How Baseball Was Solved, And Where It Got Us
November 13, 2020 11:20 AM Subscribe
Your favorite team could improve its chances of winning. It won’t, because it doesn’t believe it’s worth it. Franchises are no longer forced to rely on winning to create profit. The era of baseball as pure competition is over.
Pure competition? Chaos and random events? Novelty? All the more reason to turn to minor league ball, where these things thrive. If your love is for the game itself, it's the best place to find it.
posted by Capt. Renault at 11:37 AM on November 13, 2020 [5 favorites]
Pure competition? Chaos and random events? Novelty? All the more reason to turn to minor league ball, where these things thrive. If your love is for the game itself, it's the best place to find it.
posted by Capt. Renault at 11:37 AM on November 13, 2020 [5 favorites]
I stopped regularly watching baseball a while ago for two primary reasons:
One is that MLB's ridiculous blackout rules make it almost impossible to watch the team closest to me (if you consider 300 miles "close" but the major reason is that the game became static.
Specialization is rampant, three true outcomes has become the order of the day, LOOGY makes the innings drag as pitchers swap in and out.
One of the best parts of the World Series this year was watching the teams play exciting baseball, stealing bases (stealing home!), pickles, bunts, stretching out doubles, in short, action on the field.
I know, like the article says, baseball is a business, but it is an _entertainment_ business, and if you lose too much of the entertainment, you lose the business.
I don't think baseball can sustain its current revenue model on the backs of hardcore fans.
posted by madajb at 11:39 AM on November 13, 2020 [16 favorites]
One is that MLB's ridiculous blackout rules make it almost impossible to watch the team closest to me (if you consider 300 miles "close" but the major reason is that the game became static.
Specialization is rampant, three true outcomes has become the order of the day, LOOGY makes the innings drag as pitchers swap in and out.
One of the best parts of the World Series this year was watching the teams play exciting baseball, stealing bases (stealing home!), pickles, bunts, stretching out doubles, in short, action on the field.
I know, like the article says, baseball is a business, but it is an _entertainment_ business, and if you lose too much of the entertainment, you lose the business.
I don't think baseball can sustain its current revenue model on the backs of hardcore fans.
posted by madajb at 11:39 AM on November 13, 2020 [16 favorites]
I'm having trouble following the author's argument. Can someone summarize it or explain it to me?
posted by interogative mood at 11:41 AM on November 13, 2020 [8 favorites]
posted by interogative mood at 11:41 AM on November 13, 2020 [8 favorites]
Around 80% of the problem can be avoided by just not paying attention to anything except the actual games. Playing fantasy GM by keeping track of draft prospects, trade markets, salary cap machinations, etc. just makes it like a real job, but without the only perks of the GM job that any sane person would be interested in, the money and the chance for the best seats.
I'm having trouble following the author's argument. Can someone summarize it or explain it to me?
I don't enjoy watching baseball anymore, and that's sad.
posted by skewed at 11:48 AM on November 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
I'm having trouble following the author's argument. Can someone summarize it or explain it to me?
I don't enjoy watching baseball anymore, and that's sad.
posted by skewed at 11:48 AM on November 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
I'm having trouble following the author's argument. Can someone summarize it or explain it to me?
Beats me. Before I started the article I assumed it was that baseball fans watched baseball and their favorite teams regardless of whether the teams were ultimately successful, so why bother spending money to be successful? That's an argument, and it may even be his argument, but I can't be sure.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 11:52 AM on November 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
Beats me. Before I started the article I assumed it was that baseball fans watched baseball and their favorite teams regardless of whether the teams were ultimately successful, so why bother spending money to be successful? That's an argument, and it may even be his argument, but I can't be sure.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 11:52 AM on November 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
I'm having trouble following the author's argument. Can someone summarize it or explain it to me?
People who don't give a shit about sports assume that everyone else equally does not give a shit.
posted by sideshow at 11:55 AM on November 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
People who don't give a shit about sports assume that everyone else equally does not give a shit.
posted by sideshow at 11:55 AM on November 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
First comment is railing against the universal DH, so at least some baseball traditions never die.
I'm not sure I followed the connection between Manifest Destiny and sabermetrics. I guess that it's about the powerful exploiting labor, and that we as fans should not pay attention to the salary end of the equation and instead root for more rule changes to keep the game spicier. Is that right?
If so I don't see how one resolves the other, or why we can't have both.
posted by Think_Long at 12:07 PM on November 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
I'm not sure I followed the connection between Manifest Destiny and sabermetrics. I guess that it's about the powerful exploiting labor, and that we as fans should not pay attention to the salary end of the equation and instead root for more rule changes to keep the game spicier. Is that right?
If so I don't see how one resolves the other, or why we can't have both.
posted by Think_Long at 12:07 PM on November 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
To expand: The author goes on and on (mostly about the Whigs and Teddy Rosevelt, rather than baseball) about how analytics ruined the game, when we just had a WS where the the Rays (ultimately losing team, to be fair) had a super cheap payroll, yet these cheap payroll some how ruin everything. There is also some stuff in there about how nothing risky every happens when we are just a few weeks away from a WS where a bunt single and attempted steal of home were extremely pivotal moments. Also, the author seems to have forgotten about COVID-19 somehow, and has no idea why the Free Agent market is so depressed.
In summation: the author says they love baseball, but they are lying, and they assume all other baseball fans are like them.
posted by sideshow at 12:08 PM on November 13, 2020 [9 favorites]
In summation: the author says they love baseball, but they are lying, and they assume all other baseball fans are like them.
posted by sideshow at 12:08 PM on November 13, 2020 [9 favorites]
I'm having trouble following the author's argument. Can someone summarize it or explain it to me?
I think he's saying that baseball teams aren't trying to win any more - they're just trying to maximize profits.
The interesting question for me is whether this is solely a function of the pandemic, in which all games are being played in empty stadiums. Is it worth it to spend money on players when there's no chance of increasing the number of fans in the seats?
I'm assuming that better teams draw greater numbers of at-home viewers, but does the amount of revenue from this source increase noticeably when the team is winning? Especially since there were 16 teams in the 2020 playoffs, so almost everybody got in?
