The MLB Playoffs Just Played to Their Base
Let’s pick it up in the bottom of the sixth, shall we? In a decisive Game 5, the Nationals held a 1-0 lead, and they were looking to stretch it. With two outs and someone on first who can run faster than you can, Ryan Zimmerman knocked a double to the left-field corner, and the Nationals’ third-base coach got aggressive. He waved Jayson Werth around, figuring that an insurance run would be absolutely massive. An out and, well, you tried, and you’ve still got the late lead. Werth gave it what he could.
That’s Werth at the bottom, running his tail off. Coach Bob Henley isn’t even looking anymore, now that the matter would be out of his hands. By this point he must’ve had a suspicion. Based on my calculations, the break-even rate here was 35%. That is, it made sense to send Werth around third if you thought he’d be safe at home at least 35% of the time. With the throw coming from just past third base, it looked like Werth would be safe at home about 0% of the time.
The camera has panned, and you don’t see the baseball. That’s because the baseball is in the glove of the catcher, and Werth is maybe, what, two-thirds of the way to the plate? Less than that? Werth is out. He’s so out. Baserunners are practically never this out. Werth is so out he might’ve given brief consideration to turning around. Until just a few years ago, a play that developed like this might’ve at least resulted in an exciting collision. Collisions are easy sells to the members of an average audience. Runners used to have one way out. That way was dangerous, and sometimes electrifying.
Werth stopped. He didn’t stay stopped — he went to the trouble of closing the distance. But Werth gave up. He was out, and he knew it, and he accepted it, and the Nationals still had the lead. So concluded a thrilling baseball sequence, by which a casual baseball viewer might not have been thrilled.
Major League Baseball has a lot of priorities, but among them is expansion of the #brand. You’ve read articles before about how baseball is dying, and I’ll assume you’re smart enough to know those are nonsense, but baseball most certainly could be more popular. It’s no secret the sport has lost some ground. Football is king, even the type played by the unpaid, and baseball desires better marketing. It wants to appeal to more of the casual viewers. It wants to appeal to more of the youth. Baseball’s average fan has a retirement fund, and the game could stand to have a stronger foundation. That’s why there’s been increased focus on getting superstars in front of cameras. It’s why Rob Manfred keeps talking about pace of game. Baseball thinks it would be more appealing if it could just move a little faster.
The Dodgers eliminated the Nationals, winning Game 5 by a 4-3 score. The official time of game was four hours and 32 minutes, making it the longest nine-inning game in postseason history. More than that — if I’ve used the Baseball-Reference Play Index right, that was the third-longest nine-inning game ever, full stop. The first pitch of the seventh inning was thrown at 10:39pm, local time. The last pitch of the ninth was thrown 16 minutes from one in the morning. The seventh inning itself lasted longer than the record half-marathon. These teams played a very, very long baseball game. And the baseball game was perfect.
This wasn’t a baseball game that would win people over. It wouldn’t win the support of people on the fence, and among those already lacking any interest, they might say this game was “so baseball” like an insult. There wasn’t a sequence of flashy plays. There were home runs, but they weren’t memorable home runs, and the game didn’t conclude with a walk-off. I don’t think there are clips from this game that are going to go viral. This wasn’t a game you could just enjoy if you didn’t know the details. So much about baseball is in the details. It’s in the context. You can sit down for any hockey game and enjoy some of the hits and the highlights. At its best, baseball asks you to think. It’s a demand, which makes it a burden, and for many it’s a turn-off. It’s their loss. To baseball fans who’ve heard the good word, Game 5 was an instant classic.
I’ve written out this partial list of events that made me smile. Events I found to be somewhat remarkable, even if they were maybe too subtle for the CBS demo. I appreciated the relay to get Werth specifically because of the margin by which he was out. I didn’t need there to be physical contact, because the play was conceded when the ball arrived to the plate. The play was effectively over. That wound up being a big moment in the game, even if some might describe it as anti-climactic.
