Star Trib Series on New Era of Analytical Baseball

[jkcarew]

 

My point was about a certain demographics being less interested in paying for baseball.

 

The vast majority of your money coming from 50 and 60 year olds is only sustainable if the next generation will maintain it.  I don't believe it will.

Agreed, looking at current trends.  The other (actually related) reason citing current revenue misses the point:

 

Attendance is declining.  Attendance is your leading indicator of health.  In the long term revenue growth will track attendance growth (or lack thereof).

 

Baseball can act now when the game is simply showing some unfavorable symptoms, or they can stick their head in the sand and wait until it's kinda too late to recover.

 

 

[jkcarew]

 

Your statement was that people are less interested in paying for baseball. They hit record revenue marks. Someone is interested in (and currently is) paying for baseball. Feel free to elaborate on your statement otherwise I'm going to continue to assume I hit the point.

Nope.

It's a risky bet that revenue, in the long term, won't track with attendance.  And the attendance picture is not stellar by any stretch.  And the rating pictures are holding their own...but in an increasingly competitive and fragmented market.

[Vanimal46]

The Show is an outstanding sports game. In terms of quality, it is ridiculously good.

 

Perhaps the low sales are, again, an indicator of a deeper problem.

The Show is a PlayStation only game, so they're missing out on all of the Xbox players. Like all sports games, it's become stagnant over the years... But I can understand why. Hard deadlines to hit when it's a yearly release. More often than not, a new sports game is a fancy roster update and maybe a new feature.

[TheLeviathan]

 

The Show is a PlayStation only game, so they're missing out on all of the Xbox players. Like all sports games, it's become stagnant over the years... But I can understand why. Hard deadlines to hit when it's a yearly release. More often than not, a new sports game is a fancy roster update and maybe a new feature.

 

All true, but Playstation owns the video game console market.  And in terms of games that give a good representation of their sport....it holds up very well.

 

But it isn't even close to Madden or NBA2K.  Every sports fan has those, MLB The Show is more like the NHL product.  That, in and of itself, ought to tell you something.

[Platoon]

I think asking non-baseball fans if they like the changes in the game is a non-starter. 

 

I personally believe if a non-baseball fan is not interested in baseball, no amount of changes will convince that group otherwise.

 

Yes. Like someone asking me about NASCAR or soccer. I cannot conceive of a change in either of those sports that would cause me to read about them.

[Platoon]

MLB reached a new revenue record in 2017 ($10 billion). People are paying for baseball.

 

I do agree that ballpark prices have pushed away numerous people. Here's the other thing about the attendance decline -- I think MLB teams are fine with *some*. They don't really care about the fans in the cheap seats who may get a popcorn and soda and leave early to get their kids into bed. They want the people paying for the luxury gated community experience who then drop a ton of coin at the bars and restaurants inside the stadium. The cost of a gameday may be prohibitive to the average income family of four but that's a seemingly minor overall per ticket spend inside the gate.

 

While I am not arguing your point, could you define revenue? Meaning is the revenue "fan" driven, or corporate driven. I know there is a crossover, as corporations spend money where it impacts customers. I think another benchmark on baseballs popularity may be right here in front of us. There are quite a few baseball oriented people here who are not really happy with the game as it has evolved over the last 4 or so years. The fact that it's a hot topic, and the fact that we are discussing it is proof of that fact.

[djvang]

I put a lot of the blame for long games and lack of action on the "work the count" mentality that has taken root over the past several years. Hearing people say that a ten pitch at-bat that results in an out is a "good" at-bat drives me crazy. How about getting a hit on the first pitch? Stop taking all those strikes. The emphasis seems to be on getting the starting pitcher out of the game via pitch count rather than scoring runs. There might well be stats that back up the "work the count" approach but it's incredibly BORING to watch. It leads to the parade of relief pitchers that slows the game down even more. It's just not entertaining to watch and fans are leaving.

 

I don't know what the answer is. Some people have mentioned going to three balls and two strikes but that would play havoc with historical records. We need more Eddie Rosarios and less Joe Mauers and Robbie Grossmans. Bring back "see ball, hit ball".

[Shaitan]

Treating trends as symptoms of a disease is as old as baseball itself.

[ashbury]

They don't really care about the fans in the cheap seats who may get a popcorn and soda and leave early to get their kids into bed. They want the people paying for the luxury gated community experience ...

