A Plea For A Departure From The Dumbification Of Baseball

Source: http://ift.tt/IsN8HP --- Saturday, November 04, 2017
In the Rob Manfred era, Baseball has become a “three true outcome” sport featuring record numbers of homeruns and strikeouts. If you believe Justin Verlander, slicker baseballs leading to “slippery sliders” are a culprit. If you ask the increasing number of pitchers succumbing to blisters, you might conclude that the ball’s seams are different. Whatever it is, Baseball is getting less interesting even as its games are sometimes epically compelling (see games 3 and 5 of the World Series). “Three true outcome” players — hitters who so often either HR, K, or BB — are ok. An entire game of it, however, misses out on so much of what makes Baseball great. When such an ordinate percentage of a game’s run come on HR after HR, lost are the art of the key stolen base in front of a ball expertly guided through the hole the other way, the mad dash from 1B to 3B, the leather flashed by gold gloves on balls put in play. In fairness, all these elements still do exist in today’s game, with post-season games turning web gems by Alex Bregman, a daring dash all the way home from 1B by Altuve (is that a “slide off” win?), a clutch two-out, two-strike 9th inning shot up the middle by Chris Taylor, Cody Bellinger shortening his swing to serve a key hit to the wall in left-center. Yet more and more often, innings are going the way of “HR or bust” (but enough about almost every single one of Bellinger’s other at bats) , and even chicks can only dig the ...

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