In the fourth inning, Justin Turner worked a 13-pitch walk. The walk lasted literally six minutes. I can’t imagine not already liking baseball, and then seeing that, and then wanting to see more of that. All Turner did was stand there and fight off the occasional delivery until he could get aboard after Max Scherzer missed enough of his targets. Nothing actually scintillating happened, but Scherzer had been on a roll, and Turner succeeded in disrupting him. With that hard-earned walk, Turner changed the course of Scherzer’s outing. It felt like a major Dodgers victory, even though Turner didn’t score.
Hell, going back even further, in the second inning Danny Espinosa put the Nationals on top with an RBI single. Espinosa has been in a deep rut for several weeks, and he hit his single the other way, batting right-handed. It was just Espinosa’s second hit of the season to the opposite field batting righty. Baseball is all about the fun facts. A somewhat similar fun fact: The game was tied in the top of the seventh, when Joc Pederson took Scherzer out to left. It was Pederson’s second opposite-field home run of the year. There’s nothing odd about Pederson hitting for power. But his power is to the pull side. That was a game-changing homer, with the wind blowing in.
And, really, that homer got everything started. The Nationals bullpen went to work, and subsequent events reminded all of us of the slim margins between winning and losing. There’s that whole expression about how baseball is a game of inches. The expression itself isn’t interesting, but when you analyze how the Dodgers surged ahead, Howie Kendrick punched a broken-bat single. Carlos Ruiz knocked the go-ahead single, but the ball bounced right off the outstretched glove of Anthony Rendon, who likely would’ve turned two. Ruiz the hero, Ruiz the goat.
Ruiz the triumphant against a left-handed pitcher. Ruiz was acquired in a controversial late-season swap specifically for opportunities like this. Those who didn’t know what the Dodgers were doing thought it was tremendously silly to slightly upgrade your backup catcher position against lefties on the mound. That’s objectively a small thing, but one of the quirks about the playoffs is you never know which little events turn into the biggest ones. Ruiz came off the bench to hit against a lefty, and he came through with one of the very biggest hits of the season.
That hit followed a teammate who struck out by bunting foul. The Nationals, later, had their own hitter unsuccessfully bunt. There was one successful sac bunt in the game, and it was dropped down by closer Kenley Jansen, who isn’t a hitter, and who didn’t serve as the closer. There were so many layers to this. So many intricacies, so many near-misses and strategic elements that only established baseball fans could deeply appreciate.
Turner delivered a huge hit to give the Dodgers some cushion. Chris Heisey almost immediately yanked that cushion away, narrowing the score to the eventual final. There was one on with nobody out, and it was the seventh inning, and Dave Roberts went with the best option he had. Roberts used his closer with none out in the seventh. Even Dave Roberts didn’t know how far Jansen could go.
There was something extraordinary about the move. Something extraordinary, because it was experimental. Joe Blanton had been used. Grant Dayton had been used. Jansen was there to do as much as he could, but closers never see seventh innings. In the playoffs, closers increasingly see eighth innings, but the eighth inning was still only an idea, no different from fiction. Roberts used the biggest game of the year to try something he hadn’t tried. And Jansen nearly got him all the way through. He tired only at the end, which brought us to the best finish imaginable.
This was Clayton Kershaw’s bullpen day. On one day’s rest, Kershaw started to throw, but instead of throwing for throwing’s sake, he threw to prepare to come in. And so he got the call, with two outs to go. It was another opportunity for Kershaw to make a playoff statement, the only difference being that this time he’d do something he hadn’t done. On countless occasions, Kenley Jansen has saved a game for Clayton Kershaw. On this night — the biggest of nights — Clayton Kershaw was to save a game for Kenley Jansen.
The challenge was Daniel Murphy, who Kershaw retired on two pitches. The last obstacle was Wilmer Difo, which seemed somewhat unjust. In a perfect world, Kershaw would’ve had to navigate through one more tough opponent. Difo didn’t have a prayer, and Kershaw, at long last, had his Moment.
