NY Times: The Endangered Species of Baseball

[pacopete4]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/03/sports/baseball/baseballs-endangered-numbers.html

 

Good read. Thought I'd share.

[jerichoholicninja]

Based off of the title I expected that article to be the 1000th article about the dwindling popularity of and participation in baseball so I was pleasantly surprised to be wrong. However, the article read like another "the game used to be better" and "nerds are ruining baseball" article. None of those pitching numbers will be met again but someone will steal 75 bases, there will be another 40/40 season, and the Cubs actually will actually win a World Series eventually.

[homer]

Based off of the title I expected that article to be the 1000th article about the dwindling popularity of and participation in baseball so I was pleasantly surprised to be wrong. However, the article read like another "the game used to be better" and "nerds are ruining baseball" article. None of those pitching numbers will be met again but someone will steal 75 bases, there will be another 40/40 season, and the Cubs actually will actually win a World Series eventually.

 

 

Poppycock!

[pacopete4]

Based off of the title I expected that article to be the 1000th article about the dwindling popularity of and participation in baseball so I was pleasantly surprised to be wrong. However, the article read like another "the game used to be better" and "nerds are ruining baseball" article. None of those pitching numbers will be met again but someone will steal 75 bases, there will be another 40/40 season, and the Cubs actually will actually win a World Series eventually.

 

 

Poppycock!

 

 

LANGUAGE!

[endaround]

Oh no, no one will challenge Juan Pierre's sac bunt achievement!

 

I mean that was a very weird list. 100 innings for a reliever? Who cares? 250 innings for a starter? Yep, things changed. 75 steals will happen. A 40/40 season will happen.

[gregmag]

Really fun read; thanks for posting. I didn't take the article as being very argumentative. I'm a total analytics nerd, so I wouldn't like the argument. I think it's mainly descriptive, using changing statistical benchmarks as a window into how the game has changed.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Really fun read; thanks for posting. I didn't take the article as being very argumentative. I'm a total analytics nerd, so I wouldn't like the argument. I think it's mainly descriptive, using changing statistical benchmarks as a window into how the game has changed.

 

 

That's kind of how I took it, just saying "the game has changed, and because of it, some of these former benchmarks will likely not be challenged"

 

I didn't take it as saying it's a good or a bad thing, just a thing.

[SRB]

I could see everything on that list happening again. The difficult ones would be the IP totals, given how the game has changed, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a swing back away from overprotectionist pitcher workloads sometime in the relatively near future.

 

Maybe teams are stealing bases less, but Billy Hamilton would already have 75+ if he could actually maintain a >.300 OBP. He had 57 last season with more than 300 less PA and an OBP 80 points lower than Jose Reyes' in '07

[DuWayne Steurer]

Yeah, the stolen base thing is cyclical. In the 40's and 50's players weren't stealing bases much at all. From '45 to '59, nobody stole 50 in a single season. In the 60's and 70's, as offense started to wane and players like Lou Brock, Ricky Henderson, Willie Wilson, Tim Raines, etc became valued, the stolen base became valued again.

 

Offense is on a decline again. We'll see if it continues. The NL avg runs per game in 2015 was just a smidge over 4 runs per game last year. The AL was slightly higher. If that trend continues, teams will look for ways to manufacture runs again.

 

FWIW, Billy Hamilton for all his speed needs to not get caught so much. 57/20 is not a great sb rate, especially when you're already OBP'ing a putrid .270-ish rate. Not making 20 outs on the bases is more important than being at 2nd base.

[Ennder]

This article was all over the place and seemed to lack any real purpose.

[Boomer5]

They had a great piece on NPR last week about the pitching elbow and how it physically cant handle today's high velocity pitching.

 

I would tend to think unless pitching changes, the days of the 250-300 inning pitcher are gone.

[Samurai Bucky]

Nice mention of Paul Quantrill -- one of the last players to don a Wisconsin Badgers jersey.