"What's Happening to Baseball" article......

[Smoked Toag]

https://impact601.com/news/jones_ja...XcflK72QaPkGEYwTvYU-pdfAVenmNempbgeNyrmAuoepA

I saw this article posted on Facebook by a number of people. In general, the comments were all agreeing. I've seen a lot of this lately. Read another article the other night bitching about sabermetrics and the fact that baseball is all velo and power now, and boring, and oddball bunters/knucklers/etc. now have no place in the game. The comments in that article all agreed too.

My question is, why is it happening? If everyone agrees, why does everyone continue to play into the system? Are we all just fake? Or.......is the system good, and this guy is just virtue signaling and pining for the old days?

 

[PirateDawg]

Thanks, good article and I believe it applies to all sports not just baseball. It is no longer "for the love of the game". I was walking through Academy sports the other day and can't believe the price of baseball bats!

 

[Smoked Toag]

Thanks, good article and I believe it applies to all sports not just baseball. It is no longer "for the love of the game". I was walking through Academy sports the other day and can't believe the price of baseball bats!

If it truly is a business, I don't see why anyone would choose baseball. The youth side of it costs way more, and the payout, at least in college, is way less. Better off investing that in academics or another activity.

Best bang for your buck, for boys, is football and basketball. For girls, any of them pay full tuition in college but the professional outlook is nil.

 

[thekimmer]

https://impact601.com/news/jones_ja...XcflK72QaPkGEYwTvYU-pdfAVenmNempbgeNyrmAuoepA

I saw this article posted on Facebook by a number of people. In general, the comments were all agreeing. I've seen a lot of this lately. Read another article the other night bitching about sabermetrics and the fact that baseball is all velo and power now, and boring, and oddball bunters/knucklers/etc. now have no place in the game. The comments in that article all agreed too.

My question is, why is it happening? If everyone agrees, why does everyone continue to play into the system? Are we all just fake? Or.......is the system good, and this guy is just virtue signaling and pining for the old days?

The reason it is happening is because the conditions favorable for it to happen. The 'travel ball' thing is made possible by several things such as enough people who have the time and resources to make it possible. Also, a factor is the fading priority of religious faith in people's lives. When I grew up the number of people with kids the right age and the time and money to do what is necessary to play travel ball in our county would have fit in a VW beetle. The list of those that would have played ball on Sunday morning would have fit on a bicycle. The analytics thing with velo and power are the same thing. Its because we have the analytical tools to obtain such data and those tools have pointed in the direction of these parameters. Baseball is not on an island on this either. It is happening in other sports as well.

 

[thekimmer]

If it truly is a business, I don't see why anyone would choose baseball. The youth side of it costs way more, and the payout, at least in college, is way less. Better off investing that in academics or another activity.

Best bang for your buck, for boys, is football and basketball. For girls, any of them pay full tuition in college but the professional outlook is nil.

The only rub there is that physical size is a huge limiting factor in football and basketball and not so much for baseball.

 

[Smoked Toag]

The reason it is happening is because the conditions favorable for it to happen. The 'travel ball' thing is made possible by several things such as enough people who have the time and resources to make it possible. Also, a factor is the fading priority of religious faith in people's lives. When I grew up the number of people with kids the right age and the time and money to do what is necessary to play travel ball in our county would have fit in a VW beetle. The list of those that would have played ball on Sunday morning would have fit on a bicycle. The analytics thing with velo and power are the same thing. Its because we have the analytical tools to obtain such data and those tools have pointed in the direction of these parameters. Baseball is not on an island on this either. It is happening in other sports as well.

That tells me that most people are just fake. They love travel ball and such, but pretend to hate it.

I agree with the analytics (like 3s in basketball and passing in football), but there's always room for a usurper to go against the grain.

 

[Smoked Toag]

The only rub there is that physical size is a huge limiting factor in football and basketball and not so much for baseball.

I get that but the reality is still there. Even in baseball, you have to be the best of the best and the scholarship really isn't worth the effort.

Soccer is another one with an incredible upfront investment, but I don't know much about soccer scholarships so I can't really comment on that.

Tennis and golf maybe? Seem like better investments.