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 12:16 PM on November 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
I think he's saying that baseball teams aren't trying to win any more - they're just trying to maximize profits.
The interesting question for me is whether this is solely a function of the pandemic, in which all games are being played in empty stadiums. Is it worth it to spend money on players when there's no chance of increasing the number of fans in the seats?
I'm assuming that better teams draw greater numbers of at-home viewers, but does the amount of revenue from this source increase noticeably when the team is winning? Especially since there were 16 teams in the 2020 playoffs, so almost everybody got in?
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 12:16 PM on November 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
I think “teams are trying to maximize profits instead of winning” is an argument that one could make. Someone should write that article!
I kind of dimly remember some articles that had that thesis during the luxury tax days of the early 2000s. E.g. the Royals were often accused of cashing the luxury tax checks from the Yankees and other high payroll teams while running a minimal payroll and fielding a terrible team year after year.
The paragraph that mentioned teams not signing free agents brought to mind the repeated, persistent, egregious schemes by MLB team owners to cheat labor in violation of union contracts by agreeing not to pursue free agents of other teams. But in this piece, I don’t even know what the free agent salaries are supposed to evince.
posted by chrchr at 12:28 PM on November 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
I kind of dimly remember some articles that had that thesis during the luxury tax days of the early 2000s. E.g. the Royals were often accused of cashing the luxury tax checks from the Yankees and other high payroll teams while running a minimal payroll and fielding a terrible team year after year.
The paragraph that mentioned teams not signing free agents brought to mind the repeated, persistent, egregious schemes by MLB team owners to cheat labor in violation of union contracts by agreeing not to pursue free agents of other teams. But in this piece, I don’t even know what the free agent salaries are supposed to evince.
posted by chrchr at 12:28 PM on November 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
Your favorite team could improve its chances of winning. It won’t, because it doesn’t believe it’s worth it.
I mean, my team used disruptive technology and innovative processes to improve communication and outcomes, and it helped them win!
But apparently “cheating” is “bad”, and so everybody is mad at them, even though an investigation run by the league with typical league-office thoroughness said they only cheated for a year and a half when they did actually win the World Series but weren’t cheating anymore when they almost won the World Series 2 years later.
We tried!
posted by Huffy Puffy at 12:39 PM on November 13, 2020 [9 favorites]
I mean, my team used disruptive technology and innovative processes to improve communication and outcomes, and it helped them win!
But apparently “cheating” is “bad”, and so everybody is mad at them, even though an investigation run by the league with typical league-office thoroughness said they only cheated for a year and a half when they did actually win the World Series but weren’t cheating anymore when they almost won the World Series 2 years later.
We tried!
posted by Huffy Puffy at 12:39 PM on November 13, 2020 [9 favorites]
Part of the issue for me is that mlb complains about game length ad-nauseam but refuses to actually try and implement shorter time between pitches which is the real culprit. I was heartened by a pitch clock but rarely does it ever seem to be enforced.
I guess too I question if length of play is really the issue. I'm happy to watch a longer game because I already like baseball. THe issue seems to be the owners squeezing out the talent and trying to maximize profits so much that there aren't any stars or storylines that leak out into the rest of the world like football or basketball. But again that might cause them to make a few less bucks in the short term, so they're not interested. More and more the game seems to be run by people who couldn't care less about the actual sport but either love the idea of being in an exclusive owners club, or making as much cash as fast as possible.
posted by Carillon at 1:16 PM on November 13, 2020 [4 favorites]
I guess too I question if length of play is really the issue. I'm happy to watch a longer game because I already like baseball. THe issue seems to be the owners squeezing out the talent and trying to maximize profits so much that there aren't any stars or storylines that leak out into the rest of the world like football or basketball. But again that might cause them to make a few less bucks in the short term, so they're not interested. More and more the game seems to be run by people who couldn't care less about the actual sport but either love the idea of being in an exclusive owners club, or making as much cash as fast as possible.
posted by Carillon at 1:16 PM on November 13, 2020 [4 favorites]
I don't think baseball can sustain its current revenue model on the backs of hardcore fans.
Good news! They haven't been supported by hardcore fans in decades. It's all corporate luxury boxes, luxury seating, corporate sponsorships, and TV deals. The front offices consider most hardcore fans to be deadbeats because they're not going to spend as much in stadium as a corporate outing where almost no one will be paying attention to the game.
posted by jmauro at 1:52 PM on November 13, 2020 [6 favorites]
Good news! They haven't been supported by hardcore fans in decades. It's all corporate luxury boxes, luxury seating, corporate sponsorships, and TV deals. The front offices consider most hardcore fans to be deadbeats because they're not going to spend as much in stadium as a corporate outing where almost no one will be paying attention to the game.
posted by jmauro at 1:52 PM on November 13, 2020 [6 favorites]
I guess too I question if length of play is really the issue.
It's the issue because TV executives say it's the issue. They want shorter games that fit into fixed slots so that is what baseball is looking to give them.
I was heartened by a pitch clock but rarely does it ever seem to be enforced.
It's being enforced at the lower levels AAA and below, which means it'll train pitchers and catchers to be faster when they get to the big leagues, but it'll take time for all those new players to make it to the big leagues.
posted by jmauro at 1:55 PM on November 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
It's the issue because TV executives say it's the issue. They want shorter games that fit into fixed slots so that is what baseball is looking to give them.
I was heartened by a pitch clock but rarely does it ever seem to be enforced.
