitting over .300 this year is a problem.
Posted on 8/21/24 at 2:06 pm to TXSTaggie
quote:
I remember when the Astros won the WS on a Saturday night and it wasn’t even the main highlight of that night. It was LSU beating Bama at the same time as the Astros won the WS.
It was very easy for me to decide which to watch. DirecTV had Fox blocked.
Posted on 8/21/24 at 2:13 pm to TeddyPadillac
Who do you think is a more valuable baseball player, Kyle Schwarber or Luis Arraez? I’m a Braves fan and would much rather have Schwarber on my team’s roster. But that is basically what you’re asking when this discussion comes up.
Posted on 8/21/24 at 2:14 pm to TeddyPadillac
quote:exactly how many guys were doing this
Guys back in the day were still hitting over .300 while belting 40 homers
Posted on 8/21/24 at 2:19 pm to Sherlock Holmes II
Baseball is not going to die, will it ever be as popular as NFL and NBA, likely not
I stlll think until you eliminate the inherent advantages teams like the Dodgers and Yankees have from a spending standpoint it will not thrive so some sort of salary cap or ways to allow all the teams to compete will be what's needed to sustain it
If you make it more equitable like the NFL did years ago allowing smaller market teams to thrive then those owners will likely step it up as well
I stlll think until you eliminate the inherent advantages teams like the Dodgers and Yankees have from a spending standpoint it will not thrive so some sort of salary cap or ways to allow all the teams to compete will be what's needed to sustain it
If you make it more equitable like the NFL did years ago allowing smaller market teams to thrive then those owners will likely step it up as well
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