Analytics and the decline of Baseball's popularity?

Hmmm. Hope you don't ask anybody to "sniff the flask."

 

Only on March 14.

 

Baseball is a wonderful sport. Love it. Love the analytics, too.

The game just needs a tweak or two. The ball has to be in play more. Maybe it's a dynamic strike zone. Maybe it's limiting pitchers who can appear in a game. Frankly I'm in favor of a pitch clock, too.

Golf has many of the same issues. If those guys actually had to size up their shots in a reasonable amount of time, guess what? They'd hit fewer great shots. I'm not sure their rounds would go all that much faster overall, but their time between shots would be quicker. Same with baseball. It's not so much the overall length of games, it's what's happening during the games.

Again: Not much scoring in soccer, but something is always happening in soccer. Ditto hockey.

 

Still plenty of drinking going on there ... for Kickers games. Dumbest team name ever, BTW.

 

the spiders?

 

No, the Kickers, the minor-league soccer team. Spiders is fine.

 

My bad, misread the comment.

 

Again, MLB has had at least 72 million fans walk through the gates in 16 of the last 19 seasons. It’s not seeing a trend of declining attendance. Attendance has been nearly a straight line for 20 years.

 

MLB attendance isn't driven by price, it drives price.

 

I'd be fine with:

1. Lengthening the pitch distance two feet to 62-6.

2. 20-second pitch clock. Regardless of men on base.

3. Three batter minimum for all pitchers. If a pitcher pitches to fewer than three batters, the remaining batters get walks (except in case of injury removal, which would carry an automatic 10-day trip to the DL)

4. A manager gets two 30-second time outs per game for on field conferences.

5. Teams get one 30-second time out per inning which may be called by any player or players (pitcher catcher conferences, batter stepping out of the box)

6. Delays due to damaged equipment are limited to 30 seconds, after which time the player must be removed.

7. Limit of two pickoff attempts per runner. If a pitcher makes a third pickoff attempt and does not get the base runner, the runner advances to the next base.

8. Keep the DH situation as it is with AL vs. NL.

9. Each team gets one (1) re-entry
substitution per game.

10. Between inning breaks cut to 90 seconds, last pitch to first pitch.

 

Walk through the gates, or buy tickets? The Indians' average "attendance" last year was 24,000-some. There were seldom more than 10,000 in the park.

 

Angels' numbers the last few years are as phony as a 3 dollar bill as well.