MLB Playoff start times and its declining viewership

Cesar Crespo

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Dec 22, 2002
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Bad news for your dad but I expect more starting pitchers to be pulled earlier going forward as more value is given to the Third Time Thru The Order numbers
Yeah, probably. I wonder if it ever gets to the point they have to change the 5 ip to get a win rule.
 

jon abbey

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Middle infielders like to see the signs, too. They will shade a step one way or the other depending on the pitch. Should they get electronics, too?
I wonder how often they can actually see the signs these days given extreme shifting, but if I am the one in charge of this imaginary transition, I would say no, keep it to the catcher/pitcher as it's less complicated that way and more likely to actually work.
 

jon abbey

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Yeah, probably. I wonder if it ever gets to the point they have to change the 5 ip to get a win rule.
It doesn't matter at all obviously but they should change this now. I guess the 'worry' was that guys would come in once their team already had a lead and artificially 'steal' a win, but if you look at the TB box scores from this past season, the most deserving pitcher rarely gets the W.
 

theapportioner

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It doesn't matter at all obviously but they should change this now. I guess the 'worry' was that guys would come in once their team already had a lead and artificially 'steal' a win, but if you look at the TB box scores from this past season, the most deserving pitcher rarely gets the W.
Why not just get rid of wins and losses for pitchers entirely?
 

reggiecleveland

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You can say this about pretty much every sport right now except tennis, basketball and soccer. Kids are playing sports less and less every year.
My predictions is sports will increasingly appeal to hardcore fans, because there will be no other choice.

The unpredictable element to me is that kids that play the sports don't even watch games. I coach high school hoops and each of my guys has a team, and like tonight for example the Celtic kids are trash talking the fans of the Greek Freak. But, probably none of them will watch it. They will buy into whatever 45 second narrative the intsagram summary has, and talk about all the highights even the stats. Ironically it is a lot like the 1950s where the next day everybody has the same simplified versions of what happened. But they won't watch the whole game, or probably any of it. My kid wants to be a college pitcher, but he will youtube videos pf Price's motion, he doesn't watch the games. he gets a buzz on his phone when Mookie is up and comes in and watches then can't handle waiting.

On the other hand these kids are even more influenced by the advertising of major sports. My guys don't know how the Warriors play the ball screen, but they do know who makes their practice gear. They know which players are Iphone guys, Android guys, etc. My kid that doesn't watch games knows which 200 buck maple bats each guy on the Sox uses. There is weird intense shallowness to young people and sports fandom.
 

Cesar Crespo

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Dec 22, 2002
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Wade Boggs Chicken Dinner posted this in the Patriots forum but I think it's valid here too. As someone mentioned in that thread, the median age is 3 years older now than 2000. At least the MLB isn't the NHL but it's a problem. I'm guessing part of the problem is cord cutting too. Maybe a kid with cable randomly watches a baseball game but a kid with parents who cut the cord and went to streaming has no option to watch sports. That's slowly changing now. That may bring some of the youth back.


https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-sports-with-the-oldest-and-youngest-tv-audiences-2017-06-30
 

dhappy42

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Oct 27, 2013
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I wonder how often they can actually see the signs these days given extreme shifting, but if I am the one in charge of this imaginary transition, I would say no, keep it to the catcher/pitcher as it's less complicated that way and more likely to actually work.
It just takes one MI to see the catcher’s signs. He then relays it to the other infielders and outfielders.
 

dirtynine

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I don’t like the pitch clock. Clocks and baseball don’t mix. I’m not a purist - I can handle replay, and automated balls & strikes sound interesting to me. Sure, enforce judgment on pitch timing, mound visits, and batters staying in the box. But (more) clocks can’t solve the core problem.

Baseball games can be long. There’s certainly some fat to cut (commercial break lengths), but sometimes long is what a baseball game needs to be. If baseball dies as a network TV attraction because of that, so be it. I’m sick of people trying to make baseball something it will never be - a fast-paced, what-the-kids-are-buzzing about action sport. Baseball’s pace is naturally leisurely. It is a long conversation, not a series of soundbites. Tense ball games are not so because of nonstop action - but because they deliberately raise the stakes a step at a time. Sometimes in insanely exciting moments, sometimes in small steps almost below the level of perception. I don’t want this to change.

World Series games should not be ending at 1am. But that’s not primarily because they’re too long. It’s because they’re being treated like NBA games or prime time TV shows instead of uniquely interesting events.

Honestly I’d start weekday World Series games at 5pm Eastern. Friday and Saturday at 8pm. Sunday at 4pm. I’d start a ton of games all year long at these times. (I’d also play fewer regular season games overall.)

What’s the worst that could happen? In 20 years we end up with a league that’s smaller and less rich, not on TV as much, with less ambition to be a national powerhouse sport - but there’s a perpetual core of fans across age groups who love the game for what it is? That sounds ok to me.

I have a 6-year old daughter. We didn’t get to watch much playoff baseball this year. It wasn’t because she couldn’t handle a four-hour game. It was because she goes to bed at 8. MLB has to change the start times, and be less afraid of being a sport with niche appeal.
 

