Baseball is in Deep Trouble

This article has 47 Comments

1. I went to see the doctor of philosophy
   With a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knees

   1. I also went to see a great Doctor of Philosophy:
      
      He said not to worry!

      1. Manfred E. Neuman

      2. Gennadiy Gennadyevich Golovkin

2. Great article, but TOO logical to ever get implemented for many items. Some might be agreed to like DH, no shifts. higher minimum pay. Revenue sharing is a great idea, but NFL teams still tank even with it, but worse in MLB. Salary caps–hard to believe players would agree to this. Lets face it with inflation $30 million not enough to live on. cutting back on games, no one will want that more games more TV revenue. I think we would have to see that reversal of TV money before teams would react. Meanwhile milk it as long as possible and sell for billions in profits. Will that plan last much longer. So far that is working for owners.

3. Hard Salary Cap – $225,000 (and it is tied to the Consumer Price Index every year thereafter).
   Minimum Salary Cap – $150,000

   Mark, I’m assuming you forgot a few zeros here?

   How do NFL and NBA attendance/viewer numbers stack up with baseball over the last few years? Baseball may be losing fans at the fastest rate but I think younger folks aren’t coming on board to any of the major sports the way they used to. To many other options. The world is changing and there ain’t much we can do about it.

4. And sure , us old fogies remember the ‘good old days’ a million years ago. My dad didn’t even OWN a car. We took the subway to Ebbets Field for .15. Seats were probably $2.50 for upper deck. Then you could move down after a few innings. We packed a lunch, watched Newcomb pitch a complete game in 2hours 15 minutes. And it was a great time to spend some time with my dad who worked a lot of hours during the week. Now who can even afford to go to games? But you still have to have the product. Here in FL, Miami has plenty of give aways, but attendance is still worst in baseball

   1. I thought 2.50 seemed a little high for a upper deck ticket David, simply because in 1975, you could get a pavilion ticket at Dodger Stadium for 2 bucks. In 1957 a lower stand ticket at Ebbets cost 2.00$. Field boxes were 3.00$. So I would think your dad probably paid around 1.50 for those upper deck seats. I was reading some specks for Ebbets and they said the outfield had 220 different angles. Knowing how to play the caroms off of the fences out there took a lot of practice. One thing O’Malley did in LA was keep the ticket prices as low as he could so family’s could come to the games. At one point the Dodgers did not raise their ticket prices for about 10 straight years. And when they finally did, they went up about 50 cents. I used to get field boxes at Dodger Stadium for 12.50. Now, they are closer to 150.00.

5. That’s pretty funny Mark. You have to completely change everything in order to get to people interested again? I call Shenanigans! Even Ray charles can see that attendance going downwards is an inverse relationship to price. There are no free games on TV, subscriptions are expensive and ticket prices keep going up. That would explain the attendance numbers a hell of a lot more than throwing to first base more too often.

   MLB’s streaming services is the worst in sports. Start making the games more accessible and you will have more fans without the need of all these ridiculous ideas. You look at youth sports today and baseball is still very popular, so it stands to reason that all those kids playing baseball should be interested in the game as adults. Unfortunately, it’s not affordable for young adults to watch games on TV or attend games.

   By seeing the money that’s being doled out this offseason ahead of a lockout, you know that the sport and league is financially viable, if not booming. Like I said, ad sales exist in streams so there is revenue there. It may not be what the massive cable deals produce, but that is more to do with the maturity of streaming ad sales than it does with the game’s popularity. I know this directly as I work for a tech company that receives revenue for this sort of thing. Just a few years ago they were just figuring out how to inject ads into streams. As the technology matures, so will the revenue. Just about every large sporting event that we distribute on our network breaks records for total and concurrent streams. So while traditional TV viewership is going down, streams are going up.

   Mark says to talk to people so see how things are changing. When I talk to people, the biggest thing I see is that people don’t pay for cable anymore. The people I know that watch baseball streams right now do so with bullcrap pirate apps that are unreliable and have low quality video output. You want to get people interested in the sport? You need to fix the stupidity of the streaming restrictions and make the game more accessible.

   Now, I do agree that some things have to change. But, I don’t thing that laundry list will fix baseball, but break it further.