In relief of Kenley Jansen, Clayton Kershaw got the save, two days after throwing 110 pitches on short rest. He was hugged by Carlos Ruiz, who only recently replaced Kershaw’s personal catcher, and the very reason Ruiz was acquired in the first place wound up making a critical difference in a high-leverage spot. The winning pitcher was Julio Urias, who’s 20 years old, and who was supposed to stop pitching a long time ago so as not to put too much on his arm. The result was four and a half hours in the making. Aside from the various details, the highlight reel is ordinary.
Baseball can’t be what it cannot be. Baseball is a game that requires an investment, an investment of time and an investment of mental energy. That might, perhaps, cause it to become decreasingly popular over the years and decades to come. I can’t predict the population. What I’m sure of is that baseball still has its base. It has its core of loyal supporters, its followers who understand the demands of being a good and decent fan in the first place. Those four hours and 32 minutes were for us. The base will grant the game every second that it needs. That Game 5 needed every second in order to be what it was, and that was baseball magic.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
Great line:
‘On countless occasions, Kenley Jansen has saved a game for Clayton Kershaw. On this night — the biggest of nights — Clayton Kershaw was to save a game for Kenley Jansen.’
While well-written, it is kind of ironic to write that Kenley Jansen has saved “countless” games for Clayton Kershaw on a website almost wholly devoted to counting stuff and drawing data-based conclusions. It’s also a relatively simple number to count.
#poeticlicense
johnforthegiants +40 on the up/down votes and the reply to his comment is -20. That must be my signal to saddle up a pig and fly him off for some unicorn hunting.
All your baseball are belong to us.
Glorious article. Glorious baseball.
Going to be an interesting series. Cubs are rested, rotation set. Dodgers aren’t rested and just burned the leagues best pitcher in relief. Cubs are better to begin with so they really have no excuse for losing this series. Certainly can happen though. Prepare for looong games. Between Dodgers starters being a bit gased and Joe Maddon doing his thing there is going to be a lot, maybe even a record number, of pitching changes.
Kershaw has not been “burned”. He was scheduled to start Game 2 of the NLCS on normal rest prior to yesterday’s game, and that hasn’t changed. He threw 7 pitches in the game, plus whatever warm-up pitches he threw in the bullpen, on what would otherwise be his bullpen day.
In any scenario, Kershaw, Hill, and Maeda were going to start the first three games of the NLCS in some order. That’s now Maeda Game 1, Kershaw Game 2, and Hill Game 3. Still set to have both Kershaw and Hill pitch in the first 4 games of the series, and still set for each of them to pitch twice on normal rest if the series goes 7 games.
Not sure how “gassed” Hill is either. Yes, he started on short rest yesterday, but he only ended up throwing 55 pitches. I think that the bigger issue could be how much the Dodgers’ bullpen had to pitch in the NLDS, particularly Jansen throwing 51 pitches yesterday after also pitching both Monday and Tuesday.
I don’t know. I happen to think this is the better quote,
“This wasn’t a game you could just enjoy if you didn’t know the details. So much about baseball is in the details. It’s in the context. You can sit down for any hockey game and enjoy some of the hits and the highlights. At its best, baseball asks you to think. It’s a demand, which makes it a burden, and for many it’s a turn-off. ”
I am sooo sorry that in 2016 most of the population has ADHD and cannot be bothered to actually think. As far as the claim of being slow and games are too long, well baseball has and hopefully always will have its own pace. In a way, that IS baseball’s rhythm. That is exactly what I love about it, its PURE SPORT. None of the bullshit like hockey, football, basketball, or soccer. There is never a moment when its not about the sport, rather than using the time clock against the opponent. Nothing worse than the last 2 minutes of a basketball game where they trade free throws and fouls in a lost cause. Nothing worse than watching a football game the last 6 minutes as a team with a 10 point lead hands off to the running back every play to milk the clock on successive 1 and 2 yard gains and inevitably breaks a tackle (because NFL players cannot tackle anymore on defense) to get the required 10 yards to start the process over again. Its also pure sport because of the very heights analytics has taken the game to. My dad used to say the best things in life are very difficult to achieve and are BOTH an ART and a SCIENCE. Well I for one, love knowing the physics behind the movements and speed of the plays, so thank you mathematicians and statcast for the science. To know that a human being, sometimes innately, with great talent and hard work is capable of such speed and movement “naturally”, why that’s the art and I love watching it, and appreciating it, because even though I play baseball, I know I cannot do it the level these guys do.