Noseminer

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Jun 17, 2018
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Change of start times will never happen. Why? Simple. Prime time advertising rates. That is what it all boils down to. If they could get the same money starting a game at ANY time they would. But those prime time ad dollars is what drives the bus. And it always will.
 

JimD

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Nov 29, 2001
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I don’t like the pitch clock. Clocks and baseball don’t mix. I’m not a purist - I can handle replay, and automated balls & strikes sound interesting to me. Sure, enforce judgment on pitch timing, mound visits, and batters staying in the box. But (more) clocks can’t solve the core problem.
Having attended minor-league games where the pitch clock is used - I found that I didn't even notice it after a while. If the clock is instituted in the big leagues, MLB should try and convince the networks not to make a big deal of it - I certainly don't think it needs to be shown on screen for every pitch.
 

dirtynine

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Having attended minor-league games where the pitch clock is used - I found that I didn't even notice it after a while. If the clock is instituted in the big leagues, MLB should try and convince the networks not to make a big deal of it - I certainly don't think it needs to be shown on screen for every pitch.
If it's kind of an out-of-sight thing that gives umps another tool to speed things along, I'm cool with that. I just don't want the baseball equivalent of refs counting to 10 while you dribble the ball up to halfcourt.
 

Drek717

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Dec 23, 2003
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If it's kind of an out-of-sight thing that gives umps another tool to speed things along, I'm cool with that. I just don't want the baseball equivalent of refs counting to 10 while you dribble the ball up to halfcourt.
Personally I'm still at a loss as to why MLB hasn't invested in a partnership with Microsoft or Google to provide umpires with augmented reality glasses. Have two way radio for the crew and an in-booth coordinator. The pitch clock gets hidden inside there with a "courtesy" 1-2 second buffer. Work to make a slightly modified exterior pigment on the ball that keys into the AR system, and tie the whole thing in with PitchF/X or similar to let umpires watch a ghost model of the pitch. Turn the foul poles into tracking beacons and use stereoscopic cameras also keyed into the pigmentation of the ball to make questions of fair/foul a thing of the past, etc..

The technology exists so get high tech with the officiating of the game, but do so in a way that gives all the tools to the umpires, sight unseen for the regular viewer.
 

Fred not Lynn

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I keep looking in this thread, and I just can’t help but think; Would it kill us to let our kids stay up a bit later for a special event? I don’t understand how BEDTIME is so etched in stone in some families...

(That sounds better if you say it with an Allen Iverson “Practice” inflection.)
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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I keep looking in this thread, and I just can’t help but think; Would it kill us to let our kids stay up a bit later for a special event? I don’t understand how BEDTIME is so etched in stone in some families...

(That sounds better if you say it with an Allen Iverson “Practice” inflection.)
If the game ends at 11:30 or midnight, is that really staying up "a bit" later than normal if the kids are typically in bed by, say, 9? And is it a special event if it's something you might do up to seven times in nine days including on "school nights"? Even if you do let the kids stay up, do they make to the end of the game?

I don't have kids, but I can't really find fault with the bedtime argument. It really isn't a matter of the kids having an "etched in stone" bedtime. Relaxing bedtime by a half hour or even an hour is probably manageable for most kids. The problem is that's still not enough to see the end of the game unless you're on the west coast.
 

Cesar Crespo

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Dec 22, 2002
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Unfortunately, my kid would rather go to bed early than stay up late to watch a baseball game... and he's all about staying up late.
 

dirtynine

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Yeah, once or even twice over a couple weeks is fine. But if you let a 6 year old stay up to 11:30 multiple nights in a row you may burn a month getting back to normal.
 

Captaincoop

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Jul 16, 2005
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I keep looking in this thread, and I just can’t help but think; Would it kill us to let our kids stay up a bit later for a special event? I don’t understand how BEDTIME is so etched in stone in some families...

(That sounds better if you say it with an Allen Iverson “Practice” inflection.)
I adopted this philosophy with my 9 year old (who loves baseball and the Sox) during the Sox postseason this year. By the day after Game 4 of the WS, parenting him was like directing Lindsay Lohan. Bad times.
 

The Gray Eagle

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Aug 1, 2001
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Unfortunately, my kid would rather go to bed early than stay up late to watch a baseball game... and he's all about staying up late.
This is the real problem-- many, many kids aren't even interested enough to want to stay up that late to watch a baseball game. That's why baseball should think about their own long-term interests and invest in the future of the game, instead of always trying to maximize the short-term profits.
I said this on another thread, but I sincerely doubt that more than a couple of kids in my son's entire elementary school were awake and watching the end of any Red Sox postseason games. And certainly none of them saw the end of any postseason game where the Red Sox weren't playing.

Baseball fans on average are old and getting older, and that's something baseball should try to improve.
 

The Gray Eagle

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FOX and MLB are nearing a multi-billion dollar deal to extend the networks rights to the playoffs and World Series.
Perfect time for MLB to take action to try to set some common sense ground rules on issues like postseason start times, even if it means they get a little less money right now.

But they won't.