   Here’s how I feel about some of the recent rule changes…

   Instant replay – I thought I would like it before they implemented it. In actuality, I don’t like it much and it completely changed the game. No neighborhood play at second, and it slows the game way too much. I think it also helped kill stolen bases.

   Busty Posey rule – I didn’t want it, still hate it. Plays at the plate used to be the most exciting play in baseball. Not so much anymore.

   Three batter rule – I thought I would hate it, I actually like it. Pitching changes suck!

   The DH was used in the NL last season. I didn’t hate it as much as I thought, but I liked it better last year when pitchers were required to hit again. I don’t think the DH makes the game better. I like the idea of tying the DH to the pitcher where you have to change the DH when you change the pitcher.

   I like that rosters expanded to 26, but I dislike that September rosters were reduced so drastically. I think guys need a breather at the end of the season and the larger rosters allow for it.

   The shift needs to go. No one wants offense suppressed.

   If you limit the number of times a pitcher can throw over, stolen bases would be too easy. It would break the game.

   1. I agree, cost is a factor.

   2. Maybe we should talk about contract proposals separately from what is happening with attendance.

      I like Mark’s proposal for a new contract.

      I also think baseball inflationary fan costs needs to be addressed.

6. Interesting read….. I came across a posted tweet by Rosenthal that said CT3 and his agents told interested teams on the day he agreed to sign with the Dodgers that it wasn’t about money. He enjoyed being a Dodger, his role was identified and he was comfortable being in LA and wanted to remain a Dodger. By the way his agent is not Scott Boras. Just saying.

   Refreshing to know he seems very much like the player/individual he comes across in with his interviews. Humble, loyal, grounded, team first kind of guy. Great move by AF keeping CT3 a Dodger.

   1. yep

      deal kinda fell in our lap

      if he would’ve chased every last dollar, we wouldn’t have followed

   2. I read that as well, and have a newfound love for CT3 because if it. Man, if he can only cut down on those K’s!

7. It seems like a no brainer, that someone could ‘settle’ for 60 million and be satisfied to stay where they are. But this is the exception these days.

8. Okay, Mark, interesting proposal. Some good ideas in it.

   But we should start with the central issues. Not enough action and the game takes too long.

   That means shifts have to go. The DH needs to happen. Seems pretty straight forward. Obviously players won’t make adjustments, so the game must do it to create more action.

   As to speeding up the game, the goal should be to finish in two and a half hours or less. That means pitchers need to cut the nonsense and throw the ball. Hitters need to be in the box, ready to swing.

   The two minutes between innings is a good idea. I would make it 15 seconds to throw the pitch once the hitter is in the box. Electronic communication would help with that especially with a runner on second base. The pitcher could use a wrist band to check the call or you use an ear piece. Not sure about the runner at first. Maybe a mark where the runner can move to and he has to pass that to warrant a throw. Pitchers throwing over time and again is definitely slowing the game, some times the runner is only a couple of feet off the bag.

   That might also change the game, more emphasis on speed, stealing bases. Hey, watching Maury Wills back in the day was pure excitement and who can forget the stadium chants of “Go, Go, Go …”

   I agree that scaling back to 154 is a good idea, especially if you intend to expand playoffs. But I would work it out so every team has a Monday or Thursday off. Might help prevent injuries and lethargic play.

   I would keep the divisions the way they are, more division winners the better. But we might keep travel regional. Do the Dodgers really need to play in New York? Pretty taxing to make cross country trips. Still like the mystique of the American League and the National League matching up. In order to keep it, need to do away with inter-league play. I know, money and all, the owners like the match-ups. Other than that, do I actually get excited when the Dodgers play the Angels, no I don’t. Okay the owners would hate it, money being the major factor. But the Angels are not the Giants. They’re not the Padres. Actual rivals.

   As for the money part, I don’t care what teams spend. The Padres spent a whole bunch of money and still finished third. Spending is overrated. Spending well is underrated. How many bad contracts do the Yankees have? Tampa Bay, without a strong fan base, does a much better job of putting together a winning team. The Angels have spent boat loads of dollars the past few years, pretty much got nothing for it in terms of reaching the playoffs. So forget about the money. If we can ignore the dollars we might actually be able to fix the game.