Here's the thing, though, and it's got analogies to every business I've been around: you can't micromanage where that big-ticket revenue comes from. The little guys matter a lot. For a couple of reasons... 1) the big fish today in many cases were the little fish 20 years ago... 2) part of what makes the big-fish experience fun is that the little-fish are taking part. Singing Sweet Caroline in the luxury box at Fenway during the eighth inning is a lot more fun when another 30,000 are singing along.

 

Of course you are right that the luxury experience needs to be looked after, and you can't invest that same effort in the cheap seats. But business geniuses who can exploit the bottom line in the current year are a dime a dozen when they ignore the fundamentals. I don't think that's quite what you were saying, but it was uncomfortably close. My view is that if you take unexpectedly good care of your smallest customers, some of the angst about losing the big-revenue customers magically goes away.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

People say the game has gotten too long. The game is 11 minutes longer on average this season than it was in 1991. No one is actually noticing that difference.

This is a very misleading statement/argument.

 

First of all, 1991 was the record MLB game length at the time, up 10 minutes per 9 inning game over just 6 years prior. Using that as a point of comparison for 2018 distorts the difference -- like if I gradually started parking my car closer to yours every day for a month, you might not notice the change over the first 2 weeks, and the change over the last 2 weeks might be equal to that from the first 2 -- but you'd darn well notice the total change by the end of the month. (Yes, I parked too close to someone's car this morning )

 

Second of all, choosing 1991 implies that there has been a gradual increase spread over 27 years, which isn't true. Aside from a spike in the height of the sillyball era (2000), the average time of 9 inning games remained within a few minutes of that 1991 figure as recently as 2011. The increase "since 1991" has been concentrated in the last 7 years, which is much easier to notice.

 

Thirdly, for Twins fans (and I think the majority of us here are watching Twins games almost exclusively), the averages are much worse than the league averages. 9 inning Twins games in 1991 averaged only 2:42, and in 2018 they are 3:06 -- a 24 minute per game difference! Just since 2011, the Twins difference is a whopping +18 minutes per 9 inning game.

 

Using the average might understate the difference too -- it's not necessarily a uniform +18 minutes for every game, but instead it could create a larger range and more variance in game times. If the time of game is less predictable, it becomes more noticeable.

 

Another change since 1991 is the unbalanced schedule -- 9:10 West Coast games are simply ignored by many fans, regardless of time of game. Replacing them on the Twins schedule with 7:10 starts that don't end until close to 10:30 calls further attention to the length of the modern game. (Thanks to Cleveland and Detroit, the Twins have roughly the same number of East Coast starts as before, but losing some of those could be a factor for other teams too.)

 

And if you'd rather express it as a problem of pace than time, keep in mind they are related. Adjusting the batting gloves between every pitch adds up -- see this study of comparable games from 1984 and 2014, that found the time increase between "inaction pitches" (pitches where contact wasn’t made, and the pitcher received a return throw from the catcher) alone accounted for 25 minutes difference:

 

https://www.sbnation.com/a/mlb-2017-season-preview/game-length

[Parker Hageman]

First of all, 1991 was the record MLB game length at the time, up 10 minutes per 9 inning game over just 6 years prior. Using that as a point of comparison for 2018 distorts the difference -- like if I gradually started parking my car closer to yours every day for a month, you might not notice the change over the first 2 weeks, and the change over the last 2 weeks might be equal to that from the first 2 -- but you'd darn well notice the total change by the end of the month. (Yes, I parked too close to someone's car this morning )

 

 

In a roundabout way, this is exactly my point. 

 

It's a gradual increase that no one actually notices in the moment. In your analogy -- the parked car -- you have two points of reference to make a judgment that you can compare and contrast in the moment. There is a physical and visual comparison between two parked cars that someone might be able to recall (even then, their recollection will often fail them), trying to measure how different increments of time feels is not something people can do. It's why frogs boil when heat is turned up gradually.  

 

Humans are not able to actually feel the 11 minutes added to their game compared to the 1991 season*  or 25 minute increase from 1984 or the 10 minute increase from 2010. No one can say, you know what, it FEELS like I've been here 15 minutes longer than when I did this same thing 27 years ago. It's just not something people are capable of doing (given the average age of a baseball fan, they are lucky if they can remember what they had for breakfast let alone how it felt to sit in the Metrodome or watch on MSC). So when people complain that games have gotten long, it's that they are repeating a data-driven narrative and not something that actually can compare against a decade ago. 

 

That being said....