It's being enforced at the lower levels AAA and below, which means it'll train pitchers and catchers to be faster when they get to the big leagues, but it'll take time for all those new players to make it to the big leagues.
posted by jmauro at 1:55 PM on November 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
if it were up to me i would try to figure out a way to make the ball not fly as high or as far. this would encourage interesting action in the infield, and it would reward speed, small ball and Wade-Boggs-style directional hitting skill.
i think we should assume that at the MLB level, the game will be played optimally -- too much money on the line and too many people who want to win. so the solution just has to be to make optimal play more fun to watch. right now it is almost always very boring.
posted by vogon_poet at 2:07 PM on November 13, 2020 [5 favorites]
i think we should assume that at the MLB level, the game will be played optimally -- too much money on the line and too many people who want to win. so the solution just has to be to make optimal play more fun to watch. right now it is almost always very boring.
posted by vogon_poet at 2:07 PM on November 13, 2020 [5 favorites]
Baseball (like basketball) has coalesced around a particular model which statistical models suggests maximizes the odds of winning. Its about gettting on base, home runs, and strike outs basically. And then within the context of that model, all of the owners have settled into a nice equilibrium that says we maximize our profits as a league by keeping costs down, which their main cost is labor so you collude to supress wages. That's what's going on. And its pretty obvious.
Eventually something will happen to break one of those conditions. Tho I'm less sure it'll be on the field stuff, because the game might be solved. Basketball, eventually someone will strategically figure out how to kill the current on court paradigm.
Stevie Cohen almost wasn't approved as the new owner of the Mets. Not because he's very obviously been at the center of several decades of shady trading on material non-public information, but because for decades he's been willing to pay the people who trade on MNPI ungodly sums of cash. Some owners were concerned that allowing him to own his childhood team (He's a Jewish guy from Roslyn - he's like the modal Mets fan) meant he would break the compensation equilibrium and force the big market owners to start writing big checks again and re-inflate wages.
posted by JPD at 2:09 PM on November 13, 2020 [4 favorites]
Eventually something will happen to break one of those conditions. Tho I'm less sure it'll be on the field stuff, because the game might be solved. Basketball, eventually someone will strategically figure out how to kill the current on court paradigm.
Stevie Cohen almost wasn't approved as the new owner of the Mets. Not because he's very obviously been at the center of several decades of shady trading on material non-public information, but because for decades he's been willing to pay the people who trade on MNPI ungodly sums of cash. Some owners were concerned that allowing him to own his childhood team (He's a Jewish guy from Roslyn - he's like the modal Mets fan) meant he would break the compensation equilibrium and force the big market owners to start writing big checks again and re-inflate wages.
posted by JPD at 2:09 PM on November 13, 2020 [4 favorites]
if it were up to me i would try to figure out a way to make the ball not fly as high or as far.
The end of the live-ball era? Color me intrigued...
posted by rhizome at 2:10 PM on November 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
The end of the live-ball era? Color me intrigued...
posted by rhizome at 2:10 PM on November 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
defector has been running a series on playing with the springiness of the ball. Its pretty interesting. The Korean Baseball league did it recently
posted by JPD at 2:18 PM on November 13, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by JPD at 2:18 PM on November 13, 2020 [3 favorites]
Personally I'd love to see relegation to come to MLB (and NHL). I'm sure there are problems with it but it would sure get owners competing against each other; at least by the lower end teams.
posted by Mitheral at 2:20 PM on November 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Mitheral at 2:20 PM on November 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
One is that MLB's ridiculous blackout rules make it almost impossible to watch the team closest to me (if you consider 300 miles "close" but the major reason is that the game became static.
Do you live in Iowa, the state claimed by five different teams, making none of them available live in MLB.tv? We live at the whim of whatever regional sports network our local cable companies feel like picking up.
posted by Fukiyama at 2:48 PM on November 13, 2020
Do you live in Iowa, the state claimed by five different teams, making none of them available live in MLB.tv? We live at the whim of whatever regional sports network our local cable companies feel like picking up.
posted by Fukiyama at 2:48 PM on November 13, 2020
I was never a "sports fan" but I did watch baseball games sometimes. I would watch far more baseball games if they decreased the time between pitches. I cannot stand the agonizing lengths of time between pitches—especially when I am interested in a game.
But again, I'm not much of a "fan" so maybe this has nothing to do with me. Maybe they'd have more viewers if the games went a little faster?
posted by SoberHighland at 2:48 PM on November 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
But again, I'm not much of a "fan" so maybe this has nothing to do with me. Maybe they'd have more viewers if the games went a little faster?
posted by SoberHighland at 2:48 PM on November 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
All the more reason to turn to minor league ball
I'm not a baseball fan but minor league ball just might turn me into one. Cheap seats not far from home plate, close enough that you can see the players' feelings. Home team batters that all get walk-on music like they're professional wrestlers. Recording statistics on paper. Mascot races. Sensibly priced craft beer. The discovery that the sport itself can be interesting once you get immersed. All this on bring-your-dog night. Put minor league baseball on your list of 101 things to do after corona vaccination.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 3:05 PM on November 13, 2020 [11 favorites]
I'm not a baseball fan but minor league ball just might turn me into one. Cheap seats not far from home plate, close enough that you can see the players' feelings. Home team batters that all get walk-on music like they're professional wrestlers. Recording statistics on paper. Mascot races. Sensibly priced craft beer. The discovery that the sport itself can be interesting once you get immersed. All this on bring-your-dog night. Put minor league baseball on your list of 101 things to do after corona vaccination.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 3:05 PM on November 13, 2020 [11 favorites]
i am both baffled and annoyed by anyone who’d say the game is solved. so many paragraphs about it being boring, but without a single mention of whether the rogue umps will continue incinerating players now that the discipline era is over? that’s madness! the unlimited tacos are continuing their schemes to field a team with no pitchers whatsoever, and somehow this is stale?! all this talk about market value and trades, and not a single mention of how players can be arbitrarily shifted from team to team due to the whims of the microphone’s feedback?
jessica telephone is unshelled! york silk is back! jaylen hotdogfingers still walks the earth, and mike townsend (who knew what he had to do) still resides in the shadows! a mysterious coin has seized hegemony over the whole game! we don’t yet know the coin’s goals, but how can they not be sinister! the commissioner has been put on trial, despite how he’s doing a great job! boring? stale? over? solved? lunacy! utter lunacy! this splort’s not done! it’s just getting started! and we are all love to see it!
wait, what’s that? it’s a sport, not a splort?
wait, what game are you talking about?
oh, baseball. i thought we were talking about blaseball.
yeah, baseball sucks.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 3:10 PM on November 13, 2020 [7 favorites]
jessica telephone is unshelled! york silk is back! jaylen hotdogfingers still walks the earth, and mike townsend (who knew what he had to do) still resides in the shadows! a mysterious coin has seized hegemony over the whole game! we don’t yet know the coin’s goals, but how can they not be sinister! the commissioner has been put on trial, despite how he’s doing a great job! boring? stale? over? solved? lunacy! utter lunacy! this splort’s not done! it’s just getting started! and we are all love to see it!
wait, what’s that? it’s a sport, not a splort?
wait, what game are you talking about?
oh, baseball. i thought we were talking about blaseball.
yeah, baseball sucks.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 3:10 PM on November 13, 2020 [7 favorites]
I'm not a baseball fan but minor league ball just might turn me into one. Cheap seats not far from home plate, close enough that you can see the players' feelings.