   One thing I wouldn’t do is use the softball tournament rule of putting runners on base after a certain inning. I would rather see them go 10 innings. If the score is still deadlocked each team gets a half win. Game over, move on. It’s a long season.

   Still think it’s a good idea for an extra roster spot and a veteran’s exemption. Open up 30 more opportunities. The union seems to think this is a big deal as teams turn to younger, more affordable players. But Mark’s idea of a 30 player roster is okay too as long as we limit the number of pitchers so we don’t see eight pitchers in the game every night.

   Agree with the minimum payroll, but don’t worry about the max. There should be a way for a team to declare a “special player” clause for one player they brought up through the system to match another club’s offer and retain the player, which might help in terms of the team’s fan base. They should have to use revenue sharing to do that as well as maintain a certain level of payroll. If they don’t do that or don’t exceed their total payroll over the minimum, they forfeit the money. Losing fans because the team can’t afford to retain their best player is certainly a serious issue. Who can you root for, why should you come to the stadium?

   I agree on the max contract, but the union would never agree. I also think Mark drove the nail home on Steve Cohen. So glad he didn’t end up with the Dodgers. The Mets will be an interesting story next summer. Will Jake and Max hold up? If they don’t the Mets will crash and burn. Won’t be pretty.

   Good write-up today, Mark.

9. Good ideas Mark.
   I agree that baseball is declining compared to other major sports and other forms of entertainment.
   I spoke to a sports broadcasting executive who negotiates media rights and he indicated that the value of baseball rights are stagnant and declining compared to the other sports. At some point, the mlb and mlbpa will have to recognize the realities of declining attendance and declining media rights.
   In my own experience, I did not attend an MLB game in the last two years, compared to about 10 games per year before. The pandemic was the big issue in 2020, but the MLB attitude towards the all star game and voting rights impacted my interest this year. Also, the inconvenience and cost of attending MLB games is getting out of hand.
   The appeal of MLB games is taking a family and enjoying the outdoors and the experience. The cost of games is making it inaccessible for most families. For most families, the MLB experience has very little to do with the players
   and skill levels. Whether Scherzer is pitching for $43 million a year, or Mitchell White for $570,000 per year has minimal impact on family enjoyment at a game. The ballpark, the uniforms, hot dogs, popcorn, souvenirs, autographs, and excitement make the experience for most families.
   It may well be that the future of MLB is not fueled by in person attendance, like it was in the past. But the current product does not offer a compelling value to the vast majority of the families in this country.

10. Thanks to you Mark and all the rest of you contributors for an excellent blog – makes my morning coffee every day. And thanks to Chris Taylor for being a loyal team player. Lucky for us he did not have Boras involved. I think it has been a long time since the Dodgers signed a Boras client. Will be interesting to see what Bellinger and Urias do.

11. A couple of things, I do not believe a massive overhaul of the game is needed. Also I am not smart enough to make logical suggestions of what can be done. I can only say what I believe I would like to see happen. Financially, the game is getting too expensive for family’s to attend on a regular basis. After I left the Army and moved back to California, I would regularly go to at least two games when the Dodgers were home if I could. I could take my entire family, sit in the pavilion, park, get snacks and some memorabilia if the kids wanted and spend about 20-25 bucks. Today doing that would cost closer to 300. Parking alone runs from 20-50 bucks. Tickets in the pavilion are around 40 or so. A beer is 12 bucks. Sorry, I can buy a 6 pack for about 8, sit home and watch the game on the big screen in more comfort. The MLB.tv package runs about 119.00 a year. For that, I get all the Dodger games except when they play the Rockies. Which makes little sense to me since Denver is 123 miles away. I can get audio, but no video since the local stations quit carrying those games 2 years ago when the Rockies signed with AT&T Sports for the broadcast rights. Still, for a person on a set income, paying that 119.00 all at once sometimes is hard to do. So a few times I have had to get it by the month, and that was 25.00. Overall it cost more, but was easier to accomplish financially. Last season since I was going to be in California the first month or so, I did not renew my subscription until I got back. I was lucky because they had a special discount for veterans going on and I got the rest of the year for 18.00$. But going to an actual game, too expensive for my blood. My bank occasionally offers 2 for 1 deals at Coors. I have done that a couple of times if I knew the Dodgers were going to be in Denver. But parking downtown Denver is not easy either. I usually park in a lot right across the street from Coors that cost’s 30$.

