Last Ditch MLB Thread

[buckchuckler]

You advance the point I made earlier. Baseball is anything but a slow, dull game to kids playing it.

But the perception from outside is that it is too slow and dull. It is way harder than it used to be to get kids interested.

But the same is true with adults too. There are less than a quarter as many city league teams here than when I was in my twenties.

I played 12” slow pitch, 12” fastpitch, 14”, 16”, and tournaments on weekends. Hard to even find leagues to play in now.

I have heard this from people that I know that live in the Milwaukee area -- that leagues are hard to find and fill, but I'm in the Chicago burbs, and every suburb seems to have leagues on most nights of the week, that appear to be pretty well stocked.  I know people that play 12" and 16" and even old man baseball. 

[JWags85]

My 7 year-old son is a huge, huge MLB fan.  Together, we watch a almost exclusively MLB Network.  He taught me how to get the YouTube on our TV, and set up an account where we subscribe to the Major League Baseball channel.  He's in second grade and can probably list the Top 10 free agents this winter.

My enjoyment certainly helped, but also video games are a big factor in him falling in love with the sport.  He plays MLB The Show on Playstation (which is extremely realistic with updated stats, characters you can create using real players' batting stances, etc) all the time. 

He's getting the complete set of 2019 Topps baseball cards for Christmas.  His favorite players are Yasiel Puig, Jose Altuve, Cody Bellinger, and Aaron Judge (who was his Halloween costume... straight down to the same eye-black and one sleeve Judge wears).  As far as I know, my son has never seen a minute of a televised football game.

Thats awesome, but its purely anecdotal.  I can find you multiple kids the same way with hockey, especially in the Chicago area.  And thats another spot with the same sort of niche/regional issues.

[ZiggysFryBoy]

From my experience with my kids and the ages/teams that i have coached is that:

kids love baseball
Kids dont watch games like we did growing up.
Kids love watching highlights, bloopers, etc on YouTube.
Kids have skills but lack baseball IQ, because they dont watch games.  They dont see the strategy between pitches, the pitcher/batter duals, etc.  They see the diving catches, home runs, and other "sick" plays.

[Jockey]

From my experience with my kids and the ages/teams that i have coached is that:

kids love baseball
Kids dont watch games like we did growing up.
Kids love watching highlights, bloopers, etc on YouTube.
Kids have skills but lack baseball IQ, because they dont watch games.  They dont see the strategy between pitches, the pitcher/batter duals, etc.  They see the diving catches, home runs, and other "sick" plays.

I agree with all of these. Especially about the skills. Major Leaguers lack many of the skills. too.

One in particular that drives me nuts is the way many outfielders catch fly balls when they know the runner is going to tag up. They camp under the ball, thus they have no momentum to make the throw. I was taught way back in little league to stay several paces behind the ball and then come in at the last second to catch it on the run so you have the extra momentum to make the throw instead of having to take a couple steps to throw it. Yet I see it over and over where pros does not do that.

[Pakuni]

My kid plays baseball and enjoys it, but never cared about watching MLB games until he started playing MLB The Show on his PS4.
After learning the players and the ins and outs of the game by playing the video game, he's actually interested in MLB and will catch an occasional game on TV. And he's a big fan of going to the ballpark.
But given the choice between watching a game on TV and playing a game on PS4, he'll choose the latter 10 times out of 10.

[#UnleashSean]

It's not dead, but it manages to shoot itself in the foot very nicely every few years. Like you, I grew up to love baseball. Many on the board know I am a very loyal St. Louis Cardinal fan. I can go to a game in person and enjoy myself, but the reality is watching it on TV is about as hard as watching TV golf.

One of the big problems baseball has is that it has no local loyalty anymore. Yeah, players always have been traded and, occasionally, big names moved. But since free agency, baseball has been about money -- to the detriment of everything else. I remember as a kid in Nashville waiting in line to shake hands with Mickey Mantle. Or meeting Eddie Matthews and Phil Niekro at a Braves caravan. Today, their descendants would charge out the nose for the same minute or so I had with each of those superstars.

Likewise, certain superstars were identified with a city. Mantle with the Yankees. Banks with the Cubs. Schmidt with the Phillies. Kaline, Freehan, Lolich et al with those godawful Detroit Tigers. Killebrew with the Twins etc. Musial, Brock, Gibson, Ozzie with the Cardinals.