Plus you might watch Randy Arozarena and have no idea that next season he’s going to become a superstar.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 3:17 PM on November 13, 2020
Plus you might watch Randy Arozarena and have no idea that next season he’s going to become a superstar.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 3:17 PM on November 13, 2020
Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon: "yeah, baseball sucks."
Dream tonight of peacock tails,
Diamond fields and spouter whales.
Ills are many, blessings few,
But dreams tonight will shelter you.
posted by chavenet at 3:22 PM on November 13, 2020
Dream tonight of peacock tails,
Diamond fields and spouter whales.
Ills are many, blessings few,
But dreams tonight will shelter you.
posted by chavenet at 3:22 PM on November 13, 2020
i’m not supposed to say this, but... v was about blaseball. 100% top to bottom blaseball. honestly i’m surprised people never picked up on that.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 3:28 PM on November 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 3:28 PM on November 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
huh, good to know my idea was not original. and that Korean baseball has already done it! maybe there's hope.
posted by vogon_poet at 3:53 PM on November 13, 2020
posted by vogon_poet at 3:53 PM on November 13, 2020
The last World Series was the Dodgers against the Rays. The Dodgers spend like drunken sailors in order to win. The Rays have the third lowest payroll in baseball. There were stolen base attempts, including a failed attempt to steal home. There was bunting. That's not moneyball. That's baseball. I don't understand this article.
Oh, one more bit, the Dodgers didn't win by optimizing their payroll.
posted by rdr at 3:58 PM on November 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
Oh, one more bit, the Dodgers didn't win by optimizing their payroll.
posted by rdr at 3:58 PM on November 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
Is the article title a riff on the REM song "How the West Was Won and Where it Got Us"? Or is the REM song's title a riff on something else that the title of the article is also riffing off of?
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 4:25 PM on November 13, 2020
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 4:25 PM on November 13, 2020
I'm having trouble following the author's argument. Can someone summarize it or explain it to me?
Something about the Whigs and John Wayne and then Moneyball? No idea.
posted by octothorpe at 4:52 PM on November 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
Something about the Whigs and John Wayne and then Moneyball? No idea.
posted by octothorpe at 4:52 PM on November 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
Yeah, this years championship series and World Series were pretty good, IMO, and don't suggest baseball has become unwatchable (I mean, assuming one liked baseball at any point, obviously like any sport many people have just never enjoyed it).
There was bunting
Yeah, for those who missed it, in game 3 Austin Barnes (catcher for the Dodgers) bunted an RBI and then later in the same game got a home run, which was pretty dramatic.
[In other MLB news, Kim Ng just became the first woman to be a general manager for an MLB team, and also the first female GM of any major American men's sports team]
posted by thefoxgod at 6:32 PM on November 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
There was bunting
Yeah, for those who missed it, in game 3 Austin Barnes (catcher for the Dodgers) bunted an RBI and then later in the same game got a home run, which was pretty dramatic.
[In other MLB news, Kim Ng just became the first woman to be a general manager for an MLB team, and also the first female GM of any major American men's sports team]
posted by thefoxgod at 6:32 PM on November 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
> The last World Series was the Dodgers against the Rays. The Dodgers spend like drunken sailors in order to win. The Rays have the third lowest payroll in baseball. There were stolen base attempts, including a failed attempt to steal home. There was bunting. That's not moneyball. That's baseball. I don't understand this article.
I agree that the article is kind of a mess, but this is an obvious case of cherry-picking. Bunts per plate apperance, stolen bases per game, and balls in play per game have all been on a long downward trend for decades, and they're not coming back any time soon. A single exciting playoff series doesn't disprove the point that many (not all) teams are optimizing payroll in a way that's hostile to die-hard fans, boring for most casual fans, and a race to the bottom for player salaries.
Of course the teams that do best year in and year out are the ones like the Yankees and Dodgers, who pair strong analytics with a large payroll. The Rays are the exception that proves the rule. Moneyball works at the margins, but the days of any one or two teams having an order of magnitude advantage over others in sabermetrics are long gone, and a big fat bank account can easily overcome whatever narrow analytics advantages may exist, as they likely did for the Dodgers this season. Tony Gonsolin would probably be the Rays' #3 starter, but he was basically a long man for the Dodgers' playoff rotation. Several of the Rays' regulars and basically their entire bench wouldn't make the Dodgers playoff roster. The Rays were able to make it interesting, but ultimately, the boring strategy of being adequate in analytics but paying for more talent on your roster won out, and I think if you simulated that series a hundred times, the Dogers probably win 80 of them.
posted by tonycpsu at 6:39 PM on November 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
I agree that the article is kind of a mess, but this is an obvious case of cherry-picking. Bunts per plate apperance, stolen bases per game, and balls in play per game have all been on a long downward trend for decades, and they're not coming back any time soon. A single exciting playoff series doesn't disprove the point that many (not all) teams are optimizing payroll in a way that's hostile to die-hard fans, boring for most casual fans, and a race to the bottom for player salaries.