The 7th inning of the game last night took one hour and six minutes. 60 pitches were thrown. Not even one pitch a minute. There’s no rhythm to baseball when that happens.
The rhythm definitely suffers in that case, but rhythm is not all there is to baseball. There are moves and countermoves and counter-countermoves; in a similar way, there is not always a rhythm to a chess match, especially late in the match.
The other part of the problem last night is that Dusty was trying to play the thinking man’s game, but he’s just not a thinking man. He’s consistently bad with statistical analysis so you end up with him flailing around with six pitchers in the inning (one of whom got hurt, granted), every single one of whom only faced one or two batters. The culmination of Dusty being Dusty was putting in righty Shawn Kelly to face Justin Turner… who eats righties for breakfast. All of that flailing takes time. (Of course, the bottom of the 7th, with just one pitching change, took 31 of the 66 minutes, so…)
All of that said, 60 pitches in an inning also indicates something messy was going on. I’d be curious to see how many 60-pitch innings are played fast, but there was a lot *happening*. 1:06 is, IMO, a small price to pay to watch an amazing inning and another nail in the coffin of metrics-ignorant managing.
Important games move slower. Big whoop?!
Don’t have to praise baseball by tearing down other sports. Fans of other sports might point out that you can’t intentionally walk Tom Brady, or put in Steph Curry for offense only, or give exclusive control of the puck to a hockey team as long as it continues to put most of its shots in the net.
Can’t intentionally walk Tom Brady – precisely because there is no such opportunity for it, the game itself does not allow for it. It is an actual strategy in baseball.
Put Steph Curry in for offense only – the nature of the game itself immediately dictates that whether points are scored or not you need to fall back and play defense right away.
So while Curry HAS to be a two sided player in basketball by the very nature of the game, there are plenty of players in football, like Tom Brady that only play 1/2 of the game (or less), offense or defense. So there are a lot of players in football (most I would imagine) that could technically be considered DH’s.
And even if 60 pitches are thrown in 1 hour and 6 minutes, less than one a minute – that is baseball’s unique flow and pace given the strategy and thought of the game.
You have to get 27 outs on defense and at least 24 outs on offense in order to win -no time limit. Part of the strategy of the game itself is its platoon and handedness splits. The cool thing about baseball is that you can play those odds and the game can STILL turn on you in undesirable ways.
I mean, most of those criticisms of other sports sound just like what someone ignorant of the joys of baseball would say, just worded to fit the other sport. You might say, they’re just like you opinion, man.
Your dad is a very wise man.
The game itself was great. The 4+ hour running time? Not so much. In fact it was a disgrace much like all the other 4+ hour disgraces this post-season all of which I suspect would be played in a hours less time during the regular season. The culprits? TV, money and bullpen bloat. Greed on the part of the owners who demand the maximum for the broadcast rights and are happy to cede all control over the schedule, start times and bloated between-inning breaks so we can be bombarded with the same inane commercials over and over again. Managers who think they are Bobby Fischer playing against Boris Spassky making gratuitous pitching changes (4-6 in one inning!) most often to the detriment of their team. And don’t get me started on the endless mound conferences, the endless times pitchers (especially the relievers) step off the rubber because they can’t agree with the catcher on the pitch selection or cause the batter to ask for time because they take so damn long to throw a freaking pitch.
In 1960 the 7th game of the WS between the Yankees and the Pirates was a 10-9 affair and neither team used more pitchers in that game than Bruce Bochy used in just the ninth inning the other night or Dusty Baker used in just the 7th inning last night. The time of that game? 2 hours 36 minutes.
