NHR: The mighty have fallen! (World Series Related)
- Thread starter Herd-nificent
- Start date
No. I haven't watch a MLB game in 2 years, maybe 3. I have not watched one pitch nor highlight of this years World Series.
Yes I do. It’s been a really good series.
As America turns more urban and brown over the coming decades baseball will grow in popularity. I enjoy and take every sport on its own merit. I find the espnesque efforts by the yap yap media experts to pit one sport against another to be a waste of time. I would rather watch a game, any game.
It has been a great post season. Many, many great games. It's NFL football I never watch. My last time watching the Super Bowl was 1972 when Jim O'Brien kicked a FG to lead the Baltimore Colts over Dallas 16-13. Incidentally, Chuck Howley, from Warwood, WV, was the only Super Bowl MVP from a losing team.
I watch when my team is playing. I despise the Red Sox and hate the Dodgers. If the Cubs aren't playing I am not watching. The Dodgers are the lesser of two evils that are just trying to buy the WC title with greatly inflated team salaries.
The Cubs basically have the same payroll as the Dodgers.
Y'all are going to sign Harper so it'll go up next year, too.
The Dodgers salary is actually 10% higher than the Cubs and we had $37M of our salary on the disabled list that didn't play but a handful of games in 2018. The Cubs also built most of the team through the draft instead of free agency, and we have just two players (Heyward/Lester) making up about $56M of the payroll. As for Harper, I know him and Bryant are close, but I will believe it when I see it. Plus, Harper is a strike out machine and the Cubs need less of those type of players. The Cubs would also need to get rid of a big salary in the outfield to bring him in and no one wants Heyward's contract. Harper will probably sign with the Dodgers or Yankees based on rumors.
Last edited:
Baseball is doing just fine as an industry, because, unlike NBA and NFL, there are huge $$ in regional regular season contract with the regional sports networks (i.e. Fox Sports Ohio, AT&T sportsnet Pittsburgh, etc.). Huge. The ratings for each regional game, which is pretty much every night, added together, dwarf everything but the NFL.
But the playoffs are just lost in a sea of football on weekends and further by insane weeknight start times. If you do not follow one of the teams, it is really not worth the disruption.
Once you understand that only about 10 teams have the resources to actually compete, short of a super scouting effort creating once in a lifetime set of young players yet to play out their options, and that none of those are the geographically logical teams in WV, you lose interest.
But the playoffs are just lost in a sea of football on weekends and further by insane weeknight start times. If you do not follow one of the teams, it is really not worth the disruption.
Once you understand that only about 10 teams have the resources to actually compete, short of a super scouting effort creating once in a lifetime set of young players yet to play out their options, and that none of those are the geographically logical teams in WV, you lose interest.
Sportrac has the Dodgers at $199,582,045 and the Cubs at $194,259,933. I'm not a numbers guy but that's way less than 10%.
In addition to Lester and Heyward the Cubs also have non-homegrown players like Quintana, Zobrist, Hamels, Murphy, Cishek, Darvish and Morrow making a ton of money. To be fair, y'all also have a bunch of homegrowns studs in Rizzo, Bryant, Contreras, Baez, etc.
The Dodgers have a bunch of players they're drafted and developed as well. Puig, Kershaw, Jansen, Bellinger, Pederson, Grandal, Seager, Buehler etc. Yes, they have Machado but outside of him and Kemp they haven't really taken on any huge salaries lately.
Harp does strike out quite a bit but that's mostly because he is so patient. He only hit .249 this year but still got on base at a .393 clip. He led all of MLB in walks.
By the way, I'm in no way bashing the Cubs. They're very well run and Theo is a fantastic GM. Just pointing out that I think it's a tad hypocritical for a Cubs fan to be complaining about the way the Dodgers operate.
The big difference I see is that two of the Cubs highest paid free agent pickups (Darvish/Morrow) missed most of the season and didn't play 2nd half of the season. That accounted for $37M of the payroll while the Dodgers were just missing Seager and replaced him with Machado. I don't like the Dodgers because they knocked us out of a probable repeat last season, but the teams I truly despise because they just try to buy titles are the Redsox and Yankees. I could see Harper and Machado both playing for one or both of those teams next season. The Cubs are probably screwed next season in terms of being able to challenge for the WS title due to the salaries of Heyward and Lester as I don't see a way to bring in another top end pitcher or position player without getting rid of them. I would love to have Hamels back next season as Darvish may still be out. When you consider that Lester and Heyward are both good locker room guys then it makes me believe the team is close to peaking despite the youth in the lineup because we won't be improve the team enough to compete with the teams that are going to keep spending. Hell, we'll be lucky to beat the Brewers next season as they will likely be able to afford to keep the 10+ guys (exaggeration) they traded for at the deadline to help them beat us. The Cubs really have a lot of question marks going into next season so I think we are going to slide in 2019.