Of course the teams that do best year in and year out are the ones like the Yankees and Dodgers, who pair strong analytics with a large payroll. The Rays are the exception that proves the rule. Moneyball works at the margins, but the days of any one or two teams having an order of magnitude advantage over others in sabermetrics are long gone, and a big fat bank account can easily overcome whatever narrow analytics advantages may exist, as they likely did for the Dodgers this season. Tony Gonsolin would probably be the Rays' #3 starter, but he was basically a long man for the Dodgers' playoff rotation. Several of the Rays' regulars and basically their entire bench wouldn't make the Dodgers playoff roster. The Rays were able to make it interesting, but ultimately, the boring strategy of being adequate in analytics but paying for more talent on your roster won out, and I think if you simulated that series a hundred times, the Dogers probably win 80 of them.
posted by tonycpsu at 6:39 PM on November 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
Do you live in Iowa, the state claimed by five different teams, making none of them available live in MLB.tv? We live at the whim of whatever regional sports network our local cable companies feel like picking up.
Not as bad as Iowa, no, but the same idea.
We are claimed but are far enough away that no stations carry the games.
We can't even get AM broadcasts of games because I guess I might on a whim decide to drive 6 hours and attend a live game...
posted by madajb at 9:29 PM on November 13, 2020
Not as bad as Iowa, no, but the same idea.
We are claimed but are far enough away that no stations carry the games.
We can't even get AM broadcasts of games because I guess I might on a whim decide to drive 6 hours and attend a live game...
posted by madajb at 9:29 PM on November 13, 2020
I would watch far more baseball games if they decreased the time between pitches. I cannot stand the agonizing lengths of time between pitches—especially when I am interested in a game.
The thing is, there is a lot of stuff happening on the field between pitches, but watching a broadcast, you'd never know it because of the sports directors insistence on showing us people sitting in the dugout, or managers in the dugout, or a close-up of the guy who made a big play last inning sitting in the dugout or, worse yet, the guys in the broadcast booth talking about people sitting in the dugout.
One of the missed opportunities of this weird season was experimenting with odd-ball camera angles when there isn't a crowd to interfere.
Broadcasters basically had the ability to put cameras wherever they wanted without screwing up the game for people in the stands and they just let it go by.
Where were the drones chasing balls in the outfield, where was the camera aimed down the first base line?
posted by madajb at 9:37 PM on November 13, 2020 [3 favorites]
The thing is, there is a lot of stuff happening on the field between pitches, but watching a broadcast, you'd never know it because of the sports directors insistence on showing us people sitting in the dugout, or managers in the dugout, or a close-up of the guy who made a big play last inning sitting in the dugout or, worse yet, the guys in the broadcast booth talking about people sitting in the dugout.
One of the missed opportunities of this weird season was experimenting with odd-ball camera angles when there isn't a crowd to interfere.
Broadcasters basically had the ability to put cameras wherever they wanted without screwing up the game for people in the stands and they just let it go by.
Where were the drones chasing balls in the outfield, where was the camera aimed down the first base line?
posted by madajb at 9:37 PM on November 13, 2020 [3 favorites]
The article is convoluted because its author almost, but doesn't quite, tie up the loose ends of the thoughts presented, due in part I imagine because the article was written for Baseball Prospectus, an analytics website.
The essential point should be that analytics inherently and unavoidably benefits capital or management at the expense of labor. This necessarily also alters how the fans view the sport and how the sport develops as a game. Players as a group gain no benefits from analytics, even as individually some might gain enormously. Bill James era analysis, roughly speaking, worked off the idea of resource neutral considerations, as in saying all other things being equal a team would be better off giving Ken Phelps a job rather than, say, Enos Cabell, because Ken Phelps does more things to help a team win, even though, at the time, those things were undervalued. To the analyst, fan, or team, the consideration was as if that would be a straight swap in labor resources. Phelps in, Cabell out, as an exchange, and that held for a while as teams and fans first took to the new ideas as there was ample space for exchange as management took up these evaluations at widely differing rates.
But in the longer run, those same tools necessarily allowed management use to control resources and constrain the price of labor, helped by the players union negotiating its bargaining agreements collectively, but having player contracts negotiated individually without any representation for the monopoly controlled minor leagues. That leads to splits within labor as major league vets interests are in conflict with minor league and rookie player interests, which management exploits to hold down the cost of labor by wielding increasingly more detailed analysis on marginal gains or "edges".
The analysis itself, and through that fan interest, which also is aligned to metagames around the sport like fantasy baseball, takes on the perspective of ownership by considering cost analysis maximizing benefit as part of its package. The fan, in those cases, is a fantasy owner and led to think of labor from a management perspective. At the same time the game itself is altered, often to fan dismay, by the same sort of edge maximizing to draw out that excess value from each dollar spent. The Tampa Bay Rays are the current masters of this method, where they get the most from the least investment possible by manipulating player status and service time for contract gain, using each player to only best possible advantage for the team, which limits playing time and negotiating position.
It all makes the game itself more specialized and data driven, where many decisions are based on proprietary or complex data analysis that requires special effort from fans to understand if it is available for their consideration at all in its more detailed areas, while the more obvious data driven efforts go to making the games about teams vying to control an ever narrower range of desired outcomes, leading to the strikeouts and HR driven game there is now. Its comparatively easy, for example, to find many relievers with one or two good pitches to use up and burn out at low cost, while developing good starting pitchers is hard, so relief use is maximized leading to more strikeouts and less balls in play, defensive shifts and positioning is adjusted to further decrease chances for hits on the field, leading to more all or nothing swings from batters, who themselves can be shuffled in and out depending on what kind of pitches they hit best and who is on the mound. It all helps make players interchangeable cogs in a money driven machine that some of the games biggest "fans" only attend to for purposes of knowing who to play or cut on their own fantasy teams.
There's widespread agreement on virtually every baseball site that the game now is almost unwatchable while MLB seeks out new gimmicks to try and stop the decline in its popularity to younger audiences. A sport that alienates its old fans and can only find new ones through metagames is in serious trouble.
posted by gusottertrout at 10:50 PM on November 13, 2020 [8 favorites]
The essential point should be that analytics inherently and unavoidably benefits capital or management at the expense of labor. This necessarily also alters how the fans view the sport and how the sport develops as a game. Players as a group gain no benefits from analytics, even as individually some might gain enormously. Bill James era analysis, roughly speaking, worked off the idea of resource neutral considerations, as in saying all other things being equal a team would be better off giving Ken Phelps a job rather than, say, Enos Cabell, because Ken Phelps does more things to help a team win, even though, at the time, those things were undervalued. To the analyst, fan, or team, the consideration was as if that would be a straight swap in labor resources. Phelps in, Cabell out, as an exchange, and that held for a while as teams and fans first took to the new ideas as there was ample space for exchange as management took up these evaluations at widely differing rates.
