Some things that will make this season interesting

[DrungoHazewood]

20 hours ago, wildcard said:

I think the whole decrease in attendance across MLB is over blown.   MLB is likely to expand by at least two teams in the next 5 years.   That will be an increase in fans for at least 5M fans a year.  If MLB is able to fix Rays and Athletics ball park problems there will probably be increases in attendance from that.  

• It's not so much total attendance as it is per-game, which is down about 12-13% from the 2008 high.
• And that's not particularly alarming, except when combined with the fact that the median age of a baseball fan is 55, and among people under 40 baseball is the 4th most popular sport to watch
• We are apparently well past the point where nice stadiums have enough of an impact to overcome quality of team.  The 90s stadium honeymoon is a distant memory.  Miami is a train wreck, and KC, the Orioles, Detroit, Pittsburgh, the White Sox... all kind of struggling with drawing fans.  And Cleveland might be most worrying, with a 90+ win team barely clearing 20k a game.  Several of these teams' attendances are off by half compared to 20 years ago.

Baseball isn't dying, but it has some negative trends it needs to try to address.

[Il BuonO]

On 6/24/2020 at 3:01 PM, Tony-OH said:

The only issue I have with the new rules is the extra innings rule. Having a runner on second base to start extras is dumb. Who gets the runs scored? Does the pitcher get an earned run when the runner scores from second even though he didn't allow him there?

Love adding the universal DH an hope that stays, but count me against the extra innings. I'd honestly rather just say you can play up to 12 innings then it's a tie.

The run is unearned, scored as if the runner had reached on an error.

I can’t link it, but it’s on the MLB website for 6/23 under the heading “FAQ: All you need to know about 2020....“

 

[Frobby]

On 6/26/2020 at 8:12 AM, Sports Guy said:

In the case of the runner on second, yes I think they should ignore fans if they like it.  Lots of fans like the college football OT..doesn’t mean it’s good.  
 

 

I’m not sure I get this line of thinking.    If most fans like it, why not do it?    Why is a change like that objectively “good” or “bad?”    It’s just a matter of what fans decide they prefer.     

Personally, I have mixed feelings on it.    It certainly would shorten games that are already running long, and add some excitement by making the chance of a run scoring higher.    But at the same time, it’s artificial.  It changes the way the game has been played for the first 9 innings.    At the end of the day, I’d be fine with trying it.     
 

[Woody Held]

I hate the runner on second proposal.  I know I am a dinosaur in age but typical if you make a change for good I may not like it but will  accepted it over time.  However, as unlikely as this is to happen answer me this question.

A pitcher  takes a perfect game into the 10th inning. The runner on second advances to third on a bunt, scores on a sacrifice fly and the third out comes via strikeout. His team doesn’t score in the bottom of the 10th.

He loses 1-0 , but hasn’t given up a hit or a walk, faced the minimum 30 batters , yet loses.

Would this be a perfect game?

 

 

[Just Regular]

I think I saw on the MLB crawl the runner on 2nd is not in effect for the postseason, but I suppose for Team Chaos to stress test the concept, it could come up in a Game 60 (training brain not to say Game 162), or a playoff game for a wildcard berth or division title.

[foxfield]

 

[wildcard]

4 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

• It's not so much total attendance as it is per-game, which is down about 12-13% from the 2008 high.
• And that's not particularly alarming, except when combined with the fact that the median age of a baseball fan is 55, and among people under 40 baseball is the 4th most popular sport to watch
• We are apparently well past the point where nice stadiums have enough of an impact to overcome quality of team.  The 90s stadium honeymoon is a distant memory.  Miami is a train wreck, and KC, the Orioles, Detroit, Pittsburgh, the White Sox... all kind of struggling with drawing fans.  And Cleveland might be most worrying, with a 90+ win team barely clearing 20k a game.  Several of these teams' attendances are off by half compared to 20 years ago.

Baseball isn't dying, but it has some negative trends it needs to try to address.

I wonder what the average age is in Baltimore with Kids Cheer Free.   I think its a good concept to build a young fan base across the league.

I think with expansion baseball would reverses the downward trend in overall attendance.  I am in favor of that.

I think the New CBA will try to persuade teams not  to tank.   Its hard to build attendance when the team is telegraphing that they are not built to win now.

[foxfield]

2 hours ago, wildcard said:

I wonder what the average age is in Baltimore with Kids Cheer Free.   I think its a good concept to build a young fan base across the league.

I think with expansion baseball would reverses the downward trend in overall attendance.  I am in favor of that.

I think the New CBA will try to persuade teams not  to tank.   Its hard to build attendance when the team is telegraphing that they are not built to win now.

As long as the Yankees have access to the cash cow media machine in a way the rest of the league does not, teams will rebuild by tearing down and starting over, opponents can call it tanking because in a way it is, but that is the corollary not the primary reason.

[SteveA]

Major league opener will be Yankees at Nats on Thursday 7/23.  There will be another game that night, probably someone (Hou?) At the Dodgers.  The rest of us will open the next night.

Yankees at Nats will likely be a World Series Game 1 rematch, Cole vs Scherzer.

[survivedc]

11 hours ago, wildcard said:

I wonder what the average age is in Baltimore with Kids Cheer Free.   I think its a good concept to build a young fan base across the league.

I think with expansion baseball would reverses the downward trend in overall attendance.  I am in favor of that.

I think the New CBA will try to persuade teams not  to tank.   Its hard to build attendance when the team is telegraphing that they are not built to win now.

