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With the World Series starting, MLB Players Association executive director Tony Clark had some time for the assembled reporters. A number of topics were brought up, such as the Rays’ and A’s stadium situations — one caused by a natural disaster and the other by a manufactured one — but the thing I want to focus on is his comments on the state of pitching in MLB:
Clark, a 15-year MLB veteran before joining the union leadership, criticized the current state of pitching that encourages constant maximum effort, prompting higher average velocities but a historic surge of Tommy John surgeries and a record low in complete games. Just 26 complete games were thrown this year across the league, four fewer than the Yankees’ Catfish Hunter alone in 1975.
“Unless and until the decision-makers determine that blowing out pitchers day in and day out as a result of how they’re using them and what they’re requiring of them is no longer the best way to treat their players, we [won’t] see a change,” Clark said.
Clark doesn’t seem to believe a rule change would fix things, either, as for him, this is a calculus that front offices have done, and right now, they seem to think it’s fine to have them go max effort, and then, “As soon as they seem to run out of gas, as the data suggests that they’re going to, recycle them out, and burn out another pitcher.”
Meaning, something grander than a rule change is going to be necessary here: an entire mindset needs to be changed. Teams can’t be trusted to do the right thing, if they’ve determined there’s an endless supply of pitchers to burn and churn through, and if anything, they probably prefer this result since it means costs are kept down: the number of pitchers who survive long enough to get paid on free agency and in the more costly arbitration years goes down if they’ve been sent into a rapid decline phase earlier in their career due to their usage.
A significant hurdle, however, is that these issues exist beyond MLB: even if all 30 teams were convinced to stop promoting max effort, in the same way that all 30 teams eventually came around on the idea that forcing pitchers to go 120-130 pitches deep into starts all the time was bad for their health, there is still the matter of how amateurs pitch. The damage has already begun in earnest before an MLB team ever calls their name at the draft. Still, between MLB testing the waters a bit with a proposed innings minimum rule, and Clark now speaking on it, it’s clear that this is going to be a discussion point between the two, at the least, when it’s time to sit at the bargaining table once more. The current collective bargaining agreement runs through 2026, so it’ll be awhile yet, but put this one on the pile.
All kinds of drops of info about Diamond’s regional sports network business model keep leaking out of the bankruptcy court proceedings, and the latest shows some of the volatility involved in such a model. For the RSN, anyway: sports teams get paid what they’re promised, regardless, that’s how contracts work. The latest is on St. Louis Cardinals games seeing a 47 percent drop in viewership over a two-year span. Lower ratings means lower ad revenue for the RSN, and since they’re on the hook to pay these teams they’re under contract with, that can be a problem. It might just be a problem of “profits aren’t as big as the executives want them to be” in some cases, but that’s still going to be an issue for them, which in turn becomes MLB’s issue, whether through later negotiations or, as we’re seeing now, having to deal with the fallout of a bankruptcy claim.
Of course, one solution to a 47 percent drop in viewership is to give fans a reason to tune in. So, you know, not the 2023 Cardinals, who were outscored by 110 runs and finished in last place in the NL Central. Fans tuned out as a starting rotation that wasn’t up to the task faltered to the point that the bullpen couldn’t make up the difference, and when they were mediocre in 2024 — mediocre and without major overhauls to the roster that could have generated some excitement for a new season — the viewers kept tuning out. While ticket sales correspond to the previous year’s performance, if a team is doing well, fans can turn on the TV and watch them with ease, and at a much lower barrier to entry, cost-wise. If they’ve already got the appropriate cable package, the game is just there. So, here we see a team that didn’t give its fans a reason to watch deciding not to. Simple as that.
Now, the Cardinals spent over $175 million on their opening day roster in each of the past two years, so it’s not like they weren’t trying at all. But it is a reminder that some of these problems would likely solve themselves if MLB teams did try to remain competitive, in the sense that requires effort, instead of knowing that there are some extra wild cards for the taking and/or backing into these days, so why bother going too hard? With the current money printer running out of ink, however, maybe some clubs will have to rethink this, especially since they might need to sell themselves to individual fans via streaming instead of as part of a cable package.
During Game 4 of the World Series, a couple of complete dipshit Yankees fans decided to grab Mookie Betts’ glove and arm, and pry a foul ball loose from his grasp. They were escorted from the game by security, as expected, but then something less predictable occurred. ESPN’s Jesse Rogers found them at a bar postgame, and spoke with them, and it turns out that this is something they’d been planning if the opportunity ever arose. You know, to help their team win.
If Rogers was trying to do a “look at these idiots” kind of story, he didn’t do a very good job of it — especially since his tweet preceding the story showed a photo of the pair with their pals, all smiles, in which he referred to one as a “beaut” — but I do want to point out one tidbit from the story. According to the dopes, the Yankees only kicked them out of Game 4, and they’ll be allowed back for Game 5. The Yankees did not respond to a request for comment, so it’s unclear if this was just some dinguses spouting off after even more beers than the amount that convinced them it was time to enact Operation Mookie Grab, or if that’s actually the case.
If — and this is a huge if, considering the source — the Yankees are allowing Tweedles Dee and Dum back into the stadium for Game 5 — MLB needs to step in and put a stop to them going not just to that game, but any games, again. They could have injured Betts! Which would be terrible just in a vacuum, but it would also potentially alter the course of the World Series. These were two guys with a (bad) plan, who have maybe gotten away with said plan with nothing worse than a forced exit from Game 4. If that’s the cost of doing business, you’re going to see more fans go into business for themselves like this. And the league can’t have that happen.
My guess is this was two doofuses running their mouths, but we’ll know soon enough either way. And if the Yankees are letting this one go, something has to be done about their negligence here, and it’ll take the league to do that.
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