But in the longer run, those same tools necessarily allowed management use to control resources and constrain the price of labor, helped by the players union negotiating its bargaining agreements collectively, but having player contracts negotiated individually without any representation for the monopoly controlled minor leagues. That leads to splits within labor as major league vets interests are in conflict with minor league and rookie player interests, which management exploits to hold down the cost of labor by wielding increasingly more detailed analysis on marginal gains or "edges".
The analysis itself, and through that fan interest, which also is aligned to metagames around the sport like fantasy baseball, takes on the perspective of ownership by considering cost analysis maximizing benefit as part of its package. The fan, in those cases, is a fantasy owner and led to think of labor from a management perspective. At the same time the game itself is altered, often to fan dismay, by the same sort of edge maximizing to draw out that excess value from each dollar spent. The Tampa Bay Rays are the current masters of this method, where they get the most from the least investment possible by manipulating player status and service time for contract gain, using each player to only best possible advantage for the team, which limits playing time and negotiating position.
It all makes the game itself more specialized and data driven, where many decisions are based on proprietary or complex data analysis that requires special effort from fans to understand if it is available for their consideration at all in its more detailed areas, while the more obvious data driven efforts go to making the games about teams vying to control an ever narrower range of desired outcomes, leading to the strikeouts and HR driven game there is now. Its comparatively easy, for example, to find many relievers with one or two good pitches to use up and burn out at low cost, while developing good starting pitchers is hard, so relief use is maximized leading to more strikeouts and less balls in play, defensive shifts and positioning is adjusted to further decrease chances for hits on the field, leading to more all or nothing swings from batters, who themselves can be shuffled in and out depending on what kind of pitches they hit best and who is on the mound. It all helps make players interchangeable cogs in a money driven machine that some of the games biggest "fans" only attend to for purposes of knowing who to play or cut on their own fantasy teams.
There's widespread agreement on virtually every baseball site that the game now is almost unwatchable while MLB seeks out new gimmicks to try and stop the decline in its popularity to younger audiences. A sport that alienates its old fans and can only find new ones through metagames is in serious trouble.
posted by gusottertrout at 10:50 PM on November 13, 2020 [8 favorites]
One of the missed opportunities of this weird season was experimenting with odd-ball camera angles when there isn't a crowd to interfere.
Broadcasters basically had the ability to put cameras wherever they wanted without screwing up the game for people in the stands and they just let it go by.
There was some experimenting, but it sounds like one of the things driving conservative angles was the limited number of tv camera operators in the park. Robotic or fixed experiments like BaseCam and SpeedCam did see some play.
posted by zamboni at 5:17 AM on November 14, 2020 [1 favorite]
Broadcasters basically had the ability to put cameras wherever they wanted without screwing up the game for people in the stands and they just let it go by.
There was some experimenting, but it sounds like one of the things driving conservative angles was the limited number of tv camera operators in the park. Robotic or fixed experiments like BaseCam and SpeedCam did see some play.
posted by zamboni at 5:17 AM on November 14, 2020 [1 favorite]
One of the amazing things about minor league baseball is that it is pretty entertaining even if you don't know shit about baseball or care about it even in the slightest. My family used to live really close to Nat Bailey stadium in Vancouver -- close enough that on game days people would be parked on their street to walk to the stadium. The team that plays there is in a league classified as Class A Short Season, so it is, uh, not what you'd call high level baseball.
But it is *very* convenient, so one day when my niece was about 3, the whole family went to a game. My niece barely understood what baseball was, but she liked the ice cream and the mascot races and the clapping. My Dad didn't care, like, at all about baseball, but he drank a few beers and talked to the guy sitting next to us. I tried to explain the game to my mom, but I don't really know that much about baseball, either, so everything I told her was probably wrong. Even if you barely know what's happening, you can cheer along with the crowd and the crowd really gets into the game.
They do everything they can to make things fun, and for about $10 per person, it's cheaper than a movie.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:32 AM on November 14, 2020 [4 favorites]
But it is *very* convenient, so one day when my niece was about 3, the whole family went to a game. My niece barely understood what baseball was, but she liked the ice cream and the mascot races and the clapping. My Dad didn't care, like, at all about baseball, but he drank a few beers and talked to the guy sitting next to us. I tried to explain the game to my mom, but I don't really know that much about baseball, either, so everything I told her was probably wrong. Even if you barely know what's happening, you can cheer along with the crowd and the crowd really gets into the game.
They do everything they can to make things fun, and for about $10 per person, it's cheaper than a movie.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:32 AM on November 14, 2020 [4 favorites]
One is that MLB's ridiculous blackout rules make it almost impossible to watch the team closest to me (if you consider 300 miles "close" but the major reason is that the game became static.
I live 3000 feet from PNC Park and and since I don't have cable, can't watch games. I mean I know I could fiddle with a proxy and fool MLB.com into thinking I lived elsewhere but it shouldn't be that hard.
posted by octothorpe at 6:56 AM on November 14, 2020
I live 3000 feet from PNC Park and and since I don't have cable, can't watch games. I mean I know I could fiddle with a proxy and fool MLB.com into thinking I lived elsewhere but it shouldn't be that hard.
posted by octothorpe at 6:56 AM on November 14, 2020
The good news in terms of the capital vs. labor dynamics in MLB is that the current collective bargaining agreement ends after the 2021 season, so there will be an opportunity to right the many wrongs inherent in the current system. The owners will still have a huge advantage in these negotiations, of course, so anyone who's on the players' side should be rooting for a very lengthy lockout and possibly a lost season in 2022 given that their refusal to play is the biggest weapon the players have. But it's important that the players don't give in like they have in the past.
