I’ll agree with that. The 3-batter rule is designed to combat that, but I worry about unintended consequences. Better to limit roster spots for pitchers, I think.
As somebody who watches the games and nothing but the games I agree with you.
But for every hour of game, the modern media system produces multiple hours of yak-yak shows and multiple highlight reels and highlight cuts and YouTube outtakes and teasers on MLB.com and … The real money now is in the selling and sponsorship of that stuff, not the actual games.
And so MLB is creating the product the media want to sell: highlight moments suitable for clipping context-free out of a game. And from swing to fence only takes a couple seconds which studies have shown is the ideal duration for a cut in a vid to produce excitement in the modern attention-span deficient multi-tasking phone-watching audience.
The other real money is in fantasy baseball. Which effectively converts real live baseball into nothing but a stats source for gamblers. Which misuse as a stats source effectively changes baseball into an individual performance sport, not the team sport it’s traditionally been. There’s no fantasy stat for “did his part in a tricky rundown play that might have ended with 2 outs or 2 runs”. There is a stat for “home runs this season”.
Giving your customer what they want is the key to success in any business. Baseball is a business and the individual fan is NOT their customer. Or at least not their primary customer. At least not anymore.
Would that it were not so.
Got a cite for that? MLB earns about $2 billion for national television rights every year, plus the individual team broadcasting contracts out there (which I can’t find at the moment because there’s a baby in my arms). Fantasy, DFS and gambling rights are likely lucrative, but I’d be surprised if they come close to outpacing television revenue.
I’ve never understood the appeal of context-free clips of home runs. If I’m just watching highlights, I’d rather see a spiffy defensive play.
That game was redonkulous! Here’s the highlights
Even against the benchwarmers Miami doesn’t stand a chance. 
Let’s go Mets!
You’re absolutely right. I am sure, though, you see why this model eventually fails.
If records are kept of such things, Jeurys Familia could set a season record for highest WHIP to ERA ratio.
Currently his WHIP is 1.71, ERA 2.45. A WEAR(Y) of >1? It could happen.
Apparently Familia can’t concentrate fully unless he puts at least two men on base first.
I just listened to the latest “Rates and Barrels” podcast with Eno Sarris (a big pitching analyst for The Athletic) and Britt Ghiroli (Athletic baseball writer/analyst), and they kept referring to Spider Tack, which is what they use in the World’s Strongest Man competitions to get grip on those atlas balls. There are videos online of people using it to hold a cinder block to their palm.
I certainly do. But so much of of American business has taken on that scammy, “grab the short-term jewels and run before the long-term consequences inevitably show up” style. This is just one more example.
The current attitude of fatcats and high level corporate American to both RW extremism and climate change denial (among other loaded topics unfit for The Game Room) seems to be that they can make truly huge hay while the sun shines and somehow bail out of the consequences just before crunch time. Some of them will succeed, but not all. And yet the rush to the precipice continues unabated.
MLB’s recent decision making smells like that to me.
The New York Mets are in the midst of one of the weirdest seasons I’ve ever seen them have, and that’s even taking into account that they are the New York Mets. Of their nine Opening Day Starters, seven are on the injured list, including the best starting pitcher in baseball. The two who are healthy are a pair of offseason additions both slugging under .300 on the season. On the active roster, the most effective hitter has been backup catcher Tomas Nido.
The Mets are in first place by 1.5 games.
There are some parallels to the Mets’ 1973 season, where they were plagued by injuries to starters in the first part of the season and never had much of an offense, playing in a division characterized by mediocrity. The Mets arguably had better starting pitching overall in '73 though.
Yankees are finally starting to hit, Judge and Torres in particular. As cool as it was to pull off that triple play, I really question the call at first. I haven’t seen slow motion of that part of it but the batter looked safe to me. Chapman proved himself human Sunday, first blown save and first run allowed. Back to Judge, hard to believe that Sunday was his first walk off plate appearance, literally a walk off.
I thought he was safe watching in real time, and I was surprised La Russa didn’t challenge, but even though it was incredibly close, the ball was in Voit’s glove before the runners foot came down on the bag.
I didn’t see any slo mo replays of the play at first but at first glance he looked safe. What was unusual was how Urshela had to take a few steps to get to third then throw. Generally around the horn TPs are where the 3B starts much closer to the bag.
Another Mets centerfielder goes down, that’s 4 for the year. No projected date yet for Nimmon to come back. Conforto and McNeil out until end of June. Alonso, maybe, early next week. Carrasco, late June/early July which probably means August. Backups Guillorme and Almora, Jr., no projected date. It’s not just the starters who are getting hurt, they had a good bench until recently
Syndergaard and Lugo, mid-June.
If they can play .500 ball for a month it will be a miracle.
Thor was scheduled to pitch 4 innings today for St. Lucie, but left after just one. Yikes.
Indians starting pitcher Zach Plesac is going onto the injured list, due to a self-inflicted broken thumb:
Plesac may be kind of a meathead; last year, he got sent home by the Indians from Chicago, after breaking COVID protocols and spending a night on the town with some friends.
It’s gotta be just headshaking to be the 60-something den Dad for these kids. Poor Francona.
And poor whoever has to sign the paychecks for this Plesac ding-a-ling. They can’t be made happy by this.
In happier news, the Cubs are a half game back of the Cards in the NL Central. After a disastrous April, the bullpen is finally earning their pay. Go Cubs go!
Dodgers beat the Asterisks 9-2 as the Houston bullpen walks in 4 runs in the last 2 innings. Another byproduct of that stupid “3 hitters” rule.