Michael Lewis says Moneyball made baseball more boring

[qtlaw]

Lewis’ message is correct, what helps you win a game isn’t what we grew up looking to see in a baseball game. Fielding mattered, bunts mattered. Yes HRs were cool but that was because it was a special event. Now every position player is swinging for the fences; seeing Reggie go down swinging was exciting; seeing the .225 SS go down swinging (and most everyone else) not so much.

 

[User 149557]

I get most of the critiques.

But people pining for more bunts need to get a life.

 

[Starman]

Funny, many of the same people who claim to pine for more bunts go into screeching fits over the "ghost runner" rule in extra innings, despite the fact that the one thing it undeniably does is instantly resurrect the sac bunt as a strategically optimal move.

 

[da man]

Something made baseball MORE boring? Gotta say that is a very impressive feat.

 

[Songbird]

I get most of the critiques.

But people pining for more bunts need to get a life.

Chicks dig the long-brawl.

 

[UNCGrad]

One of the main principles of analytics which has become pretty much universal across all sports is, if you're not going to win the championship, **** it, tear down the entire organization to the blocks and start over again.
"Tanking" has become the operative philosophy.

So essentially, if a team makes the playoffs and advances one round then loses, the immediate inclination is to blow it up and suck for 6-8 years. It's a never ending race to the bottom.

I'll gently push back on this, especially considering my lifelong favorite team did tank to get better and won the 2016 World Series.

With expanded playoffs now, though, I think more MLB teams feel like they are in the hunt longer than they did in the past. KC is a good example this year. MLB teams know that their tournament is the most random one of all of them, and anyone who makes the tournament has a real chance, just like the D'Backs last year. It's made for a less interesting trade deadline the last few years because more teams go for it than in the past.

 

[goalmouth]

Tanking.

Except for Yankees. You can't tank on Broadway.

 

[FileNotFound]

I'll gently push back on this, especially considering my lifelong favorite team did tank to get better and won the 2016 World Series.

With expanded playoffs now, though, I think more MLB teams feel like they are in the hunt longer than they did in the past. KC is a good example this year. MLB teams know that their tournament is the most random one of all of them, and anyone who makes the tournament has a real chance, just like the D'Backs last year. It's made for a less interesting trade deadline the last few years because more teams go for it than in the past.

The 2019 Nationals are also a great example of how anything can happen in a baseball postseason. The “best” team sometimes doesn’t win, which is what makes baseball’s diluted postseason more interesting to me.

 

[YMCA B-Baller]

One way to get rid of tanking is to make non-playoff teams play out a sort of loser’s bracket tournament to determine draft order.

It admittedly wouldn’t work well in football and it would be wonky in baseball (18 teams miss the playoffs) without weighting the bracket, but it could work in the NBA and NHL.

Doesn’t need to be elaborate. One game, winner-take-all. The worst teams get byes where applicable, but you have to win your way to the No. 1 pick and so on.

 

[Starman]

It's not that tanking never works, or that it doesn't work in general, but I think there's a sort of "smartest guy in the room" contrarianism that people -- management and fans wrapped up in -- "in order to be the best, first we must be the worst."

Tanking becomes not a necessary step in the process of building a good team, but an end in itself. You frequently see and hear talk about average to mediocre teams, "they're too good to tank yet."

Implying, wait a season or so, then we can REALLY suck, won't that be great??

 

[BTExpress]

The stat I saw a couple of years ago was telling: More than one-third of the at-bats in baseball result in the ball not being put into play: homers, strikeouts, walks and hit batters.

Which may make the Mazeroski game the greatest all time --- for a fan. 87% of plate appearances with a ball in play (and half of those that weren't were homers).

76 plate appearances
24 hits
5 HRs
5 walks
0 strikeouts
0 HBP

And the icing on the cake: 2 hours, 36 minutes (Hi, BYH!)

 

[qtlaw]

I’ll take it!

 

[goalmouth]

Keep pitching to Judge. We're living in the era of brain dead sports.

 

[jr/shotglass]

Hot take: Baseball really isn't that damn boring.

 

[UNCGrad]

Hot take: Baseball really isn't that damn boring.

I always liked Joe Pos's line about that: "Baseball is boring...until it's not."

I love a close MLB playoff game because every pitch has anticipation riding on it.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

 

[User 149557]

Baseball needs to stop trying to be cool, and maybe it will just naturally become cool again cyclically. Because throwing up jazz hands isn’t going to do.

 

[jr/shotglass]

Keep pitching to Judge. We're living in the era of brain dead sports.

I think of two places where you stand very little chance of getting through two hitters without damage.

One is Soto-Judge. The other is Ohtani-Betts.

I might be missing something. I can't say Phillies, because Schwarber-Harper are separated in the order.

But the last two nights, the entire focus while watching the Yankees has been keeping 4 through 1 clean, because you simply know they were going to get something out of 2 and 3.