In this episode, we discuss the current state of baseball & debate on whether or not it has gotten better or worse.
The ProSource Pod
Current State of Baseball
What's going on guys? Welcome back to another episode of Pro Source Pod. My name's Eric. You got Nick here. Today we're going to be talking about whether or not baseball is getting better or worse from a fan's perspective. Now there have been efforts and rule changes put forward by the MLB to try to speed the game up, make it more of an enjoyable experience to watch fans. Today we're going to talk about whether or not that's actually true and dive a little bit deeper into numbers to support whether they're not that's true or something. Nick's got the numbers pulled up and it's a lot of words. All right, essentially, occasionally I'm going to ask Eric, everything's better or worse if the game's turning in a good direction or bad direction. Now, actually if you were shipping all that, like we can come to the actual product and then from there, like maybe it's better or worse for the sport. So, I mean, what do you think? Do you think that the product itself is getting better or worse? And with that, do you think it's probably a game or not? So, there's two different ways to look at this. There's, through my lens, as someone who has been watching baseball and who's been around baseball in my whole life, and there's through the lens of just like the average sports fan, who maybe doesn't really watch baseball, who's not familiar with baseball as much. Are you going to tell me wrong? You're getting really tactical. I get it. I get it yourself. But it is. It's not even a factor. It's not even a factor. It's not even a factor of being myself. It's just fact. Sir, do you know what's going on? You know what's going on? You know what's going on with sports or not? Like with baseball? You have an idea of how the game is trucking, right? Yeah. What do a lot of you guys do now? Ain't no wrong. Strike dudes out. Other than that, it's usually what a strikeout or what? A wall. Walks are going out. You're giving me like every answer I didn't want. What do pitchers do now more than ever? Strike guys out. What do pitchers do now more than ever? It's right in your face. It's really not something you've wanted your whole life. Throw hard. Yeah. They throw harder than ever. Guys just hit hammer-ons now. I don't even know if it's more than ever than the steroid. They're still not hitting more than the steroid. I'm pretty sure. I have to go look at that. Give me your take. Is the game getting better? Is it probably getting better? Is it getting worse? And is it good for the game or is it bad for the game? I think overall, overall the product's getting better. You fully believe that. I think the product's getting better. Now, give me some examples of why you think the product's getting better. Well, people like to see guys throw hard. People like to see guys hit home runs, make flashing plays, do all of the cool shit, right? I think the game itself is more underappreciated because they're taking away the ships, they're taking away. They're considering all these roles. They didn't really take it with the ship, though. I hope people still do it, but it's like they took it away. You don't see as much technical small ball and actual baseball being played. I think it's good that they take it big so a lot of it. That's the take you just said, you said good, that stuff's going on. I mean, that's what like they're trying to get people to watch. They're trying to get more people to watch people. So it's working from that. I don't know the numbers behind this. On the guests. No, I'm going to get out of anything. What do you really think you think the product, if you think the product's getting better than you would think that the viewership and everything else is getting better? They kind of go hand in hand like your thought process. You're saying the product's getting better, right? Yeah. And you think it's getting better because people throw it hard and do more flashing. Do you think people really want to see that? Yeah. So people want to see who I'm going to show you now. I'm not necessarily cutting drives. That's what it does when you strike out. It's like it's taken out. Well, there's more nuances in the sport. People can't feel the position anymore. You kind of just have like blocks and positions that should be. There's no hurt. There's like no hurt. If you put someone who can't feel the search spot, you're getting a bad to hit him wrong. You're trading at all. Dive into the numbers. You got to like give me some more. You just want me to talk about numbers. Like, do you think the base where do you think baseball is rank any in terms of. Right. Definitely behind football and basketball. Really? I would say yeah. I was going. Like worldwide around something US. What do you think? What do you think they rank? If you had to put them. All sorts of cricket. There's soccer. Well, I know those two at the top. Great. Which one? In terms of revenue. Or if you were sure. Are you sure? Yeah, I know. Football is not like football. Not American football. Soccer is I think that's number one. Where's where's the other song? Cricket might be. I think cricket's right below it. Where do you think American football is? So where are you ranking baseball? I'm going to say it's. I'm going to say it's soccer cricket. Basketball. American football. American football. There's another weird sport in there. I think that people watch. I don't think baseball in the top five. Couldn't be more. You're wrong. Really. Number one is soccer. Okay. Fifty billion. The revenue right here. Makes sense. Number two is American football. Really? Seventeen billion. And number three is baseball at 10.7 billion. Wow. Yeah. It's technically in revenue is higher than. Like revenue like the money. Right. It's ahead of