Analytics Didn’t Ruin Baseball; Nostalgia Did

Overtime Heroics Editorial

1770 days ago

Baseball is a sport that is losing the coveted status it always had as America’s Pastime. This has caused baseball fans to wonder what went wrong. After the end of the steroid era, Major League Baseball hit a downturn for the worst. The rise of analytics coincided with this fall, and as baseball ratings plummet, they get the blame. In baseball, analytics have become been villanized.

“The good old days of baseball” is a phrase used often. People say Kevin Cash ruined the day by pulling Blake Snell in Game 6. Whatever excuse is offered, this is objectively wrong. Analytics didn’t ruin baseball, it’s the nostalgia that people use to bash the modern game that has ruined it.

Analytics Lead To Winning

The most analytical teams in baseball over the last half-decade are some of baseball’s BEST teams. The Rays, Dodgers, Astros, Red Sox, Yankees, A’s and Cubs have combined for tons of wins over the last five years. They’ve also had a lot of postseason success, with the Rays, Dodgers, Astros, Red Sox and Cubs all winning pennants.

The formula has created production at its peak efficiency and has made up for gaps in talent. The Dodgers and Rays went 6 games in the World Series, despite the Dodgers’ roster being MUCH more loaded. Analytics has created a way to get the best out of players, and it’s been conducive towards winning.

Bashing Analytics Hurts Baseball

A-Rod going on national television to bash analytics is a joke. The dude just watched the “Ivy Leaguers” dismantle the Yankees. It was a literal beatdown throughout the entire 2020 season. He just saw Dodgers’ GM Andrew Friedman (who brought analytics to the Rays) win a World Series as well. Baseball is being painted as an evil sport where idiots are running the show. Analytical teams have consistently brought forth a product worth watching in terms of consistent success for their fans. When you ignorantly call them a form of cancer to baseball, you make the entire sport look bad.

Other Sports Have Become Extremely Analytical

Basketball had the three-point revolution that dramatically changed the sport, and it is as popular as ever. The NFL is a league where the running back has been determined by analytics as not super valuable. Passing is everything, and it’s the most popular sport in America. The problem with baseball isn’t that the game is more efficient for teams, because if it was, then we’d see other sports become less popular as well.

“Only Hitting Home Runs” Isn’t New

I always hear about the good old days when in the 90s “real hitters” would play. Wasn’t that the same era of baseball that had steroids? The same era where Barry Bonds would quite literally only walk and hit home runs? Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire aren’t lambasted by people like A-Rod who hate analytics.

How is it that we look upon an era of home runs as the era in which hitters were at their best, yet look at today’s home run clobberers as bad for the game? It’s called nostalgia. It makes everything in the past feel better than it actually was. Baseball doesn’t have a home run problem or an analytics problem, it has a nostalgia problem.

Making Productive Changes in Baseball

Are analytics 100% right? Obviously, they aren’t always right, but they’re a model that is more right than wrong, so teams will follow them. You can’t be mad with the sport of baseball for wanting to win. Let’s actually talk about the things with the sport which are wrong. Things like the lack of marketability and the outdated “unwritten rules”. Analytics isn’t going to be the reason the sport loses viewers.

Next time you hear some national media pundit blame the lack of ratings on analytics, now you know; analytics isn’t ruining baseball, your nostalgia is.

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Overtime Heroics Editorial

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Thomas Hall

1552 days ago

Winning doesn’t necessarily prove that you are producing a product that is worth watching. Many of the people who criticize over analytical teams long for the type of baseball played pre 1987. In 82 for instance when a Cardinal team won it all while hitting a grand total of 67 home runs while stealing 200 bases. Triples, steals, taking extra bases and throwing out guys trying to take extra bases make baseball gun to watch. Today’s game is filled with the exciting pitching changes, enthralling games where how hum another homer is followed by three strikeouts. It’s rubbish. And it pains me to say I haven’t watched a full game since 2011. Basketball is just as boring. All 3s all the time. The Showtime Lakers were exciting not because they won so much but because they could beat you with the fast break, or dumping the ball inside to the best offensive weapon of all time KAJ. Today we settle for soft giants hoisting threes. Kevin Love bores the crap out of me. So does Durant. Diversity is fun Bird from outside Parish and McHale inside an excellent fast break that scored easy baskets. It was fun. The NFL. Same thing. Pass pass pass with the help of rules that take away the defenders ability to defend. I’d pass too. It’s 80 complete 15% pass interference. (An exaggeration of course but you can see where I’m going). Watching Bo Jackson, Marcus Allen, Jim Brown and Barry Sanders break off huge gains while either knocking defenders on their collective butts or eluding them with fancy spin moves, THAT excites people. Oh and by the way some bombs and control oriented passes make it even better. I’m sure I sound evil because I’m “nostalgic “ but all three sports were better before analytics. Now I’m watching hockey and soccer and praying I’m too dumb to realize they are using it too. Bring back the running back, the stolen base and the power forward/center who shoots 55% from the field and wouldn’t dream of shooting a three ball and then and only then will I care again!

