Back in the spring, I wrote a piece about Major League Baseball’s attempt to save itself from the irrelevance wrought by overoptimization. The short version: Through detailed statistical analysis, baseball teams figured out that the most efficient way to win games was to invest in hitters who could hit a lot of home runs and pitchers who threw hard enough to strike those hitters out much of the time. While that strategy was optimal for winning games, it was decidedly suboptimal for the people who were paying to watch them.
Instead of getting baserunners and fielding and on-field action, spectators were treated to excruciating experiences like Game 4 of last year’s World Series, where my beloved Philadelphia Phillies became only the second team ever to be no-hit in the championship round, along the way to setting a record for most team strikeouts in the Fall Classic.
With attendance and TV ratings on a downward spiral and game lengths growing unendurably long, a desperate Major League Baseball made some changes for this season. A pitch clock — which gave pitchers 15 to 20 seconds to throw each pitch — was added to force pitchers and hitters to get on with it. Bases were made slightly larger to encourage more aggressive running. Extreme defensive shifts — where infielders would crowd one side of the diamond to rob hitters on hard-hit balls — were outlawed to encourage more non-home-run offense.
These might not seem all that significant, but for a sport as old and as conservative as baseball, it was practically Vatican II. While there were some bumps along the way — just ask notoriously slow-moving Phillies starter Aaron Nola, who initially reacted to the pitch timer like a sleepy high-school sophomore does to their alarm clock — evidence from the first five months of the season suggests those changes have paid off.
Baseball is … good?
Let’s start with what has long been recognized as baseball’s single biggest problem: It was just too…
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