The breaking point for me was Albert Pujols. Yeah, I know, he was a Cardinal. It was probably better for the team that he left and the money spent elsewhere. But the circumstances surrounding his departure from St. Louis were sad. The Cardinals offered Mr. Pujols $300 million and the chance to be revered the way Musial had been in St. Louis -- as in forever. For $48 million more of Artie Moreno's money, he went to California, where he has not been seen nor heard from since. Plus his obnoxious wife said he was dishonored because the Cardinals wouldn't match the Angels' offer.

If we were arguing about $2.0 million versus $4.0 million or $5.0 million, OK I get it. We're arguing about the difference between a good life and a very comfortable one. But $300 million versus $348 million -- uhh, most of us little people have no clue what those numbers mean. And I question whether there was anything more than greed and probably vanity involved.

Pujols is the poster child for, "Are you kidding me?" He's made a boatload of money but too many like him are slowly destroying the game that pays them.

This might be the perfect fit...

OK boomer

[DegenerateDish]

From my experience with my kids and the ages/teams that i have coached is that:

kids love baseball
Kids dont watch games like we did growing up.
Kids love watching highlights, bloopers, etc on YouTube.
Kids have skills but lack baseball IQ, because they dont watch games.  They dont see the strategy between pitches, the pitcher/batter duals, etc.  They see the diving catches, home runs, and other "sick" plays.

This is 100% spot on. If I had to list my top ten favorite posts of the year, this would be way up there. I get frustrated trying to teach my nine year old son strategy, but man he loves watching those YouTube clips. I tried to get him to watch a 2 minute YouTube clip on pitching mechanics, and he was bored out of his mind.

[#UnleashSean]

Also just to add on, baseball isn't dead with kids. There's still pockets of kids playing at the parks and sandlots.

What has changed is that sports have become much more structured and specialized. Parents prefer their children to be on 3 travel teams instead of the backyard with the neighbors.

The also now play throughout the year instead of June to August. Kids are more frequently becoming one sport athletes. Whether this is all good or bad is up for discussion.

[tower912]

I fight against that.   I told his new travel team coach that my son would be playing basketball this fall and that the coach could have him full time after Christmas.   To his credit, the new coach extolled the virtues of playing multiple sports.   

I do still get in the argument about the golf swing wrecking the baseball swing.    A crock.   

[CTWarrior]

I agree with all of these. Especially about the skills. Major Leaguers lack many of the skills. too.

One in particular that drives me nuts is the way many outfielders catch fly balls when they know the runner is going to tag up. They camp under the ball, thus they have no momentum to make the throw. I was taught way back in little league to stay several paces behind the ball and then come in at the last second to catch it on the run so you have the extra momentum to make the throw instead of having to take a couple steps to throw it. Yet I see it over and over where pros does not do that.

I am done coaching now, but what I noticed is that this generation of kids are better hitters than we were, but are worse fielders and base runners.  I think the reason why is pretty straight forward.  When I was a kid the only time you really saw game speed pitching was in the games.  There are pitching machines and batting cages everywhere now, so kids can face fast pitching and curveballs regularly in practice.  We also used to play pickup all the time without catcher's gear which meant softer pitching and everybody hitting.  I fielded a million ground balls and fly balls just playing.  Kids don't just play to play anymore and don't get that game experience.

[JWags85]

I am done coaching now, but what I noticed is that this generation of kids are better hitters than we were, but are worse fielders and base runners.  I think the reason why is pretty straight forward.  When I was a kid the only time you really saw game speed pitching was in the games.  There are pitching machines and batting cages everywhere now, so kids can face fast pitching and curveballs regularly in practice.  We also used to play pickup all the time without catcher's gear which meant softer pitching and everybody hitting.  I fielded a million ground balls and fly balls just playing.  Kids don't just play to play anymore and don't get that game experience.

I was ready to disagree with a lot of this sentiment, but I thought back to when I was a kid 20-25 years ago (holy hell, early 30s feeling like im ancient).  I used to go to batting cages, but they were a mess.  Good for reflexes, but not super relatable for in game hitting.  But I was fielding ALL THE TIME.  Bored and nobody around?  Took the tennis ball to the garage and fielded grounders constantly.  Had 2 close neighbors and it usually ended up being a hitter, a pitcher, and a fielder, again with a tennis ball so tracking tons of fly balls.  Curveballs were also a dirty word until HS it felt like, plus the aforementioned cages, so you'd suddenly go from being a good hitter from 10-13/14 to Tim Tebow in AAA when kids spurted up and were throwing 70s and curveballs. 