    1. $650 for four tickets on the field level, toward the top, just to the right of home plate, plus parking and another hundred bucks plus for food. Took my daughter and two grandkids. So yes, it’s expensive.

       1. Very expensive, The last game I went to at Coors cost me a little over 100 dollars just for myself. I got a box seat right behind home plate for 70 dollars, paid 30 for parking and 25 dollars for a couple of soda’s and popcorn.

    2. I think it would be smarter to lower the price to watch on TV, but it doesn’t make sense to lower the price in stadiums if you keep selling tickets. Stadium seating is limited as there is only a certain amount. If you don’t sell tickets, of course you lower prices until you reach a point to maximize profits. Conversely, if you’re selling tickets, you raise prices until you maximize profits. This is simple calculus.

       TV and Streaming however, is almost unlimited. Open the markets so you can purchase team streams for a team and and for the league as a whole with no blackouts. Charge less for the subscription and more for the ad sales which will reach more people to get a larger audience creating more demand for gear and in person games.

       Unfortunately with ticket prices, you don’t get to go to as many games as you would like, but someone else is willing to.

12. Tonight they will announce if any of the 10 candidates on the old days ballot have made the hall. Same with the golden era candidates. I sure hope Hodges finally gets his due.

13. Your division break-up has 9 teams in the West, 10 teams in the Central and 11 teams in the East. Not that I like the change, but if it is changed, every division should have 10 teams.

    1. You can’t do it unless you eliminate the regions.

       1. Let’s make a Missouri Compromise.

       2. Better yet, move the Rays to Portland Oregon.

          1. What evidence is there that Portland can even run itself… let alone an MLB team… and this is only what I hear from friends who live or lived there?

             1. it’s where young people go to retire /kinbote

             2. The Timbers are a huge success and the sellout crowds are as fun to be with as watching the game. Next Saturday they play for the Championship.

                I was at a Trailblazer game last night and the stadium was rocking even with a struggling team.

                Portland is a beautiful prosperous city that supports its teams.

             3. What about this:

                https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2021/05/downtown-in-distress-portlands-core-is-unsafe-and-uninviting-residents-say-in-new-poll-threatening-citys-recovery.html

             4. Portland has ranked in the top 10 in U.S. News & World Report’s annual list of best places to live in the United States. The city comes in ninth on the list of 150 cities, just below Fayetteville, Arkansas, and ahead of San Francisco.Oct 14, 2020

14. I think Marks 3 divisions is not going to work. Too much like the first expansion when both leagues had 10 teams. How much chance of winning does a team like Miami have in a 10 team league? Practically none. The have nots and smaller market teams are not going to be able to compete with the big boys and the gap will get larger. You want revenue? Reduce travel. Have more games against your division rivals. Cut out the short 2 game series and make most of them 4 games. Pitch clocks and limited commercials are going to speed up the games a little. TV revenue sharing would help the small market clubs, but you think the Dodgers or Yankees want to share the huge TV deals they got? Doubtful. Get rid of the blackout rules. They are out dated. Allow subscribers who pay to see their teams games to see all of them. Subscribers who were local to the Iowa area were not allowed the Field of Dreams game, which turned out to be a slugfest and really fun to watch. Now, a cellar on the CBT would be benificial to the players and the league. It would ensure teams like the Pirates and Reds, who have both unloaded a lot of salary and are looking to unload more, would have to stay above that in order to qualify for shared revenue. As for a high limit, we know the players are never going to submit to a cap of any kind be it real or imaginary. Ban the shift, keep two infielders on each side of 2nd and allow no infielder to play beyond the dirt. Makes the game too much like softball. I like the 3 warmups when you come from the pen idea. 8 pitches seems a lot for a guy who has probably been warming up for 5 minutes at least. Last report said that the Yankees, Jays and Red Sox had been the most active teams in pursuit of Suzuki prior to the lock out.

    1. MLB brings in billions from TV Deals.

       They bring in Million from streaming online and blackout deals.

       1. Maybe, but the blackouts are unilateral and unfair to many fans. You want to build the fan base, not deplete it.

    2. I like Mark’s proposal. I would create 4 divisions though if for no other reason than to get Texas and Houston out of the west.