 

[mcdawg22]

Not gonna lie, I know **** about the intricacies of baseball. But honestly I feel like if I had 9 Jake Mangums and you had 9 Kellum Clarks and pitchers are equally good, I’m winning that game.

 

[QuaoarsKing]

People have been writing articles about how baseball sucks now since the 1800s.

 

[Bulldog Bruce]

Apples to oranges. Now If I had 9 Brent Rookers, you lose.

 

[johnson86-1]

That tells me that most people are just fake. They love travel ball and such, but pretend to hate it.

I agree with the analytics (like 3s in basketball and passing in football), but there's always room for a usurper to go against the grain.

It’s a collective action problem. It’s not that the people who say they hate travel ball don’t hate it. It’s that they feel trapped
Because not playing it means conceding their kid won’t play high school baseball and/or their kid will feel left out because all his friends do it and/or their kid will miss out playing at all because their rec league is in shambles.

 

[M R DAWGS]

My son is 6 and we’re just playing rec league right now. He had a game last night and holy crap it was awful. This is our first time being on a bad team, and it is hard to watch. I work with him a decent amount at home and he’s one of the better ones on the team, but I don’t think any of his coaches have played a competitive sport in their lifetime. It’s really bad. Work keeps me from being able to be a head coach, but I’m going to have to sign up as an assistant coach next year.

 

[Smoked Toag]

Apples to oranges. Now If I had 9 Brent Rookers, you lose.

What do you think about the analytics/sabermetrics Bruce?

 

[Bulldog Bruce]

I think information is good. It's peoples use of that information that sucks. I also don't think in a short college career you can collect enough information, until maybe someone's senior year, to have a legitimate book on them. It gives the coaches an out when they rely on stats too much. I am not sure what sabermetrics would have done to my career but I do believe it would have hurt me. Can sabermetrics predict that a first full season major leaguer can bat .196 and end up in the HOF with 548 HRs? If the coaches didn't believe in Mike Schmidt he would not have had the career he did. My own time at MSU is the sabermetrics of my first two years would have never predicted 1981. People can improve. People can rise to an occasion. People can also pad stats in meaningless games and fold when the pressure is on. I used to say to people when a .300 hitter would come to the plate for the fourth time and he is 0 for 3 someone would say "He's due", I would say if he was 3 for 3 the he would be due. You don't get 3 hits in every 10 at bats.

As Yogi Berra might have said "I think there is too much thinking going on".

 

[Smoked Toag]

I think information is good. It's peoples use of that information that sucks. I also don't think in a short college career you can collect enough information, until maybe someone's senior year, to have a legitimate book on them. It gives the coaches an out when they rely on stats too much. I am not sure what sabermetrics would have done to my career but I do believe it would have hurt me. Can sabermetrics predict that a first full season major leaguer can bat .196 and end up in the HOF with 548 HRs? If the coaches didn't believe in Mike Schmidt he would not have had the career he did. My own time at MSU is the sabermetrics of my first two years would have never predicted 1981. People can improve. People can rise to an occasion. People can also pad stats in meaningless games and fold when the pressure is on. I used to say to people when a .300 hitter would come to the plate for the fourth time and he is 0 for 3 someone would say "He's due", I would say if he was 3 for 3 the he would be due. You don't get 3 hits in every 10 at bats.

As Yogi Berra might have said "I think there is too much thinking going on".

Tend to agree. College has always been a breeding ground of innovation in all sports, because guys have to win with huge talent disparities. The schedules are so variable too, so analytics have less of a place. I think they are much more useful in pro sports where those things I listed are more controlled.

Not to mention guys are still growing and maturing in college.

 

[johnson86-1]

If it truly is a business, I don't see why anyone would choose baseball. The youth side of it costs way more, and the payout, at least in college, is way less. Better off investing that in academics or another activity.

Best bang for your buck, for boys, is football and basketball. For girls, any of them pay full tuition in college but the professional outlook is nil.