I was a starter and played some HS ball because I was such a good fielder and had good plate discipline.  I freely admit after 12 or so I couldn't hit a lick.  The approach has completely changed.

[dgies9156]

This might be the perfect fit...

OK boomer

If being a boomer means having a personal loyalty to people, I plead guilty.

If being a boomer means wanting to touch and feel things and to interact with something that's real rather than texting someone, I plead guilty to that too.

The game has become an institution rather than personal. It's about the science of the game rather than the "up close and personal" nature of the people associated with baseball. Given the texting, emails and snippy boards people hide behind, I'm not surprised that people would classify me as a boomer.

I acknowledge technology has a place. What Sabermetrics has done to baseball is astounding (it's really data analytics applied to baseball) but the game has lost something when the personal touch is gone. It's like somebody is slowly ripping the heart out of it.

[cheebs09]

Really like the new Brewers logo and uniform. I think the updates look much better when the logo is on its own (like on the hat) rather than in the circle. When it’s in the circle, it doesn’t look proportional and the right side looks off.

[MUfan12]

The changes to the logo are gonna irk me as long as they use it. Love the uniforms, but don't care for the Milwaukee script on the road alts. The alternating hard edges with cursive makes it look like a kid trying to forge a parent's signature.

[JWags85]

If being a boomer means having a personal loyalty to people, I plead guilty.

If being a boomer means wanting to touch and feel things and to interact with something that's real rather than texting someone, I plead guilty to that too.

Loyalty to teams and organizations that would jettison you in a second if you stop performing? Baseball is a bit different because of the fully guaranteed deals, but asking for loyalty from players when organizations routinely treat players as pieces (which is totally fine when assembling a team and business) is antiquated and unfair.

As for the second part, we were talking baseball, no need to get into a pulpit to shade the younger generations, gimme a break.

You sound like the scouts in Moneyball

[#UnleashSean]

If being a boomer means having a personal loyalty to people, I plead guilty.

If being a boomer means wanting to touch and feel things and to interact with something that's real rather than texting someone, I plead guilty to that too.

The game has become an institution rather than personal. It's about the science of the game rather than the "up close and personal" nature of the people associated with baseball. Given the texting, emails and snippy boards people hide behind, I'm not surprised that people would classify me as a boomer.

I acknowledge technology has a place. What Sabermetrics has done to baseball is astounding (it's really data analytics applied to baseball) but the game has lost something when the personal touch is gone. It's like somebody is slowly ripping the heart out of it.

OK boomer

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

It's not dead, but it manages to shoot itself in the foot very nicely every few years. Like you, I grew up to love baseball. Many on the board know I am a very loyal St. Louis Cardinal fan. I can go to a game in person and enjoy myself, but the reality is watching it on TV is about as hard as watching TV golf.

One of the big problems baseball has is that it has no local loyalty anymore. Yeah, players always have been traded and, occasionally, big names moved. But since free agency, baseball has been about money -- to the detriment of everything else. I remember as a kid in Nashville waiting in line to shake hands with Mickey Mantle. Or meeting Eddie Matthews and Phil Niekro at a Braves caravan. Today, their descendants would charge out the nose for the same minute or so I had with each of those superstars.

Likewise, certain superstars were identified with a city. Mantle with the Yankees. Banks with the Cubs. Schmidt with the Phillies. Kaline, Freehan, Lolich et al with those godawful Detroit Tigers. Killebrew with the Twins etc. Musial, Brock, Gibson, Ozzie with the Cardinals.

The breaking point for me was Albert Pujols. Yeah, I know, he was a Cardinal. It was probably better for the team that he left and the money spent elsewhere. But the circumstances surrounding his departure from St. Louis were sad. The Cardinals offered Mr. Pujols $300 million and the chance to be revered the way Musial had been in St. Louis -- as in forever. For $48 million more of Artie Moreno's money, he went to California, where he has not been seen nor heard from since. Plus his obnoxious wife said he was dishonored because the Cardinals wouldn't match the Angels' offer.