Any rationale for this?... From everything Ive read, people in urban areas and especially minorities, are moving away from baseball. Participation among african american youths is at an all time low. Meanwhile, soccer and basketball are booming in the urban youth markets.
Baseball's two biggest problems are two things that are going to be really hard to overcome in the future.
1. The games/season take way too damn long – People do not have the attention span or the time to invest 3.5 hours in your product. Especially when you figure they play six days a week. I, and many other sports consumers, will spend 3.5 hours with football (either NFL or college) because its once a week. College basketball, the NBA and NHL have taken steps to speed up their games and consolidate the action to try to hold viewers by keeping games under 3 hours. Baseball slogs along with a season that goes on forever and games that take an entire night to attend, especially if the game is close, it wears people out.
2. No salary cap – This means that about 6-8 teams every year have a chance to win the World Series. Guess what, those teams next year are the Red Sox, Yankees, Cubs, Astros, Dodgers, Braves. The Red Sox are probably going to add Josh Donaldson, Machado has been linked to the Yankees and Harper to the Cubs. Those are the three biggest free agents going to the three teams that spend the most money. So basically if your favorite team isnt on the above list, there is no reason to give any time to them next year after the Fourth of July.
I said brown not black but African American initiatives have reversed the trend, yet to see if the trend continues.
Hispanics Americans will be the largest segment of the population soon, baseball and soccer will continue to flourish. And as you pointed out basketball is the number two sport on the planet.
Baseball basically turned into(in a big way, not totally) to a rich or white kid with parents with some money sport. Travel ball did it to a large degree. That is why minorities and kids with not money don't take it up. It takes money to travel all summer and parents with the time and resources. You are not just going to play Little League or take baseball up in the 9th grade and be good at it. You can in many other sports and not spend literally thousands of dollars and countless hours and day traveling like your peers. The days of playing Little League for a few months are long gone.
That's false. In terms of payroll, these teams all made the post-season:
Houston #9
Colorado #13
Cleveland #14
Atlanta #18
Milwaukee #22
Oakland #28
I watched even though I have no real interest but the 18 inning game kept me watching until after 3 AM.
You’ve obviously never been associated with travel hockey when speaking of money involved in travel sports. Compared to baseball it’s much more expensive.
I played hockey as a kid all the way through high school in PA... It was expensive in the 1990s, and is even moreso today.
One advantage now over back then though is used gear (Play It Again Sports, etc.) and online shopping for deals.
Hockey benefits from having its core market of participants in the northern US, Canada and most major US cities in the south now. When I moved to Raleigh after college I played in a mens rec hockey league and I was shocked at how many youth hockey teams they have. Same is true for Nashville, Tampa, Phoenix, Dallas, etc.
Really?
Then how come almost 30% of the players come from Latin American s***hole countries where the average income would not buy you two tanks of gas? (DR is $172/month, with many people practicing subsitance farming and having no real cash income at all).
If you look at the "baseball playing world" (Anglo America, Mexico, Spanish Caribbean, Nicaragua, Panama, Venezuela, Columbia, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea) as a %age of the total population , the most under-represented group are not American blacks, but American/Canadian whites.
And, according to SABR, the %age of major leaguers who played "travel ball" is a whopping 7%.
Most people playing baseball played in their own hometowns against the other kids.
Not to play devil's advocate here, but that stat is misleading at best... The average age of a MLB player is 29 years old... Meaning that 20 years ago when they were coming up they played in their hometowns against other hometown kids.
Of course they did because "travel ball" didn't exist on a large scale 20 years ago... The blight of "travel ball" for the good players and little league for the crappy kids has come along in the last dozen or so years. Especially in small towns, where travel ball was once unheard of since you actually have to travel to play it.
That stat is like saying 7% of MLB players had cell phones in the third grade... Which makes sense since cell phones weren't widely available to third graders in 1998.
I guess we will find out in another 20 years then.
My money is on plenty of dirt poor Latin American players and regular working class American / Canadian whites and blacks.
My money is on plenty of dirt poor Latin American players and regular working class American / Canadian whites and blacks.
They are working on ways to speed the game up but baseball is this way now because players strikeout as much as they put the ball in play. Everyone swings for the fence nowadays instead of just putting the bat on the ball so the more pitches that are thrown due to a lack of contact, the more time it takes to complete the game. I love the game and always will as I don't have ADHD likely 95% of Americans that can't sit still without checking email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, what on the other channel, etc. Like Gundy said, all these electronic devices are messing with most people's ability to function in a normal manner and with patience.
