Will this guy help baseball with its popularity problem?

[mrbigstuff]

Next big thing?

https://www.mlb.com/news/elly-de-la-cruz...ame-at-bat

[vision63]

No. There's lots of him. He is very very exciting though. The Reds are winning this season. That's how you haul in the fans.

[srf1957]

After the end of roids . The younger players lack of experience but speed has pushed out most of older 32+ players . there will be exceptions for true older superstars but the average age of MLB players is going to comedown.

[sekker]

srf1957 wrote:
After the end of roids . The younger players lack of experience but speed has pushed out most of older 32+ players . there will be exceptions for true older superstars but the average age of MLB players is going to comedown.

And the new rules are making speed more important.

Haven't seen this since the 1980s. I love this kind of baseball!

[sekker]

vision63 wrote:
No. There's lots of him. He is very very exciting though. The Reds are winning this season. That's how you haul in the fans.

I would not say there are a lot of this kind of talent - the last one that was this much of a game-changer was probably Vince Coleman of the Cardinals where he regularly stole >100 bases / year. And he had other players like Willie McGee and Ozzie Smith, meaning opposing pitchers never got a break from dealing with runners constantly pressing the bases.

[$tevie]

Baseball has a popularity problem because it has put all its egg in paid platforms. I can see at least some if not all NFL, NBA, NHL, and college sports on broadcast tv. I can see more Premier League football than MLB on broadcast tv. A friend with a small local bar says MASN wants $60 a month to let her show the games, which she can't budget for, although she always has some game or race or competition on the set it's never baseball.

People aren't going to care about a sport that isn't readily available. Not everyone has or even wants cable. MLB has shot itself in the foot and they are so stupid they can't figure out that even one game a week would mean maybe children would grow up caring about baseball. Instead, young adults have no reason to spend hundreds of dollars on tickets and food for their family just to watch a game they aren't very familiar with.

[pRICE cUBE]

MLB changed some rules to encourage stealing bases to make the game more exciting and shorter.
The bases are larger and pitchers are more limited in pickoff attempts.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/3563...gger-bases


https://www.si.com/mlb/2023/04/17/stolen...s-increase

The bigger change is how easy it has become to steal bases and how often teams are doing it. Among the first impressions:

Stolen bases are at their highest per-game rate since 1992, when five players stole 50 or more bases. At this rate we will see 1,087 more stolen bases this year than last year, an increase of 44%.
The stolen base success rate has jumped from 75% to 83%. That should encourage teams to run even more and tailor their roster more to fit this new game.

[Will Collier]

$tevie wrote:
Baseball has a popularity problem because it has put all its egg in paid platforms. I can see at least some if not all NFL, NBA, NHL, and college sports on broadcast tv. I can see more Premier League football than MLB on broadcast tv. A friend with a small local bar says MASN wants $60 a month to let her show the games, which she can't budget for, although she always has some game or race or competition on the set it's never baseball.

People aren't going to care about a sport that isn't readily available. Not everyone has or even wants cable. MLB has shot itself in the foot and they are so stupid they can't figure out that even one game a week would mean maybe children would grow up caring about baseball. Instead, young adults have no reason to spend hundreds of dollars on tickets and food for their family just to watch a game they aren't very familiar with.

This is a really good point. The Braves went from being on basic cable (and broadcast, locally) every day literally everywhere to a regional network you can only get with particular cable or streaming packages. Even in a monster season like this one, that has a big impact.

[kj]

Will Collier wrote:
[quote=$tevie]
Baseball has a popularity problem because it has put all its egg in paid platforms. I can see at least some if not all NFL, NBA, NHL, and college sports on broadcast tv. I can see more Premier League football than MLB on broadcast tv. A friend with a small local bar says MASN wants $60 a month to let her show the games, which she can't budget for, although she always has some game or race or competition on the set it's never baseball.

People aren't going to care about a sport that isn't readily available. Not everyone has or even wants cable. MLB has shot itself in the foot and they are so stupid they can't figure out that even one game a week would mean maybe children would grow up caring about baseball. Instead, young adults have no reason to spend hundreds of dollars on tickets and food for their family just to watch a game they aren't very familiar with.

This is a really good point. The Braves went from being on basic cable (and broadcast, locally) every day literally everywhere to a regional network you can only get with particular cable or streaming packages. Even in a monster season like this one, that has a big impact.
I agree. I just watch highlights on Youtube anymore because I can't even figure out how to see the sports I want to see. Yeah, I used to turn on OTA tv and have a game on in the living room, but it isn't like that anymore. Tennis is even worse, and look at how much it struggles, at least in the US. How would you even watch every grand slam?

I'm not a real baseball fan, but Otani is the one that has me tuning back in. But any excitement can't hurt. Jomboy has made a difference too, for people like me. But rules have to change over time, or a game gets out of whack. People learn to exploit the rules in ways that aren't good for the game, so it has to change to keep things moving as intended. Baseball is full of traditionalism, so people resist change.

[sekker]

I concur that access to live baseball just sucks. In MN, the Twins are almost unwatchable. Not because of the quality of the game but because 'Bally Sports North' is literally ONLY streamed on a single service, DirectTV.

And they blackout mlb.tv options if you are within hundreds of miles.