I’ve been a fan for more than half a century. I’ve tried to watch these games even though I have no rooting interest in any team left in the post-season I’m part of baseball’s base but I’m done with this nonsense. I need the sleep. Either start the games at a reasonable hour or cut the commercial breaks in half, eliminate the mound conferences, and while they’re at it limit pitching staffs to 10 (teams used to get along just fine with this).
The actual game last night (absent the absurd reliever use and other time wasting crap) was something to celebrate. The TV show? Junk it and start over.
If that game started at 6:00 then the whole country would have seen the end. Instead it ended fifteen minutes before one o’clock in the morning.
They waste three minutes between innings and when a relief pitcher comnes in. During the regular season the time is 2:05.
Start all October/ November baseball no later than 6:00, and everyone will see the last out.
It wasn’t fifteen minutes before one o’clock in the morning for me when it ended.
Start the game at 3pm on the West Coast, one of the fanbases playing the game misses the first 5 innings because they’re still at work
And west coast fans would miss the start of those games. 6:00 ET is 3:00 PT.
I often wonder if we go all sour once we reach certain age or if it’s just some people. Anyway, I sure hope it doesn’t happen to me.
Thanks so much for your ignorant ageism . Its a pity you lack the intellect to distinguish between legitimate complaints about how greed and ill-advised changes in the game are ruining the fan experience and “sourness” but perhaps you’ll gain some perspective when you grow up you silly child.
Too much (or too personal)? Ok, sorry about that, not trying to offend. If it did, I take it back.
Now, lets discuss! It’s the same old rhetoric sir. Always the same about how past was better, less flash and more substance. How everything now is greed, money, overproduction, etc. (and don’t get me started on dabbing).
I, for one, agree with the article 100%. My experience watching the four hour game was amazing. The pitching changes ARE baseball, Dusty and Roberts knew what was at stake and tried to get the best results for their teams. It didn’t work for the Nats but every move Baker made was defensible, it wasn’t overmanaging in the slightest. The seventh inning, for the more than an hour it lasted, was great because was what baseball is about, using what you know to try and get the upper hand. Not just staying with your starting pitcher because they did that in 1960. Also, the pitching changes weren’t made so they could sell you more coke, it’s not a conspiracy, they just go to a commercial brake so you don’t have to watch warm ups for 5 minutes. Finally, a regular season game has less on the line. Middle of April Dusty stays with Max, season on the line, not so much.
Now, as for complaining about greed and money and TV, that just comes off as grounchy. Again, 1960 was a different time, a much worse time for some people, a better time for others, but saying “screw the owners” for going for bigger TV deals because of the 60s is weak. 2016 you need the TV deals, you need the commercials, teams simply can go without them.
I dont think you said anything wrong, no need to apologize. Look, I am older than most people probably who come here, but I dont like the negative comments by baseball players from the past who complain about this and that. Maybe they have become sour people even though they have clearly led privileged lives, so shame on them. As I always say it is so much better the players get the money than the owners and why not complain about the money paid to movie stars rather than baseball players, though perhaps this isnt on point.
“Wahh wahh wahh, I didn’t feel like staying up to finish watching the game so they should do what is covenient for me.”
You are so entitled.
Great article. That’s all I have to offer, because you said it all.
In what other sport does your third-string player (catcher) be the deciding score/run, being driven in by your second-string player (catcher). And neither of them started the game? Does the 12th man on a basketball team ever take the game-winning short? Has a second-string offensive lineman ever had a play called for them to run the ball for a game-winning touchdown?
So don’t watch. None of that is anything new. Baseball has always used the full roster. Comparing it to basket is idiotic where the tighter rotation you have the better.
You misunderstand, sir. I think it’s GREAT that all the roster gets used. No worries. Sorry I was not clear enough. And, um, the catcher-catcher reference was slightly off: they contributed to the go-ahead (at that time) run. Peace and love.
