Originally Posted by
Horsehide Harry
The game has changed throughout time with certain things having a big influence on how the game was played.
In the early days when there were no fences and/or far away and variable fences and the balls were used over and over without regard to quality and where equipment like gloves were substandard, the game was played a certain way. HR weren't much of a concern unless they were inside the park so player emphasis was on speed and contact for offense and movement, location and longevity for pitching. There were also very few competing sports for talent and very few ML clubs, albeit with a much smaller population from which to draw.
When parks started firming up into the early stages of their modern equivalents and when the ball quality and other equipment became more standardized then the HR emerged, player types changed to accept bigger, stronger, slower players on offense and pitchers who could get swinging strikes became more in demand. Defense was less important.
Then parks started getting bigger, fences further back and artificial turf was introduced. With turf came a reemergence of the slap hitter who could run and defense became a premium once again. HR rates dropped off some.
Come to near modern baseball. Parks are smaller overall. Turf is gone. TV is the single most influential thing in the sport. And there are very significant competing sports. Chicks did the long ball. K's aren't something for internal shame anymore. Pen specialization starts.
Now, come to today. All near modern baseball is in play from above but now add the heavy influence of 2 things: 1. Analytics 2. Business acumen by those running franchises. Analytics is driving everything from on field strategy (defensive alignments, in game managerial moves, opener/closer, pen use, SP use, etc.) to roster construction and player comp. Business acumen is influencing payroll growth, marketing, etc.
I do think analytics and business acumen has LOST a lot of the ability to conduct great marketing for the sport. Marketing is about building a vision that people will buy and the current analytics and business people are so focused on the numbers that they are forgetting to build the vision for their customers.
It's time for the sport to evolve once again.