 

When an average** goes up, it obviously means there are more chances for someone to attend/watch games that draaaaaaag (not unlike the 19-6 Rays game last Saturday) and more opportunity for people to make the claim that games are too long. People will absolutely remember watching or attending those games. The Twins have already had 11 9-inning games go past the 3:30 mark. The 1991 Twins did not have any. 

 

Look at the Twins' longest 9-inning game this year (4 hours even in a 15-9 loss to the Reds) compared to the longest game in 1991 (a crisp 3 hour 27 minute 15-9 spanking by the Angels).

 

Like the SB Nation example, the similarities of the game are crazy:

• The Twins gave up 21 hits to both opponents.
• The Twins had 14 hits vs the Reds and 13 hits vs the Angels.
• In the 1991 game, 10 pitchers were used. In the 2018 game 12 pitchers were used. 
• In the 1991 game, there were 12 balls in play on the first pitch. In the 2018 game, there were 13 balls in play on the first pitch. 
• In the 1991 game, there were 6 HR (Dave Winfield hit 3). In the 2018 game, there were 5. 
• In the 1991 game, there was 11 K. In the 2018 game, there were 17.
• In the 1991 game, there were 8 3-2 counts. In the 2018 game, there were 16.
• In the 1991 game, there were 357 pitches thrown. In the 2018 game, there were 378 pitches thrown.

Biggest differences? There were six (6!) mid-inning pitching changes in the 2018 game. There were 2 mid-inning moves in the 1991 game. There was also a sweet officials' review of Morrison's home run (there goes 3 minutes right there!). Add in those time between pitches and it's pretty easy to see how a game can add 30 minutes to the game length. 

 

I wholeheartedly agree that the in-game delays (pitching changes and time between pitches) can make the action drag which is what people actually *feel* when they say the games have gotten too long (even if some games are the exact same length as games played 5, 10, 20 years ago). The added mid-inning pitching changes certainly makes everything slow down and most of those happen at the back-end of a baseball game.   

 

* By the way, I selected 1991 as a point because most Twins fans on this board who were (1) alive and (2) watching that team would probably agree it was a good year to pay attention. 

** We should probably looking at the median, tbh.

[MileHighTwinsFan]

The ASG for me embodied what the game has become, an increasingly one dimensional game singularly focused on the home run.   I am very comfortable with the use of analytics - but think the game has to make changes to, quite literally, change the equation.   I don't think rule changes to prevent shifts are the answer. 

 

I believe the other critical factor is the level of athleticism of current players.  The hitters are clearly too strong for the dimensions of the current ballparks.  If a 5" 5" second baseman can hit 24 homers - you know that the needle has moved on the strength of current ballplayers.      By simply moving the fences back and/or higher - you will change the analytics to reduce the benefit of always going for the home run.

 

By reducing the likelihood of the home run, you will place greater value on players that hit to all fields, move runners over and run the bases.   I also think bigger ball parks will tap into the amazing speed and agility of players.    Think about how much more valuable a speedy outfielder that can get to balls in the gap and in turn lay down bunts and steal bases would be.  

 

I think changing the dimensions of the field will not only result in more balls in play, but more excitement with triples, hit and runs, amazing catches and exciting relays.     

[Mike Sixel]

 

The ASG for me embodied what the game has become, an increasingly one dimensional game singularly focused on the home run.   I am very comfortable with the use of analytics - but think the game has to make changes to, quite literally, change the equation.   I don't think rule changes to prevent shifts are the answer. 

 

I believe the other critical factor is the level of athleticism of current players.  The hitters are clearly too strong for the dimensions of the current ballparks.  If a 5" 5" second baseman can hit 24 homers - you know that the needle has moved on the strength of current ballplayers.      By simply moving the fences back and/or higher - you will change the analytics to reduce the benefit of always going for the home run.

 

By reducing the likelihood of the home run, you will place greater value on players that hit to all fields, move runners over and run the bases.   I also think bigger ball parks will tap into the amazing speed and agility of players.    Think about how much more valuable a speedy outfielder that can get to balls in the gap and in turn lay down bunts and steal bases would be.  

 

I think changing the dimensions of the field will not only result in more balls in play, but more excitement with triples, hit and runs, amazing catches and exciting relays.     

 

Kind of how I feel about the NBA......the dimensions are the same as when 5 9 white guys were all the rage.....

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

In a roundabout way, this is exactly my point. 

