I suspect anyone who watched the Dodgers pound the Reds 18-9 Monday afternoon didn’t come away from the game thinking the game lacked for action. The Dodgers collected 21 hits, 1/3 of them for home runs. It’s the fourth time this season a team hit seven home runs in a game. Adrian Gonzalez led the way with three. The Reds collected 14 hits, and while there were no home runs, half of their hits went for extra bases.
Paul Swydan warns against Rob Manfred’s ideas of changing the rules:
The bottom line is this: no rule change that MLB makes is going to lower the time of game or pace of game to a significant enough degree that the game is ever fast paced enough to compete with today’s other product offerings. Products/services like Twitch and Snapchat, iPods and iPads, HBO Go and Netflix will remain at our fingertips, and using them will require less time and focus than a baseball game. The way to get more people to watch and pay attention to baseball is in its marketing. As Adler mentioned in her piece, most casual fans probably don’t even take notice of defensive shifts or times between pitches. These are “inside baseball” issues. The people MLB needs to be capturing are those outside of baseball.
We hear too much about what’s wrong with baseball. We need to hear more about what’s awesome about baseball. Mike Trout is possibly the best baseball player in the last 50, 60, 70 years. Market him! Giancarlo Stanton has some of the most ridiculous power the game has ever seen. Market him! Make sure these guys are on every TV screen in America every night of the week.
Today’s game went four hours. As noted before, it’s tough to get more action and shorter games.
I really like the second paragraph you quoted. It seems like all the top baseball people have bought into the notion that baseball is slow and boring and needs to be changed. Baseball is fine. It just needs the people at the top to believe in it and promote it properly. You can’t make baseball a slam-bang action sport and still have it be baseball. But you can promoted baseball for what it is, rather than constantly talking about what it’s not.
Baseball is unlike other sports in that most fans are not going to watch games other than their team. I know there are fanatical exceptions, and I am getting there myself, but I am not buying the marketing thing is a fix for baseball.
The other factor in fandom besides team loyalty is playing the sport yourself as a kid. This seems to be waning, especially in the inner city where kids pretty much just play basketball now. In my home town, I rarely see kids playing pick up ball at the parks, and there are fewer parks in which to play. MLB should be putting more money into getting kids playing the sport and choosing baseball as their sport to go pro with. The low minor league salaries and suppression of bonuses are going to hurt them in the end, and frankly, probably plays a big role in the lack of black athletes playing ball (US born)
The fact is, there are so many entertainment options for kids. For every exciting ball game, there are multiple boring games that seem slow because of so many commercials and mound visits, and long AB’s. K’s get old after awhile. HR’s never do.
Shrink the strike zone, move the mound back 6 inches, end mound visits except for pitching changes, and require the new pitcher to be on the mound in 30 seconds ready to pitch.
BABIP has went up from 295 to 300 in the last 6 years, shifts are not the problem
Also, these reviews are getting old, especially because most of them seem inconclusive due to not enough camera angles, and we cant even see what angles they see in NY. Plus there are so many almost reviews that just result in 30 seconds of lost time while teams review the videos first. MLB should at least require managers to call for a review within 5 seconds. If they are not sure based on their own eyes, they should not review
Manfred at least had the good sense to juice the ball this year, but he needs to reverse the strike zone back to 2011 levels. No need for a rule change. There was no rule change that caused it to expand in the first place
The other thing, discount tickets to fans under 25. Make it a 50% discount, pass the cost on to older fans who can afford it. Simple stuff like that.
I too agree that it seems inconsistent to suggest you can have more action, but shorter games. Why is anyone complaining about a three-hour game? Would they feel they got more for their money by seeing a 1.5 hour game? I want to see a good game and don’t care about the clock. There is no clock in baseball. If three hours is too long for a game then the fans are welcome to come later or leave earlier. Some of us enjoy getting value for our ticket dollar. Baseball seems to be selling plenty of seats and advertising, not to mention concessions. How would that revenue decline if games were shorter and less concessions were sold and less ads aired? Manfred should focus on selling what is best with baseball.