It finally hit me. The reasons why the game of baseball is in decline.
Teams have special coaches, labs, and stat sheets on each player. Baseball has attempted to squeeze the game into a series of numbers.
Teams can use methods to strengthen a pitcher's arm, to increase the velocity of pitches and to increase the amount of spin on the ball. But they do not teach how to pitch at the pro level.
Teams can measure bat speed, exit velocity and launch angles for hitters. But they do not teach how to make contact, how to hit in situations or how to advance runners.
Teams have done little to increase techniques in fielding. Teams have given up on teaching base running skills. Those are lost skill sets.
Baseball is a rare sport where the defense starts the action of each play. One would think it would be an advantage to improve your defense in order to win more games.
The analytical side of baseball is driving the sport towards extinction. Players get paid because of their stats. Teams allegedly win because they use stats, the probabilities, on each play. Teams use the shift because of the stats of a hitter's spray chart. And batters keep grounding into the shift because they refuse to hit to the opposite field because their stats say power is in the pull field.
Early this season, the Cubs bemoaned the fact that a team of good hitters could not string two hits in a row. The experts and talking heads were at a loss on why. The reason is simple: the Cubs lack any .300 hitters. Contact hitters who can get on base. To put pressure on the opposing pitcher and defense. The Cubs have had no .300 hitter in the regular line up for years. It is a glaring hole in the line up but in the analytical world, batting average is a relic from the past. Strike outs are not cursed anymore because home runs are viewed as the most efficient scoring device. So the Cubs have a philosophy of home run swing or bust. And bust it is most of the time.
Baseball is an ebb of flow of action and pauses. The pauses give fans an opportunity to digest the situation, the strategy and react. The drama, the contact of the bat to the ball, happens in a blink of an eye, as players scatter around the field in a century old ballet of roles. But the tenor of the sport now mirrors a video game, a series of computer coded numbers and very few different outcomes.
Baseball has always been about numbers. Sacred numbers. But numbers are leading it to its downfall.
