The fate of America’s past-time may be in jeopardy. If Baseball does not adapt to the growing proficiency of its pitchers, the game, like its creators, might have a mortal end. If changes are not made to the way the game is played, it may be that in fifty to a hundred years from now the sport of baseball will be a shadow of its former glory, reduced to empty stadiums and rock bottom TV ratings. This is because of the way the game is designed. Unlike most team sports, the game of baseball is heavily oriented to a defensive nature. In baseball, the defense initiates every play, and the hitter must react to the pitcher’s strategy, thus giving the defense in baseball the power dictate the pace and nature of the game. In other sports, such as football and basketball, the offense puts the ball in play and the defense must be the reactor. This fundamental difference will either prove a fatal flaw, its most endearing attribute, or maybe both.

Every play in baseball begins with a pitch by a pitcher. This simple fact determines the entire outcome and complexion of every baseball play, and as a result, every game ever played. Within this contains the reasoning for the mortality of baseball. This reasoning, in part, comes from a theory on chaos and dynamical systems developed by Edward Lorenz. He states that any dynamical system is sensitively dependent on initial conditions. Baseball may be included in this category of dynamical systems due to its infinite variable outcomes. This is why the significance of the pitcher and baseball’s defensive scheme is crucial. The fate of every ball put into play is sensitively dependent on how the pitcher holds the ball, the velocity at which it is thrown, and most importantly the control (where the ball is placed relative to the strike zone). This is why the pitcher has so much power to control the game. A pitcher arguably has more power to control his sport than any other athlete in a team sport, including the NFL quarterback.

In an ESPN.com article titled Brain Games by Tim Keown, Keown writes about athletes and their potential ability to train their brains as much as their bodies. Since baseball is such a mental sport, especially on the pitching side, these new training techniques could elevate pitching to a new level, creating more and more dominant pitching staffs across the league. In his article, Keown touts the potential of athletes to train their brains as much as they do their bodies. The future evolution of brain training in athletes that will undoubtedly come to pass because of the multi-billion dollar industry will elevate sporting events and athletes to new levels of performance never before imagined. This “silent revolution” as described by Keown could potentially spell the eventual self-destruction of baseball. Within the dynamical system that is a baseball game, the pitcher releasing the ball is the initiating action that every play during the game is sensitively dependent upon. Pitchers already perform at a high level. However, once this silent revolution of brain training takes hold of baseball and especially the training of pitchers, it could vastly change the game Americans have come to love so much. When pitchers begin to train their brains and meditate, they can harness the power of their brains to cut ERA’s throughout the league. Brain training, combined with technology that will be adapted to aid this new style of athlete development, could produce astoundingly dominant pitchers in the future. Teams and athletes as a result of baseball’s multi-billion dollar industry, will supplement the brain training with millions of dollars to develope brain training technology. For example, in the future, pitchers could throw training sessions with visible holographic strike zones. They could even use this type of technology to simulate the line up of their next opponent, so they could master each batters relative strike zone. When pitchers take this training to the field, they could more easily visualize the strike zone and use this new brain training to attain a level of pitching control that has only been seen in baseball video games.

Pitchers armed with this raw control and command of the strike zone will be able to combine their own cunning with this new skill set to be able to completely dominate any hitter they face. Of course all of this is not to say that scoring and hits in baseball will disappear completely, because that simply will never happen. There are too many great hitters now and in the future for this to take place. However, batter production would be reduced significantly as these new training methods are implemented. The result would be a game with scores that resemble closer to hockey or soccer. Runs scored per game would be reduced dramatically, and we could see larger percentages of the games going over nine innings, within fifty years we could see the longest game in baseball history.

There is already precursory evidence to this new age of baseball in our now, pre-brain training era. Two stats that are highly indicative of MLB pitchers ability to outsmart batters are walks and strike outs. In 2013 MLB pitchers averaged 3.01 walks per game, the lowest average base on balls stat since 1966. Is this a statistical fluke? Or a refinement of pitching and pitchers evolving methods of honing their craft? Only time will tell, but in the past three years the average of walks per game has been creeping to the low 3s. 2014 pitching may see its first sub 3.00 walk per game average since 1968. The other trending stat that shows pitchers increasing ability to out smart batters and impose their will is strike outs. In 2013, strike outs per game average was 7.55, the highest strike out average per game in the history of the MLB. This stat is no fluke and has a significantly more consistent trend upward over the history of baseball than the walks per game stat. Are the hitters just more aggressive? If so they’re not connecting very often. The pitchers of 2013 posted a season average ERA of just 3.87, that is the lowest earned run average in 21 years. Additionally, batters combined in 2013 to hit just 0.253, the lowest batting average since 1972. Runs scored per game? 4.17 on average in 2013, the lowest since 1992. The significance of all of this could mean the beginning of the end for baseball, unless the majority of fans become pitching purists. But on the whole however, fans love to see hits, base runners, and runs. Baseball’s popularity could suffer for the decline of these thrill inducing attributes of the game.

It’s not all doom and gloom for baseball fans however. If the implosion of baseball does come to pass, it could reveal a much higher purpose of the game. It would be a historical display of the potential of the human mind. After all, isn’t that the point of sports? If baseball is indeed mortal it could mean it is the purest form of sport. Baseball could not only be a game of the present and current individuals, but a game for humanity to show off its amazing potential and to collectively conquer the diamond. For all those future and current batters out there, you have a challenging future ahead.

References:

Keown, Tim. http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/10432079/keown-brains-need-training-just-bodies. Date of access Feb. 10, 2014.

Lorenz, Edward. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

All statistics via http://www.baseball-reference.com