Yeah I don’t think it all of a sudden eclipses the other sports but the idea is to excite young kids (less than 12). If baseball doesn’t figure out how to do that it will be even more marginalized than it is now.
GDT 5/22/21: Pirates vs Braves - A start for Ender
- Thread starter Slippyjms
- Start date
Yeah I don’t think it all of a sudden eclipses the other sports but the idea is to excite young kids (less than 12). If baseball doesn’t figure out how to do that it will be even more marginalized than it is now.
All sports have changed.
The NFL has altered rules for years to make things more beneficial to the quarterback to promote offense. And when defenders started getting better, they made even more rules to allow receivers to have better opportunities to get open.
The NBA, nobody shoots long two's hardly anymore. It's just 3's or in the paint. But it's also insane that players have adjusted tot he 3 point line. Someone like Curry is regularly shooting like 10 feet behind the 3 point line, which was unheard of 20 years ago.
We've talked night and day about how MLB has changed.
But even in other sports, athletes all around are just stronger and more talented and athletic. In tennis, serve and volley isn't a thing anymore. It's a combination of the tour slowing down the game by slowing down the surfaces, and also with modern equipment/strings, but physically, every tennis pro, and even collegiate tennis players, are way more athletic and physically more fit than McEnroe or Connors back in the 80's. Serve MPH average has gone up, groundstroke MPH has gone up.
We're seeing this everywhere. This just isn't a baseball problem.
The NFL has altered rules for years to make things more beneficial to the quarterback to promote offense. And when defenders started getting better, they made even more rules to allow receivers to have better opportunities to get open.
The NBA, nobody shoots long two's hardly anymore. It's just 3's or in the paint. But it's also insane that players have adjusted tot he 3 point line. Someone like Curry is regularly shooting like 10 feet behind the 3 point line, which was unheard of 20 years ago.
We've talked night and day about how MLB has changed.
But even in other sports, athletes all around are just stronger and more talented and athletic. In tennis, serve and volley isn't a thing anymore. It's a combination of the tour slowing down the game by slowing down the surfaces, and also with modern equipment/strings, but physically, every tennis pro, and even collegiate tennis players, are way more athletic and physically more fit than McEnroe or Connors back in the 80's. Serve MPH average has gone up, groundstroke MPH has gone up.
We're seeing this everywhere. This just isn't a baseball problem.
There are many things that could improve the game:
Less time between pitches
Less time watching pitchers bat
More balls in play
Less commentators complaining about the sport
Better dead time content/analysis
Making it easier for kids to play the sport
Some of those things are easy to achieve, and some are very hard to achieve. So let’s take care of the easy ones and make incremental improvements where they are easy to make.
Less time between pitches
Less time watching pitchers bat
More balls in play
Less commentators complaining about the sport
Better dead time content/analysis
Making it easier for kids to play the sport
Some of those things are easy to achieve, and some are very hard to achieve. So let’s take care of the easy ones and make incremental improvements where they are easy to make.
msstate7
Well-known member
Gotta find a way to quit losing the best athletes to football and basketball in the states. Baseball is expensive for the good players bc of travel ball, and unfortunately, a lot of kids find it boring. This is a problem
Agreed. But how many other announcers tell us how bad the sport is currently at some point during every single game?
I hear dumb old boomers and trumpkins complain about football, but never the announcers during the game.
CrimsonCowboy
Moderator
UNCBlue012
Well-known member
Most elite reliever in MLB history
sturg33
I
I was reading an interesting article the other day about optimal data results in uniformity and makes things predictable and boring.
Like moneyball took over MLB... every team has adopted... not all we have are three true outcome hitters. Which is definitely the most optimal way to play... but it is a less entertaining event to watch.
Same with basketball when it was adopted universally that three pointers are the most optimal way to score. Again, every team adopts. Predictible. Boring..
Nfl still has a lot of different styles. It will eventually go this way too.
The cost part of the equation is easy to figure out. Baseball has lots of money to support these programs for disadvantaged youth.
Only drastic changes in game play (eliminating shifts / distance from mound to home/ size of in field play) are the only things that will save the game from a fan interest perspective.
bravesfanMatt
Steve Harvey'd
Making games more accessible to watch would help. Shove it in our faces. MLB does a horrible job of getting people to watch. Also our minor league system dilutes star excitement. High schoolers are drafted and get lost in the leagues. No one can relate to a baseball player until they already become someone. And even then you don’t hear about them much.
I could run a 4.6 in the 40 in my youth so I'm sure I could. Now that I'm in my 50s there's no chance in hell.
sturg33
I
I THINK I could beat him?
I'm not sure how far that run is. But I can run pretty fast for a half mile or so
I'd definitely jog until the point freeze starts though
I think that's because there's just too much time in between action for announcers to rag on the game. Not saying they should.
But with the NBA, if someone misses there's a rebound and the game is still going. In the NFL, as you mentioned, the production does such a good job of showing replays and angle filler in between snaps that they don't have as much time to rag on it.
Also in between snaps visually on screen you're looking at things happening. Is a man in motion, how is the defense aligning, what formation is the offense in, etc. So yes even though there's no actual action before the snap there is the chess match of the QB reading the defense and audibling.
This made Peyton Manning in his peak so fun to watch.
In baseball, players are calling timeouts. Resetting their stance, etc. Tons of foul balls.
Fwiw I'm not bothered by the longness of the game. Just explaining why some people have lost some enthusiasm with it.
Julio3000
<B>A Chip Off the Old Rock</B>
I’ve found that the biggest thing that’s affected my enjoyment of the game has been the nearly universal defensive shifts. Sturg’s point about optimal data creating a worse product is spot on here. I don’t really care about the HR/strikeout dynamic. Never have, particularly. But for me, the nearly universal adoption of extreme shifts has screwed with the equation of how often good contact is rewarded, in a way that messes with my personal enjoyment of the game. The knock-on effect of accelerating the TTO dynamic bothers other folks more, but it’s definitely a related issue.
To this day I still get excited when hitters hit line drives at certain spots thinking it’s a sure hit only to be disappointed it’s right at someone.