Will Baseball Leave Us?
Getting the fix
Knowing that they needed to find a reason to once again bring fans to the game, the fix was on. From juiced baseballs to juiced arms, steroids ran rampant throughout the league. It worked, too, as fans returned in droves to a game that had just said that fans didn’t matter; money matters. A course correction was required, and finally, Major League Baseball put their foot down and essentially stopped performance-enhancing drugs.
It took until recently for things to seem under control. But the damage was done to a strategic game that was equal parts; the smell of the cut grass, vendors shouting about peanuts, and cracks of bats.
The nostalgia was lost for many, especially the casual ones, who were only there for the three-run bomb and a dramatic bat-flip. Pitching duels became few and far between, and moving runners along the basepaths faded away due to analytics. The eye test gave way to the spreadsheet, the trackman, and WAR.
A league in jeopardy
At some point, the fans will call Major League Baseball’s bluff and not come back. Especially the fans of teams that haven’t been successful recently. The short season of 2020 was a nice test, but if Major League Baseball messes with the rebuild of the Seattle Mariners and they lose this window of opportunity, it could spell doom for the Emerald City’s team.
If Seattle loses this window of development, then their rebuild could face a much more challenging uphill obstacle to face, and that’s a declining fan base that doesn’t return to baseball. The Mariners are an organization that has been plagued with bad luck, poor management, and horrid development. Yet the fans show up to the games. If this season is delayed, then what will the ripple effects be?
It’s not just the Mariners either; it’s the Marlins (don’t let their accidental trip to the postseason fool you), Tigers, Royals, Pirates, Rangers, and Orioles. All of these teams are in jeopardy of folding, here’s why.
They all banked on rebuilding a fan base with the arrival of top prospects and hope. Those teams were willing to sacrifice several lean years to get to the point where the fans come back because they are excited about their team and its future.
What if the team never gets their prospects up to showcase them and sell tickets?