Top 5 Reasons Why Baseball Is Dying

One of the big wins of being on staycation this week has been that my time to peruse Blogfrica has gone way down. Many side projects have kicked my time in front of glowing rectangular screens to the curb, and I've spent a lot of time with the Shooter Kids. It's been really nice.

So when I finally fired up the Lemur today and caught Bad Tooth Simmons' week-old 5,869-word dump on why the 2010 Red Sox fail to meet his entertainment needs... well, the older I get, the more I try not to engage myself in things that I know will hurt, you know? So I skimmed it, rather than give up the 20 minutes or so of time inside the mind of a wildly spoiled bloat. But his short list was injuries, the front office, that new Sawx Fans just make him itch, it's just not the same since The Curse was lifted, that Roids Ruined Everything, that MLB is slipping, and finally, that the games are too long. (5,869 word columns, of course, are not.)

As always, there's just enough insight here, even at the most obvious level, and Prince Billy can write better than most. But as always, viewing things through the prism of What's Good For Billy means that some things are missed. Such as...

5) No Blacks, No Love.

I know that I'm skating on the edge of racism here, but as a fantasy baseball player, I can't put too fine a point on it. There are very, very few outfielders that I'm actually excited to have on my club right now.

Time was, you could have Ricky Henderson. Or Tim Raines. Or Vince Coleman, Eric Davis, Kal Daniels, Darryl Strawberry and much more, really. Guys that were not going to make the 20-20 club, or steal 60 bases, by just sliding in under the margins, but make you want to watch individual at bats.

Now? I guess you've got Matt Kemp, though he's having a weak year. Carl Crawford will get nice and paid next year. And then you go down to... Delmon Young, at least according to the Yahoo rankings. No, seriously. Delmon Freaking Young. I won't even go into the pitchers.

This isn't a new development, of course; it's been going on for 15 to 20 years, as the NBA and NFL have taken over as the main beneficiaries of American talent. But when even the Latino and Japanese talent comes up dullsville, it's really noticeable.

4) The Sabermetric Virtues Are Not Exciting.

At the start of the century, I got back into baseball due to proximity to the Oakland A's. The team took pitches, fouled pitches off, played guys who could work walks, and generally played long games. And while I loved them, I also dreaded them, because if every team started playing like this, the game wasn't going to be better for it.

Fast forward a decade, and that's exactly what has happened.

As soon as guys figured out that they could get paid for working the pitcher, and that guys like Scott Hattesberg could prolong his career by five years just for being who he was, we got a whole lot more Scott Hattebergs. And while you might win with that guy, you generally weren't going to sell a lot of tickets with him.

Now, go back (gulp) 27 years. The Phillies brought up a second baseman, Juan Samuel. He was absolutely electric, with gap power and speed, and aggression all over the place. In his first four full-time years in Philadelphia, he had 59 triples, 78 homers, over 400 runs scored and over 200 steals.

He also had OBPs of .307, .303, .302 and .335, and because of that, had really no business being a leadoff hitter. But for the most part, he was, because the club thought that the more at-bats they could give to him, the better.

Was Juan Samuel a winning player? Of course not; his teams didn't win, and with a career .315 OBP, he'd have to hit 40+ homers a year and have a Gold Glove to overcome the number of outs he made. Coleman was similar but with less power and more speed; with a .324 lifetime OBP, he still somehow got to 725 SBs. Between the two of the, they played for nearly 30 years in the majors.

But was Samuel fun to watch? Of course. So was Coleman, at least during his prime years. And there simply aren't enough players who are actually fun to watch right now.

3) Defense Is Boring.

It's the Year of the Pitcher. So why aren't the games any faster?

Because, well, every game is close. Every mistake is magnified. Every late game situation needs to be given a speciality reliever. And with less guys reaching the seats due to the steroid crackdown, there are just more pitchers who are willing to nibble. (I'm looking at you, Clay Buchholz. And increasingly, not.)

A tight 2-1 game, especially in a playoff situation, is riveting. A 4-1 game in which the losing team gets utterly and completely stymied by a journeyman pitcher -- say, last night's White Sox win over the Tigers, where Edwin Jackson got staked to an early lead and the ChiSox bullpen sealed the deal in just under three hours? Not so much. And you can also have that scintillating 2-1 Twins win over the Rays, which only took 3:52 and featured 19 men left on base. So much better than, say, a 6-5 game with actual back and forth...

Finally, there's this. In baseball history, attendance always follows offense. It doesn't win you style points or make you look smart, bu it's the way of the world. Crowds dig the long ball.

2) The Parks Are All The Same.

Gosh, is your team's quasi-new stadium quirky? I bet it is! It's so quirky, I bet it's got natural grass, charmingly idiosyncratic outfield dimensions, limited foul territory to maximize the number of premium seats, bullpens that aren't in the field of play, high outfield walls and an outfield view of something scenic to make sure that the yard isn't fully enclosed. That's So Quirky!

Look, if you want to make a truly distinct and unique stadium right now, you'd give it artificial turf, make it multi-purpose, enclose it and put the bullpens in play. Because what I've just described doesn't exist anymore, unless you want to bring Oakland and Tampa into the mix. Now, the only difference is altitude; if your team has it, it's a hitter's park. So very interesting.

1) Plus/Minus Markets Don't Cut It In Modern Times.

As I wrote last week, there's no reason to be an Orioles fan anymore. (Note also that no Oriole fan disputed this, because the Orioles do not have fans anymore. Honestly, I got more heat from tweaking Ghana.) Or, of course, a Pirate Fan, a DiamondBack fan, a Royal fan, etc., etc.

With the Internets, I've got options now. With fantasy sports more or less assumed, many of us care more about players now than teams. And with so many minus market teams actively discouraging viewership by not starting the clock on prospects on Opening Day, trading away established talent at the deadline every summer, passing on big-money talent in the farm system draft and just generally throwing in the towel before the season even starts...

Well, we're not all going to be Boston or New York fans. And really, what we're seeing now is the replay of the 50s, where gasbag New Yorkers talked about as Baseball Golden Age, but overall attendance faded.

In another five to ten years, assuming baseball survives, the ball will be juiced, or the players will find a better chemical or training way to push the offense once more. There will be some new electric everyday players, preferably with long-term staying power, rather than crushing injury failures. Umpires will not give borderline strike calls to the Vincent Padillas of the world, creating separation from the actually exciting young talent. And a half dozen other innovations will kick in, because the Lords of Baseball are just smart enough to pay attention when the ratings numbers go down, and that's exactly what they are doing right now.

But for now, look out below. Or, increasingly, don't look at all. You're not missing that much. (And in roughly 4,000 fewer words than the Tooth. Because that respect for your time should cut both ways, shouldn't it?)