The reports of baseball’s death have been greatly exaggerated. Or have they? Type “is baseball dying” into the search engine of your choice and prepare for answers that run the gamut. Analyzing baseball, like everything in this highly politicized world, appears to be yet another left vs right issue. The left-wing believes that baseball is doing great. Numbers are up and everything is great. The right believes that baseball is dying and much of the damage is self-inflicted. Both sides use numbers to prop up their argument. Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Mark Twain for the win, again.
I am going to attempt to answer the question using data and analyzing that data. Baseball is a game of numbers after all. First, I suppose I should give you my bona fides. Why should you read this and take my opinion seriously? Baseball and I go way back. I started playing T-ball when I was five or six years old. I played Little League and Babe Ruth baseball and was invited to play Legion ball but had to give the game up to work on the family farm.
While my playing career ended earlier than I would have liked, I continued to be a fan and attended minor league games in Great Falls, Montana. I watched players like Eric Karros, Mike Devereaux, John Wetteland, Jose Offerman, and Raul Mondesi begin their voyage from the rookie advanced league to the MLB. I watched a lot of baseball on TV and also made it to a few games a year in the Kingdome. That’s how much I loved baseball.
When I moved to South Korea back in 2001, I continued to watch the Mariners, inexplicably enough, on NHK. Ichiro had just come to the Mariners and every game was broadcast in Japan. For some reason, my cable company in Seoul included NHK. The added bonus was no NHK man ever knocked on my door looking for payment. Now I live in Japan and have watched games in every stadium in Japan, save for Sendai. Maybe this year. I used to watch MLB games online but gave that up a few years ago. And I guess that is why I am writing this. Why did I give up on baseball? Well, MLB baseball.
Do I think baseball is dying? Maybe. It is dead for me, though. The game has just become a drag. Batters stepping out of the box after every pitch, spitting, adjusting their cup, messing with their batting gloves (damn you, Nomar Garciaparra). The pitchers are no better. Catch the ball. Walk around the mound. Spit. Play with the cap (to juice the ball, allegedly). Rub the arm (to juice the ball, allegedly). Get the sign. Think about it. Pitch. Catch the ball. Repeat. It is excruciating. Some random lunatic uploaded some Cubs games from the 70s on YouTube and it’s like watching a different sport. The time between pitches is maybe 10 seconds. The batters stay in the box and the pitcher gets the sign and pitches. The games last a couple of hours and things actually happen.
But is it just the slow pace of the game that is killing the sport? In our short to no attention span culture, it probably doesn’t help, but there are other factors dragging the sport down as well. That is what I want to examine. So, after that long-winded introduction, let’s get into it.
The way baseball is played has radically changed over the years. One of the most obvious changes is the attitude players have towards striking out. Players really aren’t bothered by striking out two to three times a game. Unfair assessment? Maybe, but I have the numbers to back it up.
The first set of numbers I looked at was the number of strikeouts for the top 25 players in each season. The first chart shows the total number of strikeouts for the league leaders and the average number of strikeouts for the league leaders. In 60 years the average number of strikeouts amongst the league leaders has almost doubled.
| 1961 | 1971 | 1982 | 1991 | 2001 | 2011 | 2021 |
| 2521 | 2903 | 2971 | 3238 | 3712 | 3936 | 4280 |
| 1961 | 1971 | 1982 | 1991 | 2001 | 2011 | 2021 |
| 101 | 116 | 119 | 130 | 149 | 157 | 171 |
Why is this a problem? Well, when a batter goes down looking or swinging without putting the ball into play, that means 7 guys are standing around doing nothing at all. Baseball has always been an individual sport masquerading as a team sport, but recently, the mask has been ripped off for all to see the ugly truth behind the mask.
What do the numbers look like when you include all of the players? Ugly. Strikeouts appear to be the hip new trend amongst the baseball set. I know chicks love the long ball, but fans hate the strikeout. Let’s take a peek at this very ugly trend.
| 1961 | 1971 | 1982 | 1991 | 2001 | 2011 | 2021 |
| 14947 | 20956 | 21221 | 24390 | 32404 | 34448 | 42145 |
Of course, the numbers are a bit skewed because in 1961 there were only 18 teams, 24 teams in 1971, 26 teams in 1982 and 1991, and 30 teams from 2001 until now. So just adding up the number of strikeouts doesn’t prove much of anything. Just look at the difference from 2001 to 2021. 10,000 more Ks in just twenty years! Now look at the percentage of strikeouts per plate appearance, the numbers are striking, (or strikeouting), sorry, I just had to.
| 1961 | 1971 | 1982 | 1991 | 2001 | 2011 | 2021 |
| 13% | 14% | 13% | 15% | 17% | 18% | 23% |
A 10 percent increase in strikeouts is dramatic. Almost a quarter of every plate appearance ends with a guy not even leaving the batters-box. To put that into perspective, if we do some rough math, the average number of plate appearances per game in 2021 was around 40, and 10 of those PAs ended in a K.
Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with watching a dominating pitcher sit guys down with an electric fastball, a snapdragon curve, or a dancing knuckleball. However, it seems almost every pitcher is a Koufax, Ryan, Johnson, or Clemens these days.
What’s the root cause of all these swings and misses? Money plays a role, of course. Long ball hitters get big deals. But there has to be more to it than that. Have pitchers become much better at fooling batters? There are more flamethrowers starting and even more coming out of the bullpen now than in the past. Has the two-strike approach changed over time? Are guys still swinging for the fences even with two strikes? As with most issues, there is more than one answer. All I know is, that for me, I just can’t watch guys come up and hack away like a guy in a jungle with a machete all game long.
One thing is certain, the way the game is played has changed drastically over time. In later posts, we will examine those issues in more detail and try to get to the root of the matter. Baseball may not be dying, but it seems to have picked up a nagging cough.
For this series, I am going to start in 1961 and go forward every 10 years. I will use 1982 data due to the strike-shortened season in 1981.
Rolling Tsuchinoko 
MLB is the 3 outcomes; walk, SO or HR. Games last 4 to 5 hours with 15 guys coming out of the bullpen. Toss in the expense of going to a game and it means more money for a lower quality product. Let it die and do something else for entertainment.
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