 

It's a gradual increase that no one actually notices in the moment. In your analogy -- the parked car -- you have two points of reference to make a judgment that you can compare and contrast in the moment. There is a physical and visual comparison between two parked cars that someone might be able to recall (even then, their recollection will often fail them), trying to measure how different increments of time feels is not something people can do. It's why frogs boil when heat is turned up gradually.  

 

Humans are not able to actually feel the 11 minutes added to their game compared to the 1991 season*  or 25 minute increase from 1984 or the 10 minute increase from 2010. No one can say, you know what, it FEELS like I've been here 15 minutes longer than when I did this same thing 27 years ago. It's just not something people are capable of doing (given the average age of a baseball fan, they are lucky if they can remember what they had for breakfast let alone how it felt to sit in the Metrodome or watch on MSC). So when people complain that games have gotten long, it's that they are repeating a data-driven narrative and not something that actually can compare against a decade ago. 

 

...

 

** We should probably looking at the median, tbh.

 

I think people are more capable of judging time of game than you think. Relative to something like a person's bedtime, or when they get home from the stadium, it's not hard to notice.

 

Median Twins 9-inning game in 1991 was 2:44; even in 2011, that figure was only 2:46. 3 years later (2014), it was already 3:02, and so far is 3:07 for 2018. Yes, people are fully capable of noticing that change over that time frame. I took kids to games both then and now and the difference is quite stark.

 

I have no qualms with primarily expressing it as a pace/inaction problem, but the time of game explosion is also an acceptable shorthand.

[MileHighTwinsFan]

 

Kind of how I feel about the NBA......the dimensions are the same as when 5 9 white guys were all the rage.....

 

At least the NBA created the 3-point line to enable players like Steph Curry to become superstars.  Frankly, the NBA should move the 3 point line further back to put more emphasis back on the big man.  

[Parker Hageman]

I think people are more capable of judging time of game than you think. Relative to something like a person's bedtime, or when they get home from the stadium, it's not hard to notice.

 

Median Twins 9-inning game in 1991 was 2:44; even in 2011, that figure was only 2:46. 3 years later (2014), it was already 3:02, and so far is 3:07 for 2018. Yes, people are fully capable of noticing that change over that time frame. I took kids to games both then and now and the difference is quite stark.

 

 

You are trying to suggest that you remember leaving a 1 PM game in 2011 at 3:46 PM (or 9:46 PM for a 7 PMer) and thinking, that was a good amount of time. But this season, leaving at 4:07 PM (or 10:07 PM) you somehow feel how much longer that game was? I'm sorry, that's not happening. 

 

In order to move this conversation forward, agree to disagree on that aspect. 

 

While everyone lately has been trying to figure out ways to tear the game down, here are two good reads on why things are better. 

 

https://nypost.com/2018/07/17/baseballs-glory-days-are-right-now-and-its-amazing-to-see/

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/all-star-game-is-a-fine-time-to-assess-mlbs-issues-and-its-problems-are-manageable/2018/07/17/ff04efd6-89e9-11e8-8aea-86e88ae760d8_story.html?utm_term=.b3a0415e17a8

 

[ashbury]

I think changing the dimensions of the field will not only result in more balls in play, but more excitement with triples, hit and runs, amazing catches and exciting relays.     

Many urban ballparks are the dimension they are because of land acquisition issues. Target Field's footprint, for instance, was just enough to squeeze a baseball diamond onto.

 

Easier than monkeying with field dimensions would be to remove 5% of the juice from the baseball. The ball has been adjusted through the years - no reason it couldn't be adjusted again if TPTB decide there are too many home runs. They could even, for once, acknowledge what's being done.

[Vanimal46]

You are trying to suggest that you remember leaving a 1 PM game in 2011 at 3:46 PM (or 9:46 PM for a 7 PMer) and thinking, that was a good amount of time. But this season, leaving at 4:07 PM (or 10:07 PM) you somehow feel how much longer that game was? I'm sorry, that's not happening.

 

In order to move this conversation forward, agree to disagree on that aspect.

 

While everyone lately has been trying to figure out ways to tear the game down, here are two good reads on why things are better.

 

https://nypost.com/2018/07/17/baseballs-glory-days-are-right-now-and-its-amazing-to-see/

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/all-star-game-is-a-fine-time-to-assess-mlbs-issues-and-its-problems-are-manageable/2018/07/17/ff04efd6-89e9-11e8-8aea-86e88ae760d8_story.html?utm_term=.b3a0415e17a8

If this is a golden age of baseball, why don't people know more about it and the awesome players?