It doesn’t seem like joedodger is complaining about baseball. He’s reveling in it.
4th liners, backup players, and bench players have all had huge moments in other sports.
This is so good.
You forgot Dusty going to a righty against Turner when Turner crushes righties and has all kinds of trouble vs lefties!!
I do think that, running time aside, the easiest way for any given American sport to become the most popular is to be the first one to make games available online for free like eSports. If the NFL does it first, it will become America’s pastime. If baseball does it first, it’ll reclaim the title from football. If hockey or soccer does it first, they’ll take the title from football.
But then maybe I’m just a guy without TV service who’s a bit salty about being unable to watch my team 😛
Well, they do make one game free each day, which is a nice start. But the way a fanbase (for the sport in general) is built, in my opinion, is by building the fanbases of individual teams. I know that I became a fan of my team first (when a friend brought me to a game for my 7th birthday), and later became a “baseball” fan.
So the *most* important games for people to see are their home teams’. But with blackout restrictions, that’s not going to happen (even if you pay whatever mlb.tv decides to charge on a particular day, you can never watch your home team).
Fix that problem and then we’re on to something…
The current free game doesn’t count because it requires login as if you had a subscription
Why doesn’t that “count”? Because you need to spend 15 seconds making an account?
Fantastic article. You explained perfectly what I’m trying to get across when I tell people “the game was so good – you would have hated it.”
“So concluded a thrilling baseball sequence, by which a casual baseball viewer might not have been thrilled.”
Though the casual baseball viewer may have been highly amused. Good grief, was he ever out. He was more out than a routine play at first base. He was more out than a foul out to the catcher where the batter is already halfway to the dugout before the catch. He was more out than any infield fly to deep left field when Sam Holbrook is on the case. I think the only way it could have been more hilarious is for the ball to be in the catcher’s hand before Werth had even reached third – no better yet, have the catcher run down to third and tag out Werth as he rounds the bag – followed by Dusty Baker personally going out to the field and firing Bob Henley immediately, followed by the security detail carrying poor Mr. Henley out of the stadium and tossing him in the Anacostia.
It was a great game, but I didn’t get to see all of it since I have to work for a living.
So does Kershaw come back and start game 2 or does this push him to game 3?
I have no idea but I could see him still going in game 2 and using this as his “bullpen session” between starts.
Almost certain it will be Game 2. Using this game as his bullpen, that’s full rest after his short rest start in Game 4 of the NLDS.
After pitching yesterday, Rich Hill is now set to start Game 3 of the NLCS on normal rest. One big problem with moving Kershaw to Game 3 is that it would push Hill back to Game 4. The Dodgers should definitely want to start both Kershaw and Hill sometime during the first 3 games of the NLCS, because that sets both of them up to pitch twice on normal rest in a 7 game series (unless a rainout changes the schedule).
The 2016 playoffs will forever change the way relievers are used during playoff games. I wonder whether any similar, if less dramatic, changes in relief usage will bleed over into the regular season starting next year?
Doubt it. During the season, you get a day off about once every week and a half (162/183). In the playoffs, you’re only playing about 3/5 of the days, and you find find yourself in situations where “tomorrow doesn’t matter.” The rest and workload situations are totally different.
For Dodgers fans – that game goes down in the “classics” archive based on the gutsy performance of their two best pitchers Kenley Jansen and Clayton Kershaw.
And if anything was too long and boring – it was the 21 paragraphs of complaining and whining in this article. That was a GREAT game!
It was. It was a great game, and it needed all four hours and 32 minutes. The core fans will grant the game every second that it needs. That Game 5 needed every second in order to be what it was, and that was baseball magic.
If only this had mentioned at some point in this article.
c’mon Xei, I know you can read better than that
I suspect you didn’t read any of those paragraphs.
