The Evolvement of the Game

The tragedy of the modern game is that so many hitters are all swing and miss, and that most starting pitchers aren’t allowed to learn how to get through lineups more than 2 times. It’s all throwing and swinging hard as you can. We end up with a static game of HR derby. Modern hitters have been taught that striking out is no big deal, so they swing for the fences all the time.

It sorta reminds me of what’s happened to the NBA. Why get a good shot when you can just chuck it from the cheap seats?Game the other night had a team go 14-38 from the 3-point line. That’s 37% shooting, but that’s okay because the 3-ball is like a HR. All I know is that it looks like a bunch of little kids running around, throwing up crap shots, then complaining to the refs.

Shame. Athletes today are incredible, but they produce such a crappy product.

Think about your comment about the 3 pointer. 14-38 equals 42 points. To get 42 from 2 points shots you would need 21-38. That is 55 percent. As Mike Dantoni said if you can’t make 50 percent of your 2 pointers I don’t want you taking them. I think analytics has hurt baseball a lot. But if you don’t use analytics in basketball you will lose

I understand the net gain with 3’s. It’s just resulted in a game I hardly recognize.

The tragedy of the modern game is that so many hitters are all swing and miss, and that most starting pitchers aren’t allowed to learn how to get through lineups more than 2 times. It’s all throwing and swinging hard as you can. We end up with a static game of HR derby. Modern hitters have been taught that striking out is no big deal, so they swing for the fences all the time.

It sorta reminds me of what’s happened to the NBA. Why get a good shot when you can just chuck it from the cheap seats?Game the other night had a team go 14-38 from the 3-point line. That’s 37% shooting, but that’s okay because the 3-ball is like a HR. All I know is that it looks like a bunch of little kids running around, throwing up crap shots, then complaining to the refs.

Shame. Athletes today are incredible, but they produce such a crappy product.

Hittmens hit it on the head. It's analytics, Honestiago. Not just gaming this game, gaming the real games. And it's as justifiable in the real world as it is in this quaint little dice game.

37% from three-point range is as good as 55% from closer in, so if you can shoot at that rate (or north of 40% even better) it makes strategic sense. And fans do like the splash effect, made all the more visceral once they focused a microphone on the net.

To your point about "swinging for the fences" - with all the innovation going on in the modern baseball game the value of putting the ball in play has declined, at least according to the smart folks at Baseball Prospectus. It's just hitters/teams making adjustments to maximize their chances to win. Does it make the game less fun to watch? Most of this demographic (I count myself in the group!) certainly thinks so.

https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news ... s-of-hits/

The reason pitchers dont typically get to go more two times through a line-up is the data says most pitchers start to falter that third time. Im not sure I would say that hitters dont care about striking out. You cant survive in today's game without an ability to put together quality at-bats and foul off pitches. But the pitching is very good. And power produces runs. That's the analytics Your job as a hitter nowadays is to force the pitcher to throw the ball in a good location for hitters (this has actually always been the case--Ted Williams forced pitchers to throw to a part of the zone he could handle, would say in his hitting books these parts of the zone would have a better batting avg.--but it has just intensified) So you need to take a lot of pitches. And go deep into counts. And that increases the chances you will strike out. If you just go up there hacking youre not likely to get pitches you will drive. And giving up on power with two strikes just to make contact doesnt make sense with the analytics either. Hence the increased tendency towards walks, ks and hrs.

All of which slows the game to a crawl.

Just FYI, I’m not arguing with the efficacy of the approach (in the NBA or MLB). I’m just lamenting what a crappy, unwatchable product it produces.

Probably the only to stop this is to deaden the ball. Which they are doing to a certain extent this year.