Baseball is Advancing, But it's Leaving its Fans Behind

By Cian Hamell-Kelleher 

Stonehill News Staff Writer

The once glory-filled days of old are no more, and America’s pastime is shortly becoming just that. A new analytic and technology driven strategy has overtaken the once praised fundamental-based strategy shifting the way baseball is learned and played. This strategical evolution has cost Major League Baseball engagement, as viewership of each season’s biggest games has dropped by nearly two-thirds over the last 50 years.

A study from Baseball Almanac done in 2022 called “World Series Television Ratings (1968-2022)” found the last three World Series have produced the lowest per-game viewership numbers since the data was first recorded in 1973.

The study uses information gathered by Nielsen Media Research, an American information, data, and market measurement firm. The same organization estimates there to be 121 million American homes with a television, as opposed to 65.6 million homes in 1973. Despite there being nearly half as many television homes in the country, the 1973 World Series amassed nearly three times as many average viewers (34.7 million) as the most recent 2022 World Series (11.78 million).

The age of advanced analytics in professional baseball has garnered much attention regarding its complexity and necessity, pitting traditionalist baseball fans against more modern fans who believe the sport needs to evolve with technology.

“Numbers paint a clearer picture,” said John DeRouin, newly appointed Rehab Pitching Coordinator of the Detroit Tigers regarding advanced analytics. “They’re taking the game to a newer level.”

Advanced analytics venture beyond surface-level statistics like batting average, earned-run average, and counting stats such as hits, RBI and strikeouts, instead, using formulas that take advantage of new technology to provide more in-depth statistics.

Players often use advanced analytics to find where they need to improve their abilities. An understanding of advanced analytics by the common fan will allow them to better relate with the players they watch.

A.J. Politi, a minor league relief pitcher for the Worcester Woo Sox, the AAA affiliate of the Boston Red Sox, found his career at a standstill before diving into advanced analytics in the 2021/2022 offseason.

Under the coaching of DeRouin, Politi was able to discover which pitches in his repertoire could be used more efficiently. Their analytical breakthrough earned Politi a promotion from AA Portland to the Woo Sox, cementing himself as a staple relief pitcher in Worcester.

DeRouin listed Whiff% and Chase% as two of the most important analytics when looking at a pitcher’s statistics. But what are they and why should the common fan learn to understand them?

“There’s a common theme amongst teams like the Dodgers and Astros (best records in the American and National League in 2022),” DeRouin said. “These teams that value analytics have way more of a leg up.”

DeRouin feels that if the sport is advancing, the fans must do so as well.

“Common fans get caught in the macro-view,” DeRouin said. “There’s a lot more than what the average fan sees.”

For the pitching metrics DeRouin went into detail describing the two. He defined Whiff% as the rate of swing-and-miss strikes per swing, or the total amount of swing-and-miss strikes (pitches at which the batter swings and does not make contact) divided by the total amount of swings a pitcher generates (all pitches at which a batter swings, whether they made contact or not). He talks of the metric’s importance because it shows how hittable a pitcher is and allows coaches like himself to make decisions on what pitches a pitcher should throw to be most effective.

Five of the top six ranked teams in Whiff% for pitching made the playoffs in 2022, and the top four ranked teams finished with the four best records in Major League Baseball.

He defined Chase% as the likelihood of a pitch outside of the strike-zone generating a swing, this metric is often referred to by another name, Out of Zone Swing%. Chase% is an indicator of how much movement a pitcher can get on a certain pitch, and how deceiving they can be, as these “chases” come almost exclusively on pitches that appear to be ending up in the strike-zone, but dart outside of it last second, leaving the hitter unable to react in time. For example, a slider that appears to be on the outer half of the strike-zone is likely cause a hitter to “chase” because the pitch will have moved before the hitter has time to adjust.

10 of the top 13 ranked teams in Chase% for pitching made the playoffs in 2022.

The discrepancy in success of teams that focus their resources on advanced analytics compared to those that do not is no coincidence.

An area where advanced analytics has seen success among fans is social media. Accounts such as PitchingNinja and FoolishBaseball on Twitter and YouTube have attracted over 433,000 followers each across the two platforms and created spaces for baseball fans to discuss and learn about advanced analytics. Newer social media like TikTok has led to “micro-communities” of baseball fans that share and discuss advanced analytics through comment sections and videos of their own.

According to a study conducted by Pew Research Center in 2021 titled “Social Media Use in 2021”, seven-in-ten Americans use social media, showing that the market for advanced analytics to grow on the internet is there.

The utilization of social media to connect the fans has been successful in other professional sports leagues, as represented by the follower counts of NFL teams on Twitter. There are 21 cities that contain at least one NFL team and one MLB team, of those 21 cities, 17 have a higher follower count for their NFL team than their MLB team. This shows that the market for sports fans is still there, it’s just veering away from baseball.

The National Football League has conquered Major League Baseball as top-dog in viewership for American Sports, but the goal for baseball is not to regain this position of royalty, instead, it is to recreate its once upwards trajectory and revitalize the over 150-year-old game.