Quote:
Originally Posted by Discuss Thrower
MLB can't get out of its own way, can it?
****ing up in the 1994 lockout, then the steroid era, squandering the marketability of its best player of the 2010s in Trout and now probably being complicit in an even bigger star's gambling cover-up.
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In fairness, the steroid era exploded the popularity of baseball and brought it back to it's pre-strike levels. It was how they navigated their way out of it that created an issue (i.e. they ignored it until they got beaten over the head with it rather than walk away from the table when they got up a couple grand...). Had MLB gotten back to level and then said "okay fellas, lets put some testing in" before Bonds head swelled up 6 sizes, they'd have been in really nice shape and the steroid era would've actually been a huge benefit for baseball.
And MLB didn't do anything to waste Trout - that was Arte Moreno. It's no different than the Chargers and Herbert. Do we blame the NFL for the Lions wasting Barry Sanders and Calvin Johnson? Nope - that's the Lions fault.
They made some good changes last season to make the game a little more watchable. I still think they need to consider moving the mound back a little more given the explosion in velocity and how pitching dominates. And I've long said the game would be significantly better if they moved the walls back across the board (though some stadiums simply can't do that).
Raw stuff has just gotten way too nasty these days. Hell, baseball as originally designed wasn't SUPPOSED to generate swings and misses. The whole "hit it back up the box" thing goes back to the days when pitchers literally stood in a box and the goal was to give guys something to hit but not something too easy to hit. So pitchers would change their angles by moving around this box that's roughly where the mound is today.
Strikeouts are boring. And besides that they're fascist. Throw some groundballs - it's more democratic.