1 reply

Joe Kotulak

1589 days ago

See you are wrong here. Analytics has ruined baseball. Yes the steroid had a lot of homeruns hit, but is also was an era that saw the year with the greatest amount of runs scored, hits, and walks in 2000. There was no such thing as an Adam Dunn type hitter during that time that a lot of teams put in a lineup today or if it did exist they were a big rarity. People chalk up offensive levels in the year 2000 to lack of shifts, lack of hard throwers, lack of curveballs thrown in different counts, etc. While those are certainly possible answers, there is no hard evidence in the form of clear data to suggest or prove hitters then would have been worse than hitters like now in different circumstances. It's just speculative. I'm in the minority that doesn't agree pitching is better now, but that the hitters are worse now. I only have to look as far as what Roger Clemens did statistically with the Yankees in his career as evidence that hitters were that much better back then in comparison to now. Now I consider Roger Clemens to be a top 50 pitcher of all time that had about as nasty of stuff as any pitcher that pitches in the game today (you can disagree with me, but that's my opinion based on what I've seen). You know what his career ERA was with the Yankees despite having nasty stuff? 4.01. When I look at that I can't help, but credit a lot of the hitters back then because Clemens would have not pitched to that career 4.01 with the Yankees during this time in baseball given that hitters are not as good now in the amount of times they capitalize on pitcher mistakes (especially on fastballs) as compared to the level they did capitalize back in 2000. This is statistically true and the amount of hits and walks leading to runs scored in 2000 further proves it. Guys capitalized on fastballs considered in the middle of the plate at a 7% increase in 2000 compared to 2019. Attribute or chalk that reason up to whatever you want, but there's no data to support what those hitters would have done otherwise in different circumstances. To me facing a hard thrower who throws more curveballs has nothing to do with how well you capitalize on pitcher mistakes you do get. It is extremely rare for a hitter to go through an at bat where he didn't get at least 1 good pitch to hit. I watch today's game and people are putting fastballs right down the middle on the net or they are taking them. It's not just about the fact that analytics has ruined the art of hitting, it's also taken away the creative aspect of approaching every at bat, every pitch, every decision made on the base pads. Guys don't even see the value of risking going to 3rd on a base hit with 1 out, but are ok with risking getting thrown out at home on a base hit. It makes no sense. Not everything needs to operate by a book. We don't operate our entire lives from a piece of paper or what we should be eating for dinner based on what it statistically shows we should eat. Use some imagination for once. Are people's observing of the game so bad that they don't even trust what they are looking at enough to disregard sometimes what a book might say? Give me a break. Hitters in the steroid era murdered pitches right down the middle. I mean imagine pitching Manny Ramirez or David Ortiz the same way pitchers pitch to let's say Adam Dunn or Kyle Schwarber, you would have a 6 run inning easily.

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Mouser

1594 days ago

He's wrong right out of the gate. Ratings and viewership are down in both nba and the nfl, and yes people want to see their team win but would rather win with bunting, sacrifice flys and steals, all of which analytics have made disappear. There's more to the story but analytics have made sports, including golf, less exciting and less about strategy and risk taking.

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James

1766 days ago

The A’s have nothing to show for the use of it other than getting in the playoffs and stalling. The teams who do use it and win have money. Then there are the sell your soul teams. Marlins and recently the Royals. There are no analytics that can keep Lindor in Cleveland. Analytics was developed by teams with small budgets so they can get a lot more bang of their buck. The dodgers saw that and say cool then went and gave Mookie Betts a ton of money. In real life and in sports brains and money will beat out brains and some money. Also every it seems every year like this one in the NFL scoring is up. Not in MLB. Three and half hour games with barely any base runners and a few hits with twenty K’s aesthetically is boring. And I’m a huge baseball fan.

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