If we were arguing about $2.0 million versus $4.0 million or $5.0 million, OK I get it. We're arguing about the difference between a good life and a very comfortable one. But $300 million versus $348 million -- uhh, most of us little people have no clue what those numbers mean. And I question whether there was anything more than greed and probably vanity involved.

Pujols is the poster child for, "Are you kidding me?" He's made a boatload of money but too many like him are slowly destroying the game that pays them.

Why are the players the ones who are always supposed to be loyal? 

Regardless, this is way down on the list of reasons why baseball isn't watched much by younger generations.  Pace of play and regional televising are the two largest.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

This is 100% spot on. If I had to list my top ten favorite posts of the year, this would be way up there. I get frustrated trying to teach my nine year old son strategy, but man he loves watching those YouTube clips. I tried to get him to watch a 2 minute YouTube clip on pitching mechanics, and he was bored out of his mind.

I mean...he's nine.  This isn't' just a "kids these days" phenominon.  If you would have lectured me for two minutes on pitching mechanics back as a nine year old, I would have been bored out of my mind too. 

[WI inferiority Complexes]

The changes to the logo are gonna irk me as long as they use it. Love the uniforms, but don't care for the Milwaukee script on the road alts. The alternating hard edges with cursive makes it look like a kid trying to forge a parent's signature.

The Brewers public relations department deserves a ton of credit for making the change of a logo an "event."  I'd have to imagine sports logos get tweaked all the time; I saw news of the Milwaukee's update scrolling on the ESPN ticker last night.

[DegenerateDish]

I mean...he's nine.  This isn't' just a "kids these days" phenominon.  If you would have lectured me for two minutes on pitching mechanics back as a nine year old, I would have been bored out of my mind too.

Some context though, my son had asked me to take slo mo video on my iphone of his pitching motion so we could watch it together, and he could analyze things. We did that, and it didn't seem to get through to him with his mechanics/release point. I thought a two minute video would help, but yes, I was mistaken.

[JWags85]

The Brewers public relations department deserves a ton of credit for making the change of a logo an "event."  I'd have to imagine sports logos get tweaked all the time; I saw news of the Milwaukee's update scrolling on the ESPN ticker last night.

I agree.  However, I think since the "MB" logo was so iconic and beloved, it was more than a simple logo tweak.  Like if the Grizzlies went back to the teal Vancouver era jerseys as more than just their "city" jersey

[GB Warrior]

Yaz to the White Sox for $73M/4 years. He bet on himself and won.

In the world of "Not my Money", re-signing him was a must for the Brewers. Not sure you find those wins above replacement with that money in any other combination of players.

[shoothoops]

It's not dead, but it manages to shoot itself in the foot very nicely every few years. Like you, I grew up to love baseball. Many on the board know I am a very loyal St. Louis Cardinal fan. I can go to a game in person and enjoy myself, but the reality is watching it on TV is about as hard as watching TV golf.

One of the big problems baseball has is that it has no local loyalty anymore. Yeah, players always have been traded and, occasionally, big names moved. But since free agency, baseball has been about money -- to the detriment of everything else. I remember as a kid in Nashville waiting in line to shake hands with Mickey Mantle. Or meeting Eddie Matthews and Phil Niekro at a Braves caravan. Today, their descendants would charge out the nose for the same minute or so I had with each of those superstars.

Likewise, certain superstars were identified with a city. Mantle with the Yankees. Banks with the Cubs. Schmidt with the Phillies. Kaline, Freehan, Lolich et al with those godawful Detroit Tigers. Killebrew with the Twins etc. Musial, Brock, Gibson, Ozzie with the Cardinals.

The breaking point for me was Albert Pujols. Yeah, I know, he was a Cardinal. It was probably better for the team that he left and the money spent elsewhere. But the circumstances surrounding his departure from St. Louis were sad. The Cardinals offered Mr. Pujols $300 million and the chance to be revered the way Musial had been in St. Louis -- as in forever. For $48 million more of Artie Moreno's money, he went to California, where he has not been seen nor heard from since. Plus his obnoxious wife said he was dishonored because the Cardinals wouldn't match the Angels' offer.

If we were arguing about $2.0 million versus $4.0 million or $5.0 million, OK I get it. We're arguing about the difference between a good life and a very comfortable one. But $300 million versus $348 million -- uhh, most of us little people have no clue what those numbers mean. And I question whether there was anything more than greed and probably vanity involved.