it. Basketball. There's basketball. So like the numbers are going to update everything. There's like new contracts going out to the NBA and stuff like that. You see the boat. I just want to miss. Yeah. Pretty badly. Pretty badly. So what do you think in terms of attendance though? Well, actually going to games like you think people are going to more games than ever. You think plus people are going. Probably more. So what do you think rights on all sort. Attendance, probably. They're six. Definitely a bomb. Average tenants. Number one is NFL average tenants of six and six thousand. For a game. Premier League of stadiums hold more people Premier League 38,000. Well, League of that's like it's a terrible league of football. Twenty six thousand. And then the NBA 17,000. Yeah. Now, here's the good stuff. World series ratings. So you were saying you think the products getting better and then people behind this. Are you four against the world changes and the stupid stuff with pitch clock and all that stuff. Do you think that anyway should perform. Now, even if it speeds up the game. No. Why? I don't really think it makes that much of a difference. No, it doesn't really make that much difference in time. And so why was they will be trying to do that? To speed up games. Because they thought, well, it would be very viewership. Yeah. Why would that bring in viewership because you're either a baseball person or not. Because people who like a lot of people who don't watch baseball, but they're not going to watch baseball because you spent it off a couple. Well, no, what I'm trying to say is like people who don't watch baseball. It's like, oh, why don't you watch baseball? Well, it moves too slow. No, exactly, but it didn't really move anything off. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. He pissed off the people who actually do actually. Yes. So like you're pissing off people in the fan base. You're one like baseball because that's who's watching baseball people are watching baseball. It's not going to grow because you spent it on 15, 20 minutes. Yeah. Like, yes, there was a 75 game. Now you start at 645. It's stupid. And 25 minutes earlier, I guess, like, I guess it was a little faster. So you started it earlier. Like you're not getting people from that because they're not baseball people at the end. They're not going to watch it because it's 25 minutes. Just like faster. Like it's. It doesn't work that way. So they're like, they're going after the wrong niche, essentially. It's not going to get people to watch like NBA people. We're going to start tuning in because it's a little bit faster. NFL game goes on forever. People watch it because it's once a week, even though it's not once a week. That's not why they're watching it. It's not about how long it is in NBA game. It takes a while to because there's a lot of commercials and then there's. There's a lot of stuff. Yeah. It's like the actual product itself. I'll give my take in a second. But do you want, where do you think, do you think last world series was. Was good or bad? In terms of viewership in the ratings. In the last 50 years. Going back 50 years. Where do you think ranks? Like one being the highest rated and being the lowest rated. What do you think it was? One being the highest 50 being the lowest. Yep. In terms of ratings. The world series last year. Yeah. I want to say it's at the top. I want to say that. I don't care what you said, just as it was. Do you think it was closer to being one of the highest rated or one? Like we'll just give me a number. 19. It was dead last. Are you serious? 50. The 50th ranked and the lowest viewership. Only 9 million people watched this last year. Why do you think that is? Because they're like, they're pissing off their audience. Which is an older demographic of people who actually care about baseball. So there's a bunch of rule changes and nonsense going in. And the game's not pleasing to people anymore who actually care about it. The fan base. Because it's a home owner or a strikeout. It's a guy throwing 100. And it's a guy throwing 100 and he didn't take it out. And the 7th hit it because he's at 100 pitches. Like stuff like that where it's like. As far as 2011, like Roy Holiday, like every game is in the middle of getting 100. Yeah. Like he knew that was going to happen. That doesn't happen anymore. Paul Scienz is in multiple notes. There's going to be like 7 innings. This guy out of it, not even that. Like what's the point of that? It's not like that stupid. And then like, but there's like the weird thing where like people don't even care anymore. Like the players like whatever. Some of them care, some of them don't. But like, dude, you don't see people piss from play games. You don't see that stuff anymore. Yeah. People throw harder cool. But like people also aren't as good as they used to be. I mean, so it's like, do I want to see a bunch of strikeouts? Or like a walker, like that's not an enjoyable vision. Where am I? Not saying I'm a big small ball guy, but like, you get a couple of singles. You get a walk and then you get a double and another double and there's chaos going on. It's like, people don't really feel well anymore. There's not really any cool plays like you're talking about because everyone shifted in the exact spot they had to ban. If the only people really making diamond plays are for their own outfielders. And like, not even as much as they used to. It's like, because everyone has the scouting report to a team moved exactly where they needed to be. There's a lot of balls that hit over second base. You're like, oh, that's a base hit. That was a rip. It's like, oh, it was literally right to the fielder. He didn't have the movement. And things get ruled and hit like people don't hit the base one. And part of it is yet people throw harder than nasty stuff. But it's also, it's like on the other end, picture don't even pitch anymore. The ground hasn't pitched in like two years. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, it's hard to tune into something like that where it's not an enjoyable watch. It's not like anyone can really, like, it's just, it's not really baseball. Because the only thing they can remember really, how it runs. Oh, that ball is hit for him. And it's like, you look at who's on the baseball field. It's all mega athletes that don't even play anymore because they're all heard. Hey, everyone gets hurt. Everyone's hurt for a long period of time. Yeah. John has a hamstring thing. Everyone's hurt. And it's just like center block people who are just mega athletes going out there to play baseball. But they're not refined in the actual skill of baseball. Yeah. Like, I haven't seen successful bumps in baseball. Like from watching like a Phillies game or like just a random game. Like they'll go to, they can't get bumps. Because as long as there's no, yeah, no one's back. Yeah. So it's like, I get why it keeps going down. So like 2022, that was ranked 48. 11. I'm curious. What's number one? Number one. 1978. 44 million viewers. Oh, God. That's, that's such a stupid job. And even as far back as like everything from like. Early 2000s, almost like nothing ranks in the top. So it's like people say baseball is dying. Like it kind of is because like the game's getting worse. The product is going to be really quality. It's getting better. Just because you throw it hard doesn't mean the product is getting better. Just because you hit the ball for it doesn't get the product. Like it's such a rare thing to see someone like hit 300 nowadays. It's like there's a million big stats and everything. But it's like no one gives a shit about it. Like it doesn't make any sense. Like if not baseball, baseball is not FIP plus. You technically had a good start. If you give up seven rounds, but if it was like singles, it doesn't count against you. Like what? Like no hard hit balls. Yeah. It's like dude, like he's not good. Stop trying to defend it. He's not good. Because there's like there's. You have 11 hits. So there's like pitchers that get defended by like stupid stats. Now and like. It's like dude, like look at what's going on. Like he's not going to do it. There's no strikes. Like there's there's once that specifically. I don't know what it is exactly. But like if you walk a guy, it doesn't go against you. Like the only thing that goes against you is doubles and attribute sets. Like actually it says go against you, like different rounds. Yeah, there's a stat. It might be it might be fit. Where it factors and walk to a pitcher. Yeah, they have big things where it factors. Like shouldn't be a hit. If it factors and hit ballparks. Yeah. That's ridiculous. Like let's just see who's good and see who's bad. They're either good or they're bad, but there's no reason to start defending people and try to say someone's good. It's a whole thing. Like it's just a noise. So it's like average viewership and like even the 90s. Like that's in the answer. Twenty eight million. And then all the way to 2004, 25 million. And then that's when the decline started. 17 million, 15 million, 17. But then get back to 20 million viewership until 2016. Twenty two million 2016. Eighteen and 17. Twenty eighteen, fourteen million, twenty nineteen thirteen million. And then twenty twenty nine million. And then eleven eleven nine. So like that's drastic. Yeah, loss of viewership. But money is going up because obviously there's a lot of factors in inflation. There's TV deals like there's just money everywhere for these sports. But it's like at some point that the people don't want to watch. It's going to go away. So it's like respect the pain base because they're what's going to pay for it. No, it's the watch that there's no money to be had. So it's like, I just don't understand. They like they try to fix something that wasn't really broken. No, it's a it's a beautiful sport. If it's like actually played like. And it's part of it is what's going on in like the world travel ball and stuff like that. That's where it stems from. Yeah, and like this is going to be like our next episode. But is literally the thing. Or is it dead? Yeah, so it's like. I don't get too deep. I don't I personally don't think that the game's in a good place. I think it's bad. The bad product, especially like all people do is how far can hit a ball. It's not anything about mindset. Like, oh, I have two strikes. I have to actually put the ball in play. No one hits behind runners. Like things that make baseball baseball and what's so great about it. It's like. It's being taken away. Yeah. So it's more so players, perhaps to like made on second base, no outs. I have to get that guy over. Is it good? Right. I don't want to strike out. It's not home run or strike out or double or strike out. Right. But it's okay. I have two strikes. I have to do something to get this guy to the next base. So I did it behind him. Right. Like I have to hit it second base. Right. That's going to advance him even if ball first base is going to advance him. If I hit pool size, I'm trying to hit as far as I possibly can. He's not coming in here. That's a hundred percent true. That's not talked about. Yeah. That's a hundred percent true. And it's mean, it's like, well, that's just what's being taught now. Yeah. Sort of a young age. And it's like, arm injuries are up more than ever, but that's a tune. We'll talk about that later. But like on the pitching side of things, it's like going through as hard as you can. Or as long as you can. Like, there's a lot of different ways to do things. Like you could be smart. If you're a smart pitcher, you can expose that. So it's like, okay, like I throw it hard, but I'm not just going to try throwing like high in the zone or here or whatever. Like, this