Only Baseball Prospectus Can Fix It

Take a look at you, sitting there as if baseball is gone. Baseball by no means leaves! It simply type of hovers there by the exit after claiming it was going to go away, shifting with purposeful slowness towards the door and turning to say “What was that?” upon the utterance of something approaching its identify.

“We didn’t say something,” you reply.

“Ah,” baseball says, then fingers the blinds a bit and mumbles about how darkish it’s getting.

Then it simply hangs round for some time, all winter. It lives within the Arizona Fall League and the Dominican Winter League and the Premier12 match. It lives within the commerce rumors and prospect lists and more and more tragic Scott Boras puns. It lives within the mixture websites; a military of rats racing throughout keyboards to churn out imprecise headlines on shitty articles that hyperlink out to a Jon Heyman tweet about groups “surveying the market.”

And it lives right here at Baseball Prospectus, the place writing like this piece exists solely sometimes. A lot of it’s analytic and clever; considerate and shifting; in-depth and on-the-scene. Articles like this one are like opening your coat closet and getting attacked by a fowl: Rare. Aggressive. And requiring nice resolve as a way to emerge unscathed.

As a result of irrespective of how a lot of the web’s finest baseball content material BP publishes, from the PECOTA projections that everybody positively remembers getting the Yankees precisely proper and is apologizing on social media for doubting, to the BP Annual you’re in all probability about to pre-order, a few of you simply will not be satisfied {that a} subscription to this web site is in your finest curiosity.

And what this text will now do is let you know all the causes that you’re flawed.

Baseball is altering, and it’s scary.

I’m certain all of us recall the change that ruined that baseball. Certain, individuals sat there and located a strategy to get pleasure from themselves after it had come, however the gamers had been pissed and even a former legend, safely retired years earlier than, weighed in on the brand new model of the sport, claiming his taking part in profession wouldn’t have been almost as lengthy if he’d needed to play below such tyranny.

“Evening ball,” Pink Sox supervisor Joe Cronin stated, “has made it totally inconceivable to match nice gamers of at this time with the celebs of the pre-light period.”

That’s proper, you thought I used to be speaking concerning the “Golden At-bat,” however I used to be speaking about baseball at evening. That legend I discussed? Babe Ruth. Fairly a twist, mm? Don’t you’re feeling foolish, panicking about change, after I’ve so expertly proven you that historical past repeats itself and that we finally settle for each change baseball throws at us, irrespective of how deranged the present commissioner could also be?

That’s the sort of recent take you possibly can count on from articles like this, which once more, I guarantee you’re exceedingly uncommon.

Change. Isn’t it terrible? Regardless of exquisitely crafted literary parallels, we right here within the generally referred-to post-light period have additionally not been saved from baseball’s hideous sweeping modifications, like making gamers go away their lodgings after sunset. Keep in mind once they determined to chop down on catcher obliterations, inventing a poorly outlined rule that no person knew the right way to implement? Certain, ultimately all of it simply acquired shrugged away because it all the time does. And sure, the variety of catchers who’ve been bodily or emotionally harmed by Scott Cousins because the Posey Rule went into impact has dropped to zero. However now Rob Manfred desires to maintain including enjoyable little Instagram filters to the sport you like.

Have you ever heard concerning the “Golden At-Bat” rule Manfred talked about? After all you probably did, it’s all anyone’s complaining about. You don’t need that! However how will individuals know you don’t need that? Good luck getting your passionate cries heard over the wailing of virginal Nazis on Twitter and the self-congratulations of its alternate options.

We right here at Baseball Prospectus are listening. You’ll want stewards into baseball’s twisted future, a human protect of disposable nerds between you and the madman Rob Manfred.

Have you ever ever thought of how baseball will look in 5 years? Ten? MLB charging you broadcast charges by the out? A high prospect tearing an ACL doing a Savannah Bananas dance which is now required throughout all of minor-league baseball? Scott Boras’ barely functioning physique being pushed out in a hover chair to ship a press convention of pun-filled zingers in entrance of the final residing Christmas tree?

Be trustworthy. Are you emotionally ready for this? Hell, you aren’t emotionally ready for January. If solely there have been a baseball outlet that might seem from the darkness with a torch and take you by the hand.

Baseball isn’t altering, and it’s scary

Right here’s one other horrifying thought: What if baseball doesn’t change? What if it’s this gloomy mess of caked-on tobacco spit perpetually, with half of it attempting to take itself aside and construct again cheaper and extra effectively, and the opposite half simply dumping cash right into a furnace in an try to change into the game’s new god-king?

Then there’s groups threatening to go away city and getting the go-ahead from their 29 finest buddies to take action whereas all of us stand right here yelling, “Don’t!”

“The way forward for baseball appears to be a vivid one,” learn one newspaper in 1937. “For it’s a good sport.”

Properly, fairly a bit concerning the sport has modified since 1937, which means that someplace alongside the road, it went from “good” to Rob Manfred scribbling down new rule concepts on his hand after winking at a server to carry one other spherical of mimosas.

However after all, how they outlined “good” in 1937 was additionally completely different in ways in which we received’t even be touching right here, however everyone knows the sorts of causes I imply. The racial ones. In addition to all the different normalized atrocities that had been part of on a regular basis life earlier than we acquired the web to calm all people down.