 

I agree that there are a ton of young stars in the league. But we know very little about them compared to athletes in other sports.

[Otto von Ballpark]

You are trying to suggest that you remember leaving a 1 PM game in 2011 at 3:46 PM (or 9:46 PM for a 7 PMer) and thinking, that was a good amount of time. But this season, leaving at 4:07 PM (or 10:07 PM) you somehow feel how much longer that game was? I'm sorry, that's not happening.

 

In order to move this conversation forward, agree to disagree on that aspect.

 

No, I remember going to 7:10 games with kids and having good odds of actually finishing the game before I had to start taking them home by the appointed time of 10 PM.

 

I also remember asking my wife if I could put a game on for our evening's entertainment and having a good chance of seeing it to its conclusion before a 10 PM bedtime.

 

In order to move this conversation forward, quit making up weird hypotheticals and applying them to me.

 

What's your point anyway? Someone says "the games feel longer" and indeed, factually, they are longer, and you think it is constructive to say "sorry, no human could possibly FEEL that way"?

 

I mean, either way you want to frame it (longer game times or slower pace), the solutions are going to be the same. Quicken the pace and you will have shorter game times.

[Sarah]

One of the things I thought was interesting about the series is when they talked about how the NBA is overtaking baseball in popularity among young people. I was just thinking about this because I went to a sports analytics conference in June and there were a LOT of presentations about basketball statistics. Basketball is my winter sport but I don't follow the NBA closely (mostly watch college and prep basketball) so I guess I don't know but I'm wondering if the same thing will happen in the NBA at some point - people will be complaining that all of this analysis is taking over the game? Or will it not matter since (as some have mentioned) basketball is better at marketing its players so people will still be interested? 

[Mike Sixel]

 

One of the things I thought was interesting about the series is when they talked about how the NBA is overtaking baseball in popularity among young people. I was just thinking about this because I went to a sports analytics conference in June and there were a LOT of presentations about basketball statistics. Basketball is my winter sport but I don't follow the NBA closely (mostly watch college and prep basketball) so I guess I don't know but I'm wondering if the same thing will happen in the NBA at some point - people will be complaining that all of this analysis is taking over the game? Or will it not matter since (as some have mentioned) basketball is better at marketing its players so people will still be interested? 

 

I think the NBA has a couple advantages (and I am not an NBA fan at all):

 

1. They market the heck out of the game and players

2. They have personality and emotion, like it or not, people like stories and the NBA has stories. MLB? Not much at all, in terms of emotions and feelings and stuff that people relate to.

3. Even with analytics teaching them that the 3 makes sense (man, I told people that years ago, and they said I was wrong due to all the old myths, just like baseball used to....), their is still as much action as there was before. That's the delta right now....baseball has less "action" if action is ball in play that has to be defended. Even when a dude is standing there dribbling, other players are moving around and stuff is happening. NOTHING is happening when a dude steps out of the box to adjust his gloves every pitch, and we have 10-20 seconds between pitches. That's almost the shot clock in the NBA.....

[Mike Sixel]

there, their, they're....sigh.

[Vanimal46]

I think the NBA has a couple advantages (and I am not an NBA fan at all):

 

1. They market the heck out of the game and players

2. They have personality and emotion, like it or not, people like stories and the NBA has stories. MLB? Not much at all, in terms of emotions and feelings and stuff that people relate to.

3. Even with analytics teaching them that the 3 makes sense (man, I told people that years ago, and they said I was wrong due to all the old myths, just like baseball used to....), their is still as much action as there was before. That's the delta right now....baseball has less "action" if action is ball in play that has to be defended. Even when a dude is standing there dribbling, other players are moving around and stuff is happening. NOTHING is happening when a dude steps out of the box to adjust his gloves every pitch, and we have 10-20 seconds between pitches. That's almost the shot clock in the NBA.....

Agree with all of this. The NBA is taking a page out of the NFL's playbook embracing emotions and drama to stay in the news cycle.

 

Even as a non-basketball fan like you it's hard to avoid seeing that Demar DeRozen hates being traded to San Antonio... Or this star wants to play with his buddy on another team.

[TheLeviathan]

I thoroughly dislike much of the product the NBA puts out, but there is no question they know how to appeal to young people.

 

I guarantee you that if you polled ten year olds across the country you'd find a ratio of 10:1 on this question:

 

Do you know more members of the Golden State Warriors or your local MLB team.

 

10:1 might be generous.  Really, really generous.  I might put that number closer to 50:1.