The most important objective for the players in those negotiations will be to eliminate or substantially reform the years of control / arbitration system that artificially holds down the value of younger players, which has been used by MLB to divide and conquer the labor pool by pitting players against each other. MLB teams know this is key to their strategy, so I can't see them budging unless they lose perhaps a year or more of revenue. But any new CBA that retains this caste system just might be the end for baseball.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:53 AM on November 14, 2020 [3 favorites]
The most important objective for the players in those negotiations will be to eliminate or substantially reform the years of control / arbitration system that artificially holds down the value of younger players, which has been used by MLB to divide and conquer the labor pool by pitting players against each other. MLB teams know this is key to their strategy, so I can't see them budging unless they lose perhaps a year or more of revenue. But any new CBA that retains this caste system just might be the end for baseball.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:53 AM on November 14, 2020 [3 favorites]
Minor league baseball is indeed awesome…which is why Major League Baseball is trying to drown it in the bathtub.
Do you live in Iowa, the state claimed by five different teams
Pretty sure it's six: Twins, Royals, Cubs, White Sox, Cardinals, Brewers.
Six out of thirty teams is...way too many.
, making none of them available live in MLB.tv?
MLB.tv, for which you pay a HUNDRED BUCKS A YEAR >:[
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 1:46 PM on November 14, 2020 [2 favorites]
Do you live in Iowa, the state claimed by five different teams
Pretty sure it's six: Twins, Royals, Cubs, White Sox, Cardinals, Brewers.
Six out of thirty teams is...way too many.
, making none of them available live in MLB.tv?
MLB.tv, for which you pay a HUNDRED BUCKS A YEAR >:[
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 1:46 PM on November 14, 2020 [2 favorites]
Pretty sure it's six: Twins, Royals, Cubs, White Sox, Cardinals, Brewers.
My first recollection was six, but then I counted the color stripes on the map at Wiki and got five. I must have miscounted. I should have gone with my first instinct. I'm usually right.
posted by Fukiyama at 2:32 PM on November 14, 2020
My first recollection was six, but then I counted the color stripes on the map at Wiki and got five. I must have miscounted. I should have gone with my first instinct. I'm usually right.
posted by Fukiyama at 2:32 PM on November 14, 2020
As a Bulls fan, I keenly feel the concept of a team owner that doesn’t feel the need to compete (which was the point of the article, but hey). In fact Reinsdorf is on record as much preferring baseball to basketball, and once said he’d be willing to trade all six Jordan NBA championships for one White Sox title. The Bulls coasted, for years, off of the Jordan era, and even when the team was absolutely terrible, the stadium was sold out every night, with a waiting list years long. Cronies ran the team, and results never really affected their employment status. The running bitter joke for fans has been that the Bulls are the undefeated NBA Financial Champions, finding ways to be the most profitable team in the league without really giving two shits about winning.
It’s funny how long it took that to change when fans got tired of things, and stopped going to games a couple years ago. Boycotts organized, billboards bought, and nothing happened, until mercifully the crony GM was fired, a new guy brought in, new coaches, and, well, we’ll see. The owner still knows he can field a team on the cheap, and has no incentive to try.
As for the idea that the author’s claim is disproven because the Dodgers spent money, well, yeah, the team that tried and worked to win actually did. How many teams didn’t do that? How many teams, at the start of the season basically looked at the year and said “fuck it, let’s win this?” Now that it’s been proven that the game can make money without fans, why would they need to appeal to anyone but their corporate sponsors? It’s the thinking rampant in early VC days, why do we need to run a profitable business, we can always just secure more funding, where securing funding has become the goal of operating a business, rather than attempting to make profit. It’s just that all of those start up VC folk are amateurs compared to team owners, grifters from a long line of masterful grifters. Hell, I wonder if that’s why so many dot com billionaires are welcomed into team ownership so quickly. I mean, sports without appeal to fans, that’s basically the same vapor ware we’ve been sold the last twenty years anyway, right?
Tl/dr minor league ball is good. So is Japanese baseball, which is good, but also terrible. Go Marines! (which are not the Mariners, and have no connection to Seattle)
posted by Ghidorah at 3:41 PM on November 14, 2020 [1 favorite]
It’s funny how long it took that to change when fans got tired of things, and stopped going to games a couple years ago. Boycotts organized, billboards bought, and nothing happened, until mercifully the crony GM was fired, a new guy brought in, new coaches, and, well, we’ll see. The owner still knows he can field a team on the cheap, and has no incentive to try.
As for the idea that the author’s claim is disproven because the Dodgers spent money, well, yeah, the team that tried and worked to win actually did. How many teams didn’t do that? How many teams, at the start of the season basically looked at the year and said “fuck it, let’s win this?” Now that it’s been proven that the game can make money without fans, why would they need to appeal to anyone but their corporate sponsors? It’s the thinking rampant in early VC days, why do we need to run a profitable business, we can always just secure more funding, where securing funding has become the goal of operating a business, rather than attempting to make profit. It’s just that all of those start up VC folk are amateurs compared to team owners, grifters from a long line of masterful grifters. Hell, I wonder if that’s why so many dot com billionaires are welcomed into team ownership so quickly. I mean, sports without appeal to fans, that’s basically the same vapor ware we’ve been sold the last twenty years anyway, right?
Tl/dr minor league ball is good. So is Japanese baseball, which is good, but also terrible. Go Marines! (which are not the Mariners, and have no connection to Seattle)
posted by Ghidorah at 3:41 PM on November 14, 2020 [1 favorite]
The running bitter joke for fans has been that the Bulls are the undefeated NBA Financial Champions, finding ways to be the most profitable team in the league without really giving two shits about winning.
As a Timberwolves fan I understand your pain, but dismiss any claim of really knowing the depths of not winning even in the Bulls current era of terrible management. If you step back a bit though, you do really have to appreciate the beauty of the Butler trade that ultimately had little benefit for either team. That takes real commitment to mediocrity!