They have the luxury tax in baseball where a large percentage of the payroll above specific threshold is put into a general fund that is redistributed to all the teams. I would prefer a salary cap system without a hard cap to make it more competitive top-to-bottom, but I don't believe it would ever be voted in by the owners. The hard cap system ruined my Blackhawks team as we only have a handful of players from the 2015 Stanley Cup Champions due to the salary cap restraints. We lost 1/3 of the roster due to salary cap issues each of the next 2 seasons and the result was the last place finish this past season.
That was a pretty good game. I checked the score in the 8th inning and tried to stay up and watch it.
Nah, I used to watch a lot of baseball in the past, but i just don't have time to do it with my kids heavily involved in soccer on a daily basis and my wife not wanting to watch any sports except when the Cowboys or Manchester United play. I have to pick and choose my games so I choose MU games, Manchester Utd, Cubs, Cowboys, and Blackhawks games. I just watch select games in each of those sports outside of my teams when I get time.
I am talking about America, sir. American youth. Not the influx of from those areas. That is a different story. but, it takes money to play baseball now here if you are going to be good, even at the high school level. If you are not playing travel ball now then, you will not likely compete at a higher level(high school in big areas) at all.
And, it takes money and time from your parents to play in travel ball. The vast majority of kids, even good athletes, simply cannot pick up a bat in the 9th grade and compete anymore.
That's much better than Liverpool, Redsox, Patriots, and Blues. Note that the 1st three have deals with each other, and I hate the Blues for obvious reasons. Oh yeah, I checked the schedule and it looks like the Deadskins are going to actually be playing teams with a pulse the rest of the way. I see 8-8 or 9-7 in their future, which is an improvement, but the Vultures conned the Lions yesterday into giving up a 1000 yard receiver for a virtual 4th rd pick and will beat both our teams to the division title this year.
Were you a military kid growing up? Just an odd group of teams to root for, especially if you grew up anywhere near professional sports teams.
I'm under no delusion that the Skins are world beaters. I do think our defense is very good and got better yesterday with Clinton-Dix, though. I actually think the schedule sets up well the rest of the way for the Skins. If they beat Atlanta on Sunday I think 10-6 is a likely finish.
Sooooooooo, it is not possible for an American to learn to play baseball outside of travel ball, but it can easily be learned by dirt poor Latin kids playing one another in between wondering where their next meal is coming from.
Cannot argue with logic like that.
Ever been to any Latin American countries? How many kids did you see playing football? How about hockey? How many basketball courts did you see? How many local kids did you see playing tennis or golf? Those kids are playing baseball and soccer year round, and the weather affords them the ability to do that.
Compare that to American kids. They are playing baseball, football/soccer, basketball/hockey, then mixing in some golf, lacrosse, and tennis. On top of that, half of the country can't play baseball for half of the year even if they wanted to focus on one sport.
As a whole, those from Hispanic countries are able to play all year and don't play another sport outside of soccer. Kids in America can't just succeed in baseball playing in one league from May-July for youths or March - May for high schoolers. They, many times, are playing in two leagues at the same time or extending their three month season another couple of months with travel baseball.
I was in NY last month for a couple of weeks. While there, my running route took me past my old Little League fields. I was shocked that there were teams - plural - out on the fields every single evening in late September in NY. That wasn't an option for me growing up. In 7th grade, I played one year of both Little League and Babe Ruth. In 8th grade, before I was old enough to play American Legion, I played JV baseball for a high school from March - May and then Babe Ruth from April - August. Then, I played varsity baseball starting in 9th grade (March-May) and on one of two American Legion (all-star travel squads at the time) teams all summer.
That is Herdman's point. If you are going to excel in baseball in America, you're doing more than playing just your high school season. You're also traveling all summer in some other league.
Just as important, you need to look at the per capita talent level in the Latin countries vs. America. Per capita, those kids are better than Americans. So if you're playing in the U.S., there is a good chance you're playing against and with a bunch of inferior players. You aren't getting better that way. On the other hand, these Latin kids are playing against better competition in much smaller countries geographically. In the U.S., to play better competition, you're going to have to play travel ball.
If you are doubting the effect of travel ball on American youth baseball then, you don't have a clue about what is going on in baseball here.
No, I just grew up watching the Cubs and Blackhawks on WGN with my grandpa. I don't know why I started liking the Cowboys as a 6 year old, but I did watch a lot of westerns as a kid. As for Manchester United, I watched them play on TV for the first time in 1984 and was hooked, and I used to be a shareholder until the Glazers bought the club and had to buy all the common stock to take the club private.
I agree on the pickup of Clinton-Dix, he should make the back end of the defense better, but I see Petersen fading as the season goes on and expect the offense to slide.
Last edited:
Similar threads