My issue is this: I am far beyond a “casual fan” but since my team is now out of the playoffs, my incentives for staying up past 11 have dwindled. I have a job, a toddler, and sick elderly relatives to attend to. I’d love to see Kershaw come in Bumgarner style, but I had to be a human at 6 a.m. today. Watching the first 6 innings of playoff baseball has no payoff so I’ll probably just scoreboard watch each morning until it’s over. No more eyeballs on screens for me until April. Sorry MLB.
Game wasn’t tied when Pederson went out to left — he tied it with that HR.
Would have stuck with Scherzer…
PERFECT.
I, like everybody else, keep hearing about how baseball’s popularity is waning, and how it doesn’t appeal to young people, because it’s too slow and boring for an on-demand/instant gratification culture.
But could it be that, in fact, baseball is very well-suited to the “digital age” because it’s such a great “background sport?” Baseball is very easy/fun to follow online because it’s a series of discrete events (unlike, say, basketball) and the time between plays (pitches) is only a few seconds and the timeouts are relatively infrequent and predictable (unlike football). It’s the best spot to track on your phone, hands down.
Also, baseball doesn’t have to be watched closely to be enjoyed. I *love* baseball, but I haven’t watched every inning of a game on TV in, like, 25 years. I put it on in the background while I do or watch other things, or I follow it online and turn on the exciting parts. This is how most people I know follow baseball. So perhaps the sport is actually quite amenable to multi-tasking/multiple device entertainment consumption. Perhaps baseball should be pushing this angle (e.g., better/faster online tracking apps, most of them are garbage) instead of thinking younger people are going to tune in for every pitch if game times can be cut by 10 minutes.
Anyway, just some thoughts, I could be way off base with all this (much like Jayson Werth last night).
While true about the way the discrete nature of the game lends itself to following on a phone (I love doing that), couldn’t this be a potential problem for the sport when it comes to ads/revenue?
Suppose a big fraction of people move from watching on tv to following along on an app exclusively; it seems MLB has a dilemma: (a) take a hit in ad revenue from lower tv ratings and no compensation from in-app ads, or (b) compensate for lower tv ad revenue by beginning/increasing in-app ads but alienate app users in the process.
So MLB gains an avenue of exposure for its product, but does it gain or lose revenue in the process? If revenue is decreased, what is MLB’s response?
You hit on the million dollar (actually more like multi-billion dollar) question. I suspect worry over losing revenue from traditional TV deals is precisely the reason MLB and their media partners are not very proactive making online experiences better. It makes sense, but it might be shortsighted, as it seems highly likely that sports — like most “screen” entertainment — are going to move online in a major (probably cheaper) way, and if you don’t keep up with the technology for this, you risk losing your entertainment market share.
It reminds me of an article I read about Intel, and how they didn’t invest in inexpensive, low-powered chips, because they didn’t want to eat into the market for their premium, high-powered chips, which were their real money makers. But now because everything went smaller (phones and tablets) and uses low-powered chips, Intel is now hurting and laying off a lot of workers.
I think something similar could happen to sports leagues if they don’t start embracing other ways to follow their games instead of expensive cable TV packages. Baseball could be leading the way on this.
I dont think you are way off, in fact I read an article which made mention of your point in arguing that baseball isnt a dying sport, cant remember the URL, but should be easy enough to find if you care.
Max shoulda stayed in.
Werth is allowed to truck the catcher there right? So why didn’t he?
I don’t believe he is once the catcher has the ball.
Fantastic, as usual, article, Jeff
BUT
“At its best, baseball asks you to think. It’s a demand, which makes it a burden, and for many it’s a turn-off. It’s their loss.”
I don’t know about this.
I’ve been living in Europe recently and, of course, soccer/football is big there. I’ve been trying to get into it because most people are. I can’t. I can sit and enjoy a game – the atmosphere, the big moments, but I can’t get into it because there’s no emotional investment in it. I don’t know the stories of the players. I don’t know the stories of the teams.
Similarly, I don’t know that one needs to think to enjoy baseball any more than any other sports. But, perhaps, one needs to feel, or to know (the story lines, the history), more than in other sports.