       Texas, Houston, Royals Cardinals , Miami, Tampa Bay, Colorado in a southern division.

       My apologies to Colorado.

       1. Three divisions and too many teams in each.

15. Gil Hodges is now Gil Hodges HoF

    1. Hooray for his family and us Dodger
       timers.

16. Gil is in and all the dumbasses who thought otherwise are just what I said they are!

    Justice is done! It was delayed… but not denied!

    1. About damn time, now the Dodgers can retire #14. Minoso, Olivo, Kaat also elected along with Fowler and Buck O’Neil, negro league pioneers. Dick Allen missed election by one vote. Only Olivo and Kaat still living. Both are 83. Extremely happy for the Hodges family.

       1. Gil Hodges was and still is my all time favorite Dodger as some of you know. Too bad it came so late especially since there are some already in there for years who couldn’t come close to his stats or character. Finally Gilly you can rest in peace and I am so extremely happy for you and your family that #14 can finally be retired.

    2. Thanks to Ted Williams This took another 28 years to be completed. In ‘93, Williams chaired the Vets Committee and he disallowed Roy Campanella’s mailed in ballot. ( Campy was hospitalized and months from his death). Gil came up one vote short.

       Williams was a crusty old curmudgeon.
       https://www.si.com/.amp/mlb/2014/11/25/gil-hodges-hall-fame-brooklyn-dodgers

       1. Thanks EB. I didn’t know that about Ted Williams.

17. top prospect: miller
    hottest prospect: vargas
    sleeper prospect: ramos
    no ceiling prospect: pages
    actual contributor prospect: knack

18. I agree the game needs to change. It is not just losing youngsters, but many in their 20’s to 40’s with young families find other forms of entertainment. In our era, those same families would take their kids to the games. Also let’s face it, when most of us were growing up, the NFL and NBA were not all that viable, and I honestly do not remember a NHL. Nobody played soccer. Today, there are way too many ”select” teams of All Stars, and the youth leagues are simply recreational leagues, and the participation is not nearly as much as it was when our kids were growing up. There is no real coaching in these youth recreational leagues. All of the accomplished youth coaches have “select” All Star Tournament teams.

    My grandson was playing T-Ball last year and I went to watch the Little League team play on the same complex. The play at the 11–12-year-old top level was atrocious. My son’s 8-9 year old teams were much better. We found out that the better players that would be in the League were on tournament teams. There are a bevy of reasons for the change, but I will leave that for another rant.

    I am fine with a Universal DH. I am okay with the three-hitter rule because managers like Dave Roberts abused the rule without a minimum number of batters. At times there were 3-4 pitchers in a single inning. I dislike the runner on 2nd in extra innings, however I do understand that 18+ innings are not good for the game or the players. I like SBuffalo’s idea of a tie potential, but I would go to 12 innings instead of 10. I do not to limit the number of throws to 1st base. I see no reason for larger bases.

    I also agree that it appears that the instant replay has slowed the game, but I would like to see actual statistics on that. Maybe restrict it to the Playoffs. But the most important change is to stop the shift. I do not believe that any adjustment has made as significant of a dropoff in offense as has the shift. However, for me, the most important change will be for an innovative owner to go against today’s metrics and bring back the stolen base, hit and run, bunts…you know the game the way it used to be. But today’s owners are not necessarily baseball fans, but business people. They are more looking for rate of return of capital invested than ERA or OPS. Of course they want to win, but not without a profit motive.

    Greed, on both the owners and players sides, has changed the game, and not for the better. When Max Scherzer is on the player’s negotiating committee representing the players, and the players big gripe is that the younger people are not getting paid, but Scherzer gets the largest AAV in the history of the game as a 37-year-old. Players like Scherzer only care about themselves, thus their agent.

    1. I totally agree with you on all points Jeff. I hate the shifts. Seeing Machado in short right field when he is supposed to be a third baseman is a travesty. Everyone yells, learn to go the other way. Okay, how many of you have ever been able to take an inside pitch and go the other way? Not that easy. You have to wait for a pitch on the outer half, and by that time, you are in a hole and behind in the count. The game needs some changes, they do not have to be drastic.

Comments are closed.