guy clearly has 10 C's to do this. Let me feed into that and make him like roll over like, like roll over or saw contact the other way. Like, there's a lot of different things that like a pitcher could do to like expose a hitter. But it's like, it's just let me try to open power up. And that's all it is. It's like, oh, didn't get in there. I'm wrong. You know what I mean? Yeah. So like for me, pitchers, it's not so much pitchers. It's more like hitting side where baseball is like going into a decline. I would say, dude, it might be more pitchers. You think it's more. It's toxic. It's fucking toxic. It really is just go through as far as you can. Yeah. It is like thinking like, like me going through. And this kind of started being a thing. Maybe like our junior or senior year of high school where like you started to see all the, the weight of balls. You know, monsters. The mule of monsters, dude. The mule of monsters. It's all both ends of the spectrum, though. It is. And like, I don't know as much about the hitting side of things, but it's like, dude, that's all that's taught now. And you get it though. Like you really do. Cause it's like, you need to throw more. You have to throw more. You don't need to sniff that or look that if you don't throw hard. You can meet a criteria. But it's just the thing that like, like everyone wants to play major league baseball. Everyone who plays baseball, who's serious about it, like wants to get into the pros. And it's like, okay, how do you do that as a pitcher? Well, you have to throw hard. You have to get your food. Do you remember it? You should be like. We were in the way of the book boys. Cause I don't want our team to meet multiple kinds of kids or nine. Yeah. Like that was like unheard of. And that was like. It was 18 or something. 18. We got from 18. There was a ton of dudes that were thrown in the nines. They're like, okay, like if you're like a dude in the 90s, like. You're like eligible. Now it's like, if you're not. If you're in high school and you're not even throwing up like 95, you're probably not sniffing the draft. But if you're throwing 95 in high school, you can just be drafted. If you're a 90 to 92 guy in high school, you probably won't get drafted. No, you probably get one like maybe like the East. Yeah. That's wild. Yeah. That is wild to think about. Yeah. It's toxic. It really is. Like 90 doesn't mean anything anymore. 90 is like the new 85. And it's like, I'm not going to discount people throwing 90. It's also like, I said something one of the coaches. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone throws 90 and they throw it for all three pitches. No one really throws 90. Yeah. Like if you look at averages and that's why I calculated your hand, who says a picture and a lot of stuff is important. We'll talk about that separate. It's like, you just throw 93 one time and then you really throw like 86. That doesn't mean anything. Cool. Everyone talk other times. It's cool. Yeah. Your PBR profile. Yeah. Exactly. It's like, but that's like. That's not playing. Yeah. But yeah, people throw 90 now more than ever. People don't actually throw 90. They throw like 84 or they'll throw 90. They'll have a couple of 90 ones. And then the next inning. They're like 82. They did. Quite bad. Like a lot. Yeah. You know, like, I don't know. Gosh, they did that much. There was like, no, all the kids I played with in college that threw hard, like threw hard. Like they threw hard. I would say like. Yeah. Yeah, most of the relievers starters and relievers because like the relievers that I played with that were in the 90s, they would, they would be 90 to 93 for the, you know, two or three innings. They would go in like closer. Same thing. And then like, I only played with. Like three or four starters that actually threw the 90s, the one kid. He's in double A for the reds. I was telling you about my roommate. Like he would be. It was actually opposite with him. He would start the game out. Like 8, 8, 8, 9, and start throwing harder as it went on. That's a good thing. Yeah. I mean, ideally you want to be your top speed the whole time, but it's like, that's what you're good for him. Yeah. He's in double A. So, hold on. Back to the whole topic, right? Is it, is it bad? Like, is the pitching side the worst part or is it just like a combination? I would say it's a combination of both. It's like, cause like going back to my original, like, not my original takes. Yeah, it's not. Yeah. It's just what's being taught from a young age. It really is. Rose Chapman still hasn't been hurt. Yeah. While the other flamethrowers, they all get hurt. Yeah. They all get hurt at some point. It's like, it's, it's all as a matter of when now. Chapman, quite literally, is the only person to never. But if you look at Chapman's mechanics and the way he threw him, he came in. He's involved in what he does now. He's also been put on 20 pounds. He like, he's like super sit on the back leg and like, like, he's got some, he, he's a 10. Yeah. But it's like, no one talks about that. I don't get why teams, he must be like, I have it. Cause I don't know why more teams don't go after him. He's throwing 130 on him. And he's still really good. He's really good. Yeah. I mean, Paul's schemes are on the same team. Yeah. Anything else that? I think we covered it all. My take, the game's going in the wrong direction. There should be more about here to the actual fan basis. I'll try to get viewership from places that we're going to. And it clearly doesn't work. It's not working. It's not working at all. And the game's going to work. Yeah. Anyway, let us know what you guys think. Leave comments. Hey, share this around. If you guys want to see any topics talked about. Leave a comment. Reach out to us. We'll be happy to. Give you guys some more stuff you want. Okay. Catch you on the next one. Peace. Peace