Dodger baseball is like watching paint dry. Every pitch seems to require contemplation, consultation, or both. The pitcher gets the consensus of his catcher, infield and pitching coach before delivering a pitch. God forbid the pitcher throw to first, because then he seems to have to realign his chi back towards home. Kershaw is great, but after losing several minutes to the pitching change he threw one pitch – and called the catcher out for a discussion. He did that over and over in Game 1, too.
In a five game series with no extra inning, or even particularly high scoring, games this NLDS averaged well over four hours per game. Even for postseason baseball, that’s ridiculous.
It was the first game Ruiz had caught Kershaw believe it or not
“”
… baseball’s their game /
because baseball is not a game /
but an argument …
“”
~ George Oppen, _Of Being Numerous_
Standing O*
Really wish the article would address the main objection to its mostly plausible argument head on, which is: That 7th inning tho. Watching Dusty Baker parade to the mound for the ninety-seventh time, two hours and abour three pitches later (NOTE: all figures are approximate) has to kill a little of anyone’s joy at the beauty of the game. I was totally gripped by the tension of the game situation and still found my attention wandering pretty badly, involuntarily, as the millionth razor and lawn-care product ads rolled.
Beautiful article. “The walk lasted literally 6 minutes. I can’t imagine not already liking baseball, and then seeing that, and then wanting to see more of that.” Sums it up well. One of the craziest and most exciting games I’ve ever seen though.
So much that you can’t write about everything and keep it short enough for an article. Even the Murphy AB doesn’t really get any article space. Kershaw facing Murphy? October choke narrative vs. the new Mr. October? Best pitcher on the planet in a new role on no rest vs. a .500 hitter in the series who almost single handedly ended the Dodgers’ season last year with the winning run on base? Incredible. All of it. Incredible.
Nice post, Jeff, thank you.
We also got – for those interested in the more subtle points of the game – an important pick-off that looked like it might have been a balk.
Not a balk. pitchers can cross their plant leg, just not the *back* (six inches behind the back of the foot) of the pitching rubber. Urias’ foot is not six inches behind his plant foot at any point in the motion.
Where is the never give up mentality? Make them execute the rundown. The odds are slim, but all it takes is one fluke error, and in a playoff game, you’ve got to try for the fluke.
Though I appreciate the enthusiasm, I think there’s a pernicious “only true Scotsman” quality to this post. Mr Sullivan, if indirectly, watched the game as an extension of his profession. Most every other fan taxed their free time watching this game, and so the extraordinary length (greatly exacerbated by a slow pace, numerous pitching changes and the avaricious need to exploit every possible second of down time for advertising) could have cost them: sleep, family time, time spent on hobbies, time spent doing chores, and on and on and on.
Maybe a true fan of baseball could enjoy subtle elements of this game others may have missed, but I guarantee many among those true baseball fans watch fewer and fewer games and enjoy those games less and less. Like a Pink Floyd (or nowadays a Radiohead) fan, loyalty can only be exploited so far and for so long before the bottom drops out. Even cults disband. MLB seems to be pursuing the same kind of slash and burn policy so common in capitalism, in which every possible cent is wrung from the current consumer, while that which makes the product attractive, fun and cool is destroyed utterly.
Fantastic article, Jeff; great piece for why baseball is a great game and wont ever die. It does seem like most people dont have the patience and arent up to the demand of thinking which seems to be the trend of how our country, and most countries, are going. A very sad comment on we as a ‘civilization’. Faster, ever faster.
22 minutes were just dead time waiting and watching commercials during pitching changes. Add to that another 46 minutes of commercials during innings, and another 4 minutes for almost reviews but no challenge. Thats on a weeknight with a 8 pm EST start. Fine for fans not on the East coast I guess, but I have to imagine they lost a good part of the audience on the East coast (except nats fans) in the midst of all the pitching changes. Great game, great series, but baseball makes it hard for many of its fans on the East Coast to watch, at least those with a day job.
That was the best baseball game I have ever seen.