For roughly 99% of the population, the best bang for your buck is what your kids enjoy the most. For baseball, there's another .9% that basically just get some of the costs offset and still don't really get a financial return, except indirectly. It blows my mind to hear a group of parents, none of whom played college sports or have a spouse that played college sports, talking about scholarships. Certainlyi there is a chance that one of them (and realistically, only one of them) may get a scholarship to something other than JUCO or DIII (technically not a athletic scholarship) or NAIA, but it's so small for any one of them it's almost not worth talking about.

 

[johnson86-1]

The reason it is happening is because the conditions favorable for it to happen. The 'travel ball' thing is made possible by several things such as enough people who have the time and resources to make it possible. Also, a factor is the fading priority of religious faith in people's lives. When I grew up the number of people with kids the right age and the time and money to do what is necessary to play travel ball in our county would have fit in a VW beetle. The list of those that would have played ball on Sunday morning would have fit on a bicycle. The analytics thing with velo and power are the same thing. Its because we have the analytical tools to obtain such data and those tools have pointed in the direction of these parameters. Baseball is not on an island on this either. It is happening in other sports as well.

It's also a change in parenting styles. When I was growing up, very few parents acted like they were preparing their kid for college sports, and the ones that did were typically parents that weren't giving their kids the genetics to do it and they were sort of laughed at. Now those parents are damn near a majority, or at least a majority of baseball parents. If a parent had said something like "we wanted to support rec, but the players just aren't serious enough" about coach pitch baseball, they would have been a laughing stock. Now, you might have other parents agree with them.

Also, the idea that 8 is too old to pick up a sport would have been laughable. That's another reason for abandoning rec, is that you might have people in coach pitch that have never played before.

 

[DawgInThe256]

If a kid is a left-handed pitcher, the odds increase dramatically

 

[Requiem For A Dawg]

Thanks, good article and I believe it applies to all sports not just baseball. It is no longer "for the love of the game". I was walking through Academy sports the other day and can't believe the price of baseball bats!

How high are they now? Good bats have always been expensive. My parents bought me an Easton Redline Z-Core back in 1998 and I know it was over $300 then.

 

[M R DAWGS]

The Zcore was a beast. Best bat I ever had.

 

[BrunswickDawg]

It's also a change in parenting styles. When I was growing up, very few parents acted like they were preparing their kid for college sports, and the ones that did were typically parents that weren't giving their kids the genetics to do it and they were sort of laughed at. Now those parents are damn near a majority, or at least a majority of baseball parents. If a parent had said something like "we wanted to support rec, but the players just aren't serious enough" about coach pitch baseball, they would have been a laughing stock. Now, you might have other parents agree with them.

Also, the idea that 8 is too old to pick up a sport would have been laughable. That's another reason for abandoning rec, is that you might have people in coach pitch that have never played before.

That is part of it - but I think a bigger part is that kids do not play un-organized sports in their spare time anymore. When I was a kid, if we weren't at school we were organizing a game in the neighborhood. You got 4 kids together, and we figured out how to play 2 on 2 baseball in the street - usually with a tennis ball; 2 on 2 basketball or football. By the time I was 8, in the summer, we'd ride bike all over town and play full pick up baseball games at different parks - 9 or 10 am to dark. Those games are where we really learned fundamentals Kids don't play like that anymore. I live 2 blocks from our city rec center which has 5 baseball fields - they are never used outside of rec league. Kids time is way too structured now, kids aren't allowed to roam like we did, and not encouraged to just go play. The only sport that maybe happens in now is basketball.

 

[johnson86-1]

That is part of it - but I think a bigger part is that kids do not play un-organized sports in their spare time anymore. When I was a kid, if we weren't at school we were organizing a game in the neighborhood. You got 4 kids together, and we figured out how to play 2 on 2 baseball in the street - usually with a tennis ball; 2 on 2 basketball or football. By the time I was 8, in the summer, we'd ride bike all over town and play full pick up baseball games at different parks - 9 or 10 am to dark. Those games are where we really learned fundamentals Kids don't play like that anymore. I live 2 blocks from our city rec center which has 5 baseball fields - they are never used outside of rec league. Kids time is way too structured now, kids aren't allowed to roam like we did, and not encouraged to just go play. The only sport that maybe happens in now is basketball.

Our neighborhood kids mainly play football and basketball. I assume part of that is because they get their fill of baseball playing thirty some odd games of travel ball.