Every Time I Try To Give MLB Another Chance, They Whiff
Whatever happened to shame upon striking out?
It’s all but gone in Major League Baseball. Blame analytics, sticky baseballs, umpiring, supersized pitchers, or whatever, the game has devolved into a series of all-or-nothing sequences.
I made my first visit to the “new” Yankee Stadium on Monday night to watch the Yankees face the Shohei Ohtani-led Angels. You’d think a 2-1 New York win would have had me riveted on the edge of my seat for three hours, but the truth is that if not for the company, I would have likely dozed off.
24 of the 51 outs came via a strikeout, with the only runs scored coming from first-inning home runs by each side. That Aaron Judge happened to single prior to Joey Gallo’s laser beam into the right-field stands proved to be the difference in the game. It was one of a combined six such base hits all game. Ohtani, who was the main attraction among the announced crowd of 37,010, went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts.
Mostly, we were all watching two people play a hard game of catch.
Now, you’d expect a higher-than-norm strikeout total from the Angels with Gerrit Cole on the mound, and the Yankees ace delivered to the tune of 9 Ks in 5 2/3 innings in his first outing since July 29 after contracting COVID-19. But 6 strikeouts in 11 batters thereafter, against the not-so-fearsome foursome of Zach Britton, Albert Abreu, Joely Rodriguez and Chad Green? Yikes.
The mighty Yankees, of course, went down on strikes nine times as well versus relatively soft-tossing starter Jose Suarez and L.A.’s three relievers. Four of them came courtesy of the bottom third of their order comprised of injury replacements that had an aggregate batting average of .161 entering the contest.
That 29% strikeout rate, however, wasn’t all that much worse than their ungodly 24.5% season average, which, believe it or not, happens to be better than six other MLB clubs. In fact, the league’s median K rate this season is only 1% lower (23.5%), having gone up each season since 2005. For comparison purposes, teams were striking out about 18.5% of plate appearances just a decade ago.
Who wants to watch this? You’d think the league’s marketing execs would notice the decline in attendance over the years, even before accounting for the pandemic. The 28,199 average game count in 2019 was the lowest since 2003. I won’t compare TV ratings since people’s viewing habits have altered immensely in recent years, but understand this: The much-hyped Field of Dreams game between the Yankees and the White Sox last Thursday, which did live up to the billing, was the most-watched regular season game since 2005, drawing an estimated 5.9 million viewers. The rating for the August 5 Steelers/Cowboys Hall of Fame Game, a meaningless exhibition: 7.3 million viewers.
Major League Baseball the entity measures progress in light years, so I’m not expecting further changes to the game beyond those that were recently enacted, such as the runner on second in extra innings, the three-batter relief pitcher rule, and seven-inning doubleheaders. However, I implore MLB to move on one more titanic shift: Automated ball/strike calls.
Watching the game, it’s clear that one of the biggest challenges facing today’s hitters is that they do not know the strike zone. You’d think that if the mission is to hunt long-ball opportunities, hitters would be rather discriminatory at the plate, which would yield more walks along with the Ks. That hasn’t happened—walks per game have hovered around 3.3,every year this century, with a few outliers. Instead of maximizing “good swings”, hitters take too many strikes and flail at too many pitches out of the zone. In a large part, this is due to inconsistent umpiring.
The technology for such a “robot ump” system already exists, as are the studies showing all the data. Forget what you hear about how umps get almost 90% of ball/strike calls right, because that includes a good chunk of pitches that a novice could call accurately. Instances where the ump misses a strike down the middle or a ball in the opposite batters box happen, but they are rare.
However, the pitches that are close, around a half-inch in or out of the zone, are at best educated guesses. Most studies indicate that umps get those calls correct about 60% of the time.
Yes, going to an automated ball/strike system would remove the human element, and that’s a good thing. It shouldn’t matter which ump is behind the plate, the pitcher’s reputation, or the catcher’s artful frame.
Hitting a baseball is hard enough. An inconsistent strike zone adds another layer of confusion for hitters as they step in the box. We’re seeing the ugly results.
I’m not anti-baseball—I’ve coached my kids youth teams from T-Ball through American Legion and I used to go to about a half dozen Yankee games a year through the dry spell of the early 1990s. The 1994 player strike soured me on MLB but I’ve since tried periodically to give them other chances. It seems every time I do, however, the league, like a quarter of the outcomes from plate appearances, whiffs.
JapanTimes.com