Baseball, We Have a Problem

Roki Sasaki decided to sign a MLB contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, because, of course he did.  Just like the last best pitcher available, Yamamoto, and that other pitcher, Snell.  Oh, and Ohtani.  Not to forget Betts, Freeman and all the other stars.  And thus, baseball gets to be a little less of a game and more of a race between merger and acquisition specialists to see who wins.  The game becomes incidental. And that’s a problem, because while some Angelenos, even if they can no longer afford to go to a game, may think it’s fine to watch their team pile up superstars and, maybe, trophies for years, they might not notice one-time fans of the sport slowly slipping away.

I see the sport devolving into a few oligarchs, the Mets, the Yankees, and the Dodgers, and a few teams who can make a splash on occasion, and maybe win it all, like Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, and probably San Francisco, but not sustain the level of investment that it takes to do this year in and year out.  Then there are the teams that are willing to spend money, but have to be selective, like Arizona, and St. Louis.  Below them are the teams that don’t really stand a chance.  Sure, they might sneak into an expanded playoff format on occasion, but unless luck plays a much larger part than anyone who ever reads statistics imagines,  they aren’t going to win.  Finally, at the bottom are teams that don’t care about winning, they exist as developmental and feeder teams for other clubs and are making money from revenue sharing, like the A’s and Rockies.

Major League Baseball probably doesn’t care, but it should.  Tickets are expensive, but the better teams seem to sell tickets fairly well.  I spend money on entertainment of various sorts, but a fundamental principle of sports is that the outcome is not pre-determined.  And as soon as that premise, real or imagined, slips away, there is no point in bothering to observe the sport any more.  Or, to put it more accurately, as soon as that premise appears to be no longer valid, there is no sport anymore.  And it seems to me that, thanks to LA co-opting the WBC Championship team, that premise is definitely open to question.  I think the Giants have an interesting team of young players (finally).  But I’m thinking we could all save time by just giving LA the NL West title right now.  I will certainly be watching less.  And for someone raised as a baseball fan from my earliest memories, that’s saying something.  Baseball should address these inequalities that are becoming more and more prevalent, or they will become a minor sport.