Pujols is the poster child for, "Are you kidding me?" He's made a boatload of money but too many like him are slowly destroying the game that pays them.

The final Cardinals offer for Pujols was a little North of $200 million. The Angels offered $254 million. Both of these were over 10 years. The Angels also included 10 more years of a personal services contract after his 10 year playing contract. Albert has said he will play until his contract ends. The Marlins were also in play for his services at the time but were not a finalist.

Pujols was very underpaid throughout his time in St. Louis vs his value and performance. At one point during his best years he was playing on an 8 year $14.5 million contract. The Cardinals have had a long history of some players taking less than what they can get on the open market to play or stay in St. Louis. But that isn't always the case and won't be moving forward.

 The team was trying to transition to a drafting player development strategy foundation from the past where Uncle Walt Jocketty was very good with free agent deals, trades, etc....His agent Danny Lozano was a big factor in negotiations. The Cardinals had better history with other agents, including Boras. ARod was making $275 million at the time. Albert was seeing all of these other players passing him up for years in compensation. Many of these players were not stars. So when the time came Albert wanted to get paid while the Cardinals wanted him but knew he was transitioning to the downside years of his career.

The team was surprised at the tough negotiations. The team did not go up a lot during negotiations. They were far apart. Timing was never aligned well for both sides in his contract deals there. make no mistske, the Cardinals did very well financially with Albert. Albert felt disrespected. He wanted fair market value.  He still spends a lot of time in St. Louis, he has charities there, has a home there. He's still very popular there and not surprisingly received endless ovations when the Angels were finally on the home schedule last season.

 The current owners of the Cardinals bought the team in 1996 for $150 million. It included parking garages which were immediately sold for $75 million at the time. Team's most recent Forbes valuation was $2.1 billion. They get 3-4 million fans annually, they have a new tv deal, they have a several phase neighborhood development project going surrounding the stadium. It's easy to point blame at the high profile perfomer/athlete/talent. But the Cardinals are not Little Sisters of the Poor.

[WI inferiority Complexes]

The final Cardinals offer for Pujols was a little North of $200 million. The Angels offered $254 million. Both of these were over 10 years. The Angels also included 10 more years of a personal services contract after his 10 year playing contract. Albert has said he will play until his contract ends. The Marlins were also in play for his services at the time but were not a finalist. Pujols was very underpaid throughout his time in St. Louis vs his value and performance. At one point during his best years he was playing on an 8 year $14.5 million contract. The Cardinals have had a long history of some players taking less than what they can get on the open market to play or stay in St. Louis. But that isn't always the case and won't be moving forward. The team was trying to transition to a drafting player development strategy foundation from the past where Uncle Walt Jocketty was very good with free agent deals, trades, etc....His agent Danny Lozano was a big factor in negotiations. The Cardinals had better history with other agents, including Boras. ARod was making $275 million at the time. Albert was seeing all of these other players passing him up for years in compensation. Many of these players were not stars. So when the time came Albert wanted to get paid while the Cardinals wanted him but knew he was transitioning to the downside years of his career. The team was surprised at the tough negotiations. They did not go up a lot during negotiations. They were far apart. Timing was never aligned well for both sides in his contract deals there. make no mistske, the Cardinals did very financially with Albert. Albert felt disrespected. He wanted fair market value.  He still spends a lot of time in St. Louis, he has charities there, has a home there. He's still very popular there and not surprisingly received endless ovations when the Angels were finally on the home schedule last season. The current owners of the Cardinals bought the team in 1996 for $150 million. It included parking garages which were immediately sold for $75 million at the time. Team's most recent Forbes valuation was/is $2.1 billion. They get 3-4 million fans annually, they have a new tv deal, they have a several phase neighborhood development project going surrounding the stadium. It's easy to point blame at the high profile perfomer/athlete/talent. But the Cardinals are not Little Sisters of the Poor.

Paragraphs make everything, (including long descriptions of Pujols' departure from the Cardinals 9 years ago), easier to read.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

Yaz to the White Sox for $73M/4 years. He bet on himself and won.

In the world of "Not my Money", re-signing him was a must for the Brewers. Not sure you find those wins above replacement with that money in any other combination of players.

Yeah no.  Not a "must" by any means.  And that contract won't look good by the end.