I understand there is absolutely no love for MLB here, but I'll post anyway.

I have noticed this trend coming for a while. Homers seem to be going up, but it appeared to be coming at the expense of getting hits in general. The New York Times has posted a piece about this very phenomenon (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/sports/baseball-mlb-strikeouts.html). It seems that not even Major League Baseball is immune from the instant gratification society. Looking back Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire now appear normal in this day in age where heavy hitter risk cracking 200 strike outs in a season.

Bunch of fascist pitchers if you ask me...;)

You are absolutely correct and, at least in Denver, it's been discussed on local broadcasts a lot. The feeling of the broadcasters, anyway, is that teams that practice this "home run or strikeout" tactic may see success but ultimately don't win championships. The Rockies farm system has worked very hard to get away from the all-or-nothing hitter and coached towards contact, defense and ptching. They have made great progress and are 2 games out of first. They looked to tye Astroes and Diamondbacks as examples - not the Yankees.

Strikeouts look to be the in thing. Players swinging for the fences instead of playing the game in the traditional way.

"Chicks dig the long ball" has never been more fitting than in today's MLB.

Have followed MLB most of my lifetime. It's Americas' past-time which seems to be reserved for MSA areas with more than 1.5 million population with lots of retired Baby boomers now; Milwaukee is the smallest MLB market with approximately 1.6 million in their metro area/5.8 million state, virtually what Green Bay, WI is to the NFL.

Youth years, all the youngsters in my neighborhood (Oak Park-Deep Deuce) had a favorite AL & NL team. As a Baltimore Orioles & Pittsburgh Pirates' fan the real superstars among baseball greats will be remembered; just to mention a few:


Orioles: Luis Aparicio, Paul Blair (Cushing, OK born), Boog Powel, Brooks Robinson & Frank Robinson
Pirates: Roberto Clemente, Bill Mazeroski & Willie Stargell (Earlsboro, OK born)

1979 World series Pirates (4-3 winner) vs. Orioles really put me in a box. The series wore devastation on me, it was downhill MLB interest from that point on.

There were many youngsters who pulled for regional teams like Texas Rangers, Houston Astros, St. Louis Cardinals, Kansas City Athletics-Royals.

Recall 1966 when the St. Louis Cardinals played an exhibition game against PCL AAA Tulsa Oilers in Skelly Stadium that attracted 18,904, it was the worst configuration of any baseball game I've ever seen. OKC's largest baseball crowd was 18,543 in 1979 exhibition game against the Philadelphia Phillies at All Sport Stadium, 89ers lost to the parent club 5-3.


http://sports.mearsonlineauctions.com/ItemImages/000036/a7fdda1b-652a-4489-8c9e-1d7a0aeecd7b_lg.jpeg
The largest crowd in Oklahoma City baseball history, 18,543 at All Sports Stadium--a Philadelphia Phillies exhibition in 1979.

How fun! I was at that game! That pic brings back a lot of memories. Growing up only a few blocks away, l spent a lot of time and went to a lot of games (inluding this one), with my late Dad.

Data gurus have taken over the game

True, but that should end the acceptance of the strikeout.

"Data gurus have taken over the game"
That is not a bad thing. But I am biased. I've been doing sabermetrics since I was 7 (strat-o-matic & obsessing over stats on cards and who's who in baseball each year) and this stuff
is no joke for franchises that don't have a ton of money...and obviously ones that have a lot can benefit from it, but sometimes aren't smart enough to think they should use these methods as well... reminding me of our chamber of (some types of) commerce...
I don't think this has ANYTHING to do with the uptick in HR's, rather, the good stuff Mugofbeer is talking about in Colorado. I was an Expos fan forever, primarily because it
is real baseball, not the trash-can Nintendo style non-sense the Rangers went about for so many years.... when they moved to DC, I quickly gave up on the franchise as it was not
the one I loved for so long, and became a Pirates fan (real baseball... good pitching , fielding, small-ball...etc..)

I've been working on a program with a guy from MIT that does some interesting SQL analysis...scraping data from past X games in numerous categories..amazingly enough, the
most interesting thing I have found is the unreal differences in players stats on the day of the week.... for awhile, Joey Gallo was like .443, 14, 33 in like 80ab on TUESDAY...

Home runs get the attention, much of it is driven by the ESPN Sports Center highlight mentality. Most seem to want to not invest any time in anything and just want little digestible bits. It's the same reason why the NFL Red Zone channel is popular, the short attention span society. I watch for the complete game, strategy and defensive play mostly.

I have MLB Extra Innings and watch MLB Network most of the time, especially since I have been on leave from work since May of 2017. I watch Red Sox then Rockies or Rangers games, if they aren't playing I watch other games.

Check out OOTP (https://www.ootpdevelopments.com/out-of-the-park-baseball-home/)- - Greatest sports sim ever... love it.