(Okay, sure, the Wolves finally made the playoffs with Butler, but with no chance to do anything there and at the cost of massive team disunity in the end, and the Bulls did get Lavine, who's at least a lotta fun to watch, if you close your eyes when he's on the defense anyway.)
posted by gusottertrout at 3:52 PM on November 14, 2020
As a Timberwolves fan I understand your pain, but dismiss any claim of really knowing the depths of not winning even in the Bulls current era of terrible management. If you step back a bit though, you do really have to appreciate the beauty of the Butler trade that ultimately had little benefit for either team. That takes real commitment to mediocrity!
(Okay, sure, the Wolves finally made the playoffs with Butler, but with no chance to do anything there and at the cost of massive team disunity in the end, and the Bulls did get Lavine, who's at least a lotta fun to watch, if you close your eyes when he's on the defense anyway.)
posted by gusottertrout at 3:52 PM on November 14, 2020
gusottertrout, the thing about Butler, if you look at what he did when he finally found an organization and teammates that would go all out as much as he does, he got to the finals. He’s that kind of talent, and that he got to the finals and put in the effort he did against James, I think it speaks volumes, like, whole sets of encyclopedias about the organizations and players that he couldn’t mesh with. The Bulls knew they couldn’t be the place for him, so they punted like the cowards they are. KAT? Oof. From what it sounded like, he just sort of decided he didn’t want to put in the level of work Butler thought was necessary. And Philly? I think it says a lot about Embiid and Simmons that Butler was out the door to Miami the second the chance presented itself.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:50 PM on November 14, 2020
posted by Ghidorah at 5:50 PM on November 14, 2020
Oh, man, a Butler truther?? Heh. The story in Mpls was that Butler got irked about the Wiggins max cuz Wiggins wasn't a full effort guy and it'd cut into the salary Butler could get. With KAT there was an alleged interpersonal beef with a woman KAT had been seeing 'til Butler came along and just general chaotic interactions between the young Wolves and the old Bulls Thibs brought on. In Philly, Embiid, who has an ongoing beef with KAT, liked Butler a lot, even more or less tweeting such after Butler split, but Simmons, who is tight with KAT was a Butler target about attitude. But that's getting off the topic a bit, so let me try to drag it back.
The deal with Butler, I think, speaks to the difference between the NBA and MLB in regards to how power is wielded. In the NBA now players have a lot of power even with a harder salary cap involved. They accepted the league needed to cap salaries and implement certain restrictions on teams in the best interests of the league to keep things competitive and a more balanced pay structure overall. The owners and players have a defined split in profits that controls the cap and salaries. There is a generally good, but wary, relationship between players and league management as the two sides know they have to get along since the NBA is much more star driven the MLB in terms of single players having much greater impact on a team's fortunes.
This has led to something of a buddy system on teams where the superstar player has a strong influence on who else will sign with the team. KAT gets D'Angelo Russell traded to the Wolves because they're pals which gives the Wolves a second star player and creates pressure for the Suns because their big star, Devin Booker, is also tight with KAT and D'Angelo, where they've all promised to play together at some point. That's a low key version of the kind of thing LeBron gets to do when he signs with a team, bringing in his chosen pals, it's what's at play on the Nets with Kyrie and Durant joining up and at work with many other teams as well.
Butler was shuffled around even though he's obviously a premier talent because he didn't like the fit with the teams he found and had the ability to pressure the teams into trading him, something that isn't nearly so easy or common in MLB save for the players final year under contract when the team might know whether or not they're likely to re-sign with the club and will try and get something for them if not, like the Sox did with Mookie Betts.
This all irks some fans, but I think that kind of balance between players and owners is far preferable to the MLB monopoly system. The NBA is always going to be more imbalanced than MLB or the NFL due to how the games work, but MLB could really stand to get something closer to the relationship the NBA has since they're much better able to work out differences productively and even have league management actively addressing concerns outside the league that the players bring up. But MLB is far more conservative in its viewership and structure, so even though there are some owners that might be willing to go a bit down that path, the majority of MLB ownership would rather chance collapse rather than give in, and the NFL is worse.
posted by gusottertrout at 8:04 PM on November 14, 2020
The deal with Butler, I think, speaks to the difference between the NBA and MLB in regards to how power is wielded. In the NBA now players have a lot of power even with a harder salary cap involved. They accepted the league needed to cap salaries and implement certain restrictions on teams in the best interests of the league to keep things competitive and a more balanced pay structure overall. The owners and players have a defined split in profits that controls the cap and salaries. There is a generally good, but wary, relationship between players and league management as the two sides know they have to get along since the NBA is much more star driven the MLB in terms of single players having much greater impact on a team's fortunes.
This has led to something of a buddy system on teams where the superstar player has a strong influence on who else will sign with the team. KAT gets D'Angelo Russell traded to the Wolves because they're pals which gives the Wolves a second star player and creates pressure for the Suns because their big star, Devin Booker, is also tight with KAT and D'Angelo, where they've all promised to play together at some point. That's a low key version of the kind of thing LeBron gets to do when he signs with a team, bringing in his chosen pals, it's what's at play on the Nets with Kyrie and Durant joining up and at work with many other teams as well.
Butler was shuffled around even though he's obviously a premier talent because he didn't like the fit with the teams he found and had the ability to pressure the teams into trading him, something that isn't nearly so easy or common in MLB save for the players final year under contract when the team might know whether or not they're likely to re-sign with the club and will try and get something for them if not, like the Sox did with Mookie Betts.
This all irks some fans, but I think that kind of balance between players and owners is far preferable to the MLB monopoly system. The NBA is always going to be more imbalanced than MLB or the NFL due to how the games work, but MLB could really stand to get something closer to the relationship the NBA has since they're much better able to work out differences productively and even have league management actively addressing concerns outside the league that the players bring up. But MLB is far more conservative in its viewership and structure, so even though there are some owners that might be willing to go a bit down that path, the majority of MLB ownership would rather chance collapse rather than give in, and the NFL is worse.
posted by gusottertrout at 8:04 PM on November 14, 2020
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posted by warriorqueen at 11:32 AM on November 13, 2020 [15 favorites]