Trevor Bauer goes on a glorious rant about all the things that are wrong with MLB
Pitchers and catchers are reporting his week, but Trevor Bauer’s gift to gab is in midseason form.
The Cincinnati Reds pitcher, known for being outspoken on social media, has unleashed a rant that takes aim at a number of things he thinks Major League Baseball is doing wrong.
He specifically takes aim at commissioner Rob Manfred and “all the ridiculous rule changes he keeps proposing.” Maybe that’s not the safest strategy for Bauer’s pocketbook, but there’s a lot of truth in what he’s saying.
Bauer already called commissioner Rob Manfred a “joke” and said on Twitter he had “no clue about baseball” after the unveiling of the league’s proposed playoff changes, and Bauer’s rant just continues that, but it also veers off into new directions.
Bauer really gets going around the 2:30 mark. Among the other topics he hits:
• Blackouts, broken TV deals and how young people can’t watch MLB games in certain cities:
“In one of your biggest markets, half the fans can’t even watch the damn game because of TV deals.”
• How MLB centralizing social content has put it behind other sports and caused a dip in popularity:
“Great you made a lot of money upfront, but you centralize all this content and you make people pay for it, you know what you get? You get a missing generation of fans.”
• MLB’s policies related to personalized player cleats:
“What does it even matter? Just let the players express themselves.”
• Baseball not doing enough to market its players
“You have more players in baseball than any other league with much more diverse backgrounds, worldwide. Moreso than any of the other major American sports. And it’s the least marketable. Because you make stupid designs about how you market the players.”
At the same time, Bauer criticized “stupid ideas” like the three-batter minimum, moving the mound back and trying to use three hours as a cut off point whether a game is too long or too short. Three hours and one minute, he offers an example, is too long but 2:59 is great.
“I got so much more to say on this,” Bauer says near the conclusion. “But I can’t waste all my time on pointless crap that’s going to change.
“So Rob, if you’re watching this video, you probably won’t because you don’t even have a pulse on the game that you’re commissioner of. But if you’re watching this video and you want to talk about some stuff, you want some recommendations, hit me up. I’m sure you can get in contact with me. I’m sure you’ll probably be fining me or something like that.”
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