Former New York Yankees reliever Gossage’s reputation has taken a bit of a nosedive over the past few years.
The Baseball Hall of Famer has become the game’s grumpy grandpa as the 68-year-old continues to throw out his curmudgeonly opinions that scream “get off my lawn” more than anything.
Among them was this gem back in 2016 when he addressed the prevalence of analytics and advanced stats within the game:
“The game is becoming a freaking joke because of the nerds who are running it. I’ll tell you what has happened, these guys played Rotisserie baseball at Harvard or wherever the f— they went and they thought they figured the f—ing game out. They don’t know s—.”
He also called Major League Baseball’s rules committee a bunch of “f—ing nerds” because they outlawed baserunners barreling over catchers or taking out the fielder covering second base on a double play.
He’s an angry guy. I get it.
I hear that happens when you get older and society changes. Hell, I’m 27 years old and can’t stand the whole hipster thing.
On Monday, however, Gossage emerged from his cave and fired off a take that I agreed with.
Is this concerning?
Possibly.
But something rang true deep within my cerebellum when Gossage called baseball “unwatchable.”
It’s not because of the pace-of-play issue that commissioner Rob Manfred likes to shove down our throats, either.
“I can’t watch these games anymore,” Gossage said (h/t USA Today). “It’s not baseball. It’s unwatchable. A lot of strategy of the game, the beauty of the game, it’s all gone. It’s like a video game now. It’s home run derby with their f—ing launch angle every night.”
He’s right.
Baseball has become a game predicated on the long ball to the point where professional hitting has become something of an urban legend.
We’re treating the likes of the Mets’ Jeff McNeil, DJ LeMahieu of the Yankees, and Michael Brantley of the Astros as unicorns. These are high-average guys who simply “hit them where they ain’t,” rather than try to crush each pitch to the next county.
That’s the thing, though, guys like McNeil and LeMahieu are flirting with 20-home-run seasons when they’ve never shown an inkling of true power.
You can thank these new, loaded baseballs for that.
How is that entertaining?
Baseball is becoming a game of two outcomes: The strikeout or the home run.
In a normal MLB season, a total of 4,860 games are played amongst the 30 teams, minus the Wild Card Games. This season, before Tuesday’s slate of games, there have been 3,732 of those games played so far.
That left 1,128 games to be played before the regular season wraps up.
This season already ranks ninth in MLB history with 5,249 home runs hit. The average of 1.41 round-trippers per game is 0.15 home runs higher than the previous record set in 2017.
While it doesn’t seem like a big difference, a 0.15 disparity separates the next 18 highest seasons.
The same goes for strikeouts, which continues to rise at an alarming pace.
Major League Baseball has seen every season since 2008 set a new strikeout record, beginning with 6.77 per game 11 years ago to a whopping 8.73 per game in 2019.
There have been over 32,500 strikeouts this season alone and it’s fueled by players tweaking their swings in an attempt to hit home runs rather than put the ball in play.
It’s all about exit velocity and launch angle rather than hitting the ball to the right side to move a runner from second to third.
I get it. In today’s baseball, teams that hit more home runs are better.
The Dodgers, Astros, Yankees, and Twins are all near the top of the standings thanks to the long ball.
It’s just not fun, at least for this suddenly-grumpy writer.