Tanking seems to be the big thing. The teams that are winning or even mediocre have respectable plus numbers. Some tanking teams have had huge losses in the fans department most notably Miami who has lost 10k fans per game over a couple year decline. 
Further, it isn’t as if there has been some huge drop from attendance glory days. Attendance has been somewhat of a roller coaster throughout the 2000’s and IMO making some slight corrections could stabilize what attendance drops we have seen.

[DrungoHazewood]

6 hours ago, survivedc said:

Some tanking teams have had huge losses in the fans department most notably Miami who has lost 10k fans per game over a couple year decline.

I think the Marlins poisoned the fanbase in '98 and '04, and continue to drive them away not so much with tanking but with not having a winning record since 2009.  They're in a similar spot to the 2010 Orioles.  A seemingly long way to go to relevance, and it's been a very long time since they were any good.  And the last/only two times they've ever made the playoffs ownership started selling off their winning team almost before the champagne was cleaned up.

I don't really know much about the local attitude towards the Marlins and their owners, but I'd guess there was a negative impact from multiple failed stadium referendums followed by one where (from wiki) "The stadium's public-funding plan led to a protracted lawsuit, largely contributed to the ouster of several local politicians, and triggered an SEC investigation. As revelations of the team's finances and their handling of payroll (both before and after construction) seemed to contradict some of the premises on which the tax-funded-stadium deal were based, the ballpark controversy intensified."

There have always been posters here who said they'd rather have the Marlins' model than the O's, because flags fly forever and they got two Series since the O's had their last one.  But now more than ever I think that's foolish.  I wouldn't be in any way pleased with two trophies that happened two decades ago if the fanbase is dead or dormant, much of the city is bitter or ambivalent towards them, and the team is in the midst of a 1998-2011 Orioles kind of run, and seemingly at the bottom right now.

[DrungoHazewood]

7 hours ago, survivedc said:

Tanking seems to be the big thing.

Are there even any rumors about doing something about that?  I don't recall any.  They could try any number of things like a draft lottery, or basing pool money on how close you get to .500, or reducing revenue sharing payments if you fall below 70 wins, or a salary floor, or any number of other ideas from the reasonable-but-less-likely-to-be-effective to the very-effective-but-nearly-impossible-to-get-owners-to-agree-to. 

One of a large number of issues that have plausible solutions, but someone just has to have the fortitude to advocate for and then implement.  This one is going to be hard because the rich teams kind of like tanking, because it gives them a bunch of nearly automatic wins and revenues, and nobody thinks big picture or long term for the league or the sport as a whole.  And the tanking teams like tanking because it saves them money, allows them to concentrate on development, and there's no fear of anything ever happening to their franchise.  At least until they start winning and there aren't any fans left to come back...

[DrungoHazewood]

22 hours ago, Woody Held said:

However, as unlikely as this is to happen answer me this question.

A pitcher  takes a perfect game into the 10th inning...

Yes, I think so.  But don't worry about it.  Cliff Lee pitched 10 innings in 2012, that's the last time a pitcher pitched into extras.  Before that it was 2007.  The odds of a 2020 pitcher throwing a 10-inning perfect game are about the same as the odds of Mark Trumbo having two inside the park homers in a game in 2020. Or of Nick Markakis turning an unassisted triple play from RF.  Or of Hanser Alberto having a five-homer game.

[eddie83]

9 hours ago, survivedc said:

Tanking seems to be the big thing. The teams that are winning or even mediocre have respectable plus numbers. Some tanking teams have had huge losses in the fans department most notably Miami who has lost 10k fans per game over a couple year decline. 
Further, it isn’t as if there has been some huge drop from attendance glory days. Attendance has been somewhat of a roller coaster throughout the 2000’s and IMO making some slight corrections could stabilize what attendance drops we have seen.

Tanking to me is perhaps the most overblown topic in baseball. It’s being driven by the players union and the media. Apparently teams like the Orioles would be more competitive signing at best middle and lower level FA’s to contracts. Few talented players make their way into FA anymore with the aging curve of the sport and the top FA’s are being sought after by the good teams.

The thing is if Hanser Alberto signs for $7M last year the Orioles in some people’s minds would get credit for that. Instead they bring him in as a AAAA player and he has a nice season. It’s not about the productivity of the player it’s about how much money he is making.  

[eddie83]

3 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Are there even any rumors about doing something about that?  I don't recall any.  They could try any number of things like a draft lottery, or basing pool money on how close you get to .500, or reducing revenue sharing payments if you fall below 70 wins, or a salary floor, or any number of other ideas from the reasonable-but-less-likely-to-be-effective to the very-effective-but-nearly-impossible-to-get-owners-to-agree-to. 

One of a large number of issues that have plausible solutions, but someone just has to have the fortitude to advocate for and then implement.  This one is going to be hard because the rich teams kind of like tanking, because it gives them a bunch of nearly automatic wins and revenues, and nobody thinks big picture or long term for the league or the sport as a whole.  And the tanking teams like tanking because it saves them money, allows them to concentrate on development, and there's no fear of anything ever happening to their franchise.  At least until they start winning and there aren't any fans left to come back...

Maybe it’s me but when the Pirates had 20 consecutive losing seasons, the Orioles 14, Tigers 12, Rays 10 and the Royals 17 out of 18 things were much worse when this was all basically happening at the same time.

The Marlins are at 10 and the Padres are at 9 consecutive losing seasons. The Padres have certainly spent a ton of money recently. The Marlins have just been inept.