I suppose the conclusion is that baseball, like every little thing, is all the time altering. It’s not itself a residing organism, but it surely’s made up of them, and because the world evolves, baseball is dragged alongside, typically unwillingly, into the present period. What we imagine will make it higher or worse doesn’t actually issue into it, as a result of all Manfred has to do is get us speaking after which, properly, his job is finished. The strategic dump of his newest brainstorming session with individuals who don’t like baseball might be part of another, greater, dumber plan that can finally make the league extra worthwhile for the mewling billionaires who sit atop it. Now, we’re going to spend a couple of days speaking about it, debating it, discovering new angles on it; principally doing the market analysis Manfred wants to achieve information on the idea. All of the whereas it’s normalized into the lexicon and years from now, when the 14th-seed Phillies carry a 37-year-old Bryce Harper out to win a playoff recreation, we’ll all watch him clobber a house run that will get known as again after it collides with a drone promoting homicide hornet repellent and shrug like he simply took ball two.

No fan response has ever stopped a commissioner from doing one thing they actually wished to do, so how vital are your reactions, anyway?

Right here at Baseball Prospectus? Crucial. Why do you suppose we nonetheless have a remark part? As a result of we like being corrected, screamed at, or instructed that somebody is canceling their subscription attributable to an article having an excessive amount of cursing in it (Once more, so uncommon)? No, as a result of baseball is a neighborhood, and whereas Rob Manfred can’t hear your complaints from his workplace that I assume is adorned with useless animals he didn’t kill, we will hear you. We are going to hear you. We get pleasure from listening to you.

As a result of that’s what a neighborhood is: An article about baseball, adopted by 5 to seven feedback about that article, a few of that are aimed toward one another or about one other matter completely.

Baseball Prospectus: We’re higher than baseball.

I’m actually simply scared, principally? 

Oh proper, I forgot concerning the name and response format. Have you ever tried medication and alcohol? Sure? Properly, then there’s nonetheless another possibility: A subscription to Baseball Prospectus.

All that point you used to spend doom scrolling? Spend it right here studying about beforehand unearthed statistical gems from 2024, a breakdown of bounce-back candidates for the next season, or a prolonged, intensely-researched profile of a participant who died on this present day 100 years in the past.

Lose your self in submit after submit worthy of your eyeballs. Hell, perhaps you’ll even discover an internship with the Pink Sox that modifications the course of your life.

“And the way did you hear about this place?” they’ll ask at your interview.

“I examine it on Baseball Prospectus!” you’ll reply.

“‘Baseball Perspective?’” they’ll ask.

“No,” you’ll say, considering much less of them. “Prospectus.”

“Oh, you imply that web site with all of the cursing?”

“No, I imply the location with the award-winning baseball protection and yearly launched e-book masking each staff and participant within the recreation!”

“Hmm, seems to be like they’ve a paywall,” your interviewer will mumble disgustedly as they have a look at their laptop computer. “That’s a disgrace, and completely remarkable at the moment.”

“That’s wealthy, coming from the staff that paid Pablo Sandoval $90 million!” you’ll reply with a wink.

“We’ll be in contact,” they’ll say, shuffling some papers in a approach that makes it clear they won’t be in contact.

Properly, you blew that interview. We will’t assist you to there. However you by no means know which BP posting goes to vary your life. That one didn’t, however you solely have your self in charge. Why would you appropriate somebody who was interviewing you? You’ll be taught rapidly that when any individual says “Baseball Perspective” it’s simpler to only smile and nod.

A part of overcoming worry is ignoring it completely, and BP is right here that will help you do this within the years forward. Your worry could also be coming from what you’ll lose or who can be harm and in these moments, there’s little extra to do than flip to these whom you belief to carry you up. Likelihood is, you will have these individuals. And within the baseball world, you will have us.

We’re right here to decipher, focus on, and demand higher from baseball, at the same time as we all know, deep in our souls, that baseball completely won’t hearken to us. It’s going to change, and we’re going to hate it. It’s going to be performed and we’re going to adore it. Gamers will say irredeemably dumb issues, commissioners will make guidelines we don’t like, managers will shield gamers who don’t deserve it.

However there can be sluggish Sunday afternoon video games when three gamers collide on a pop-up. There can be no-hitters taken late into video games and ruined by utility infielders. There can be playoff darlings hard-charging into the whirling blades of the postseason. There can be pitchers who made changes within the spring and by chance invented a brand new sort of pitch. There can be eye-bulging stat columns and overseas substances on hats and malfunctioning robotic umpires and the identical advert performed with such intense repetition your mind will come to think about it as your pulse.

Regardless of the a number of apocalypses descending concurrently on the stadium, there would be the recreation. And Baseball Prospectus can be right here to speak about it with you.

As a result of once more, baseball by no means actually leaves.

“Did you say one thing?” baseball asks, now outdoors ready for an Uber. It’s cupping its arms in opposition to the window as a way to see inside.

“No,” you reply, closing the blinds, and return to studying Baseball Prospectus.

“Ugh, a paywall?!” baseball will complain, peeking by a sliver within the blinds.