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MLB continues hurting itself

By Jim Krug

For the Mirror

Editor’s note: Jim Krug has followed the ups and downs of the Pittsburgh Pirates since the late 1980s. He wrote over 150 articles about the Pirates from 2010-16 for online sports site isportsweb.com. This is the first in a three-part series examining the challenges of Major League Baseball.

Over the past two decades, Major League Baseball’s attempts to increase fan engagement and remain relevant against surging popularity from the NFL and NBA have spectacularly backfired.

Here are some reasons why:

1. Interleague play

Denounced by baseball purists ever since its 1997 introduction, MLB couldn’t resist the siren song of matchups like Yankees-Mets and Dodgers-Angels.

Unfortunately, the Pittsburgh Pirates were awkwardly paired with the Detroit Tigers as their “geographic rival,” whom they play every year regardless of schedule.

In 2013, MLB began staggering the interleague games, dotting the calendar with random matchups like the recent Pirates-Blue Jays series in September.

Interleague play hurts the older generation of MLB fans most. Growing up in the ’90s, watching the All-Star Game and World Series (aside from the 1992 Series, which is a sore spot for Pirates fans everywhere) was like witnessing worlds collide players who never faced each other finally squared off.

Interleague play neutralized a sacred of baseball, and it shows: Ratings for the “Mid-Summer Classic” have not surmounted a 20 share since 1999. Viewership plummeted into the single digits for two of the last four contests, averaging less than 7 million households tuning in.

2. Changing things

In 2021, MLB moved its Amateur Draft — traditionally held June 6 — to July 11-13h, to coincide with the slumping All-Star Game and attempt to evolve the draft into a ratings extravaganza, as the NFL has successfully done.

Proponents of the move cited additional time for teams to diagnose injuries incurred during the high school and NCAA seasons and ensured that the College World Series would be complete prior to drafting.

The change abruptly backfired, as the ratings freefall of the All-Star Game continued.

Fans will never be as interested in the MLB draft as the NFL, because the developmental time of players is so much longer.

NFL fans know their team’s top picks will take the field only a few months later, while even the most elite MLB prospects require a minimum OPF two years of instruction before reaching the show.

The disruption to pitching prospects is severe.

Outside of College World Series finalists, most prep and college arms were shut down for upwards of a month prior to the July draft.

To avoid serious injury, teams rarely chance sending these pitchers to Rookie ball to fire back up for the small slate of games remaining.

So fans can’t watch their most exciting pitching draftees until nearly a year later, with only positional players cutting their teeth in pro games in August and September — assuming they sign quickly.

MLB also sabotaged the closest thing it has to its own national holiday after Opening Day — the July 31 trade deadline.

For years, millions of baseball fanatics accomplished little work on that last day of July, anxiously refreshing browsers or peeking at phones to see if teams like the Pirates executed any last-minute trades before the 4 p.m. deadline.

Even then, fans had the hope of waiver wire trades through August, like the Pirates’ acquisition of Jason Bay and Oliver Perez in the epic Brian Giles trade of 2003.

The new Collective Bargaining Agreement allows the commissioner to set the trade deadline anywhere from July 28 through August 3.

Waiver wire trades are also a relic of the past; if your favorite team doesn’t strike up a deal by this date, no new players from outside the organization will join your team’s stretch run.

Krug, 42, is the director of the Neil Armstrong Planetarium and director of the Mt. Lion Observatory. He resides in Altoona with his wife, Stephanie, and four children.

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