The Royals got better this week. Baseball got worse. Can we talk about that?
Congratulations to Asa Lacy, the Royals’ newest star prospect. His dream came true this week, a Major League Baseball team set to invest millions into helping him develop as a baseball player. This could be a wonderful story.
Lacy is the headliner of the smallest draft class in baseball history: five rounds. There should be more. There could be more. I asked Royals general manager Dayton Moore about his emotions on that, of baseball actively working to create fewer opportunities.
“We’ve got hundreds of players on our board right now that are not going to get a chance to play professional baseball,” Moore said. “That’s disappointing. There’s 29 other general managers that all feel the same way. We’re very disappointed.”
Full disclosure: Moore spoke for more than 8 minutes on this one question. This is but a small clip. He was typically thoughtful, passionate and there’s at least one more column in the answer he gave. I’ll get to that soon. But here, first, this one.
It’s a hard column to write. Lacy was said by many to be this draft’s top pitcher, a future ace, and this moment should be celebrated. He is a left-hander with a big frame and relentless work ethic and two elite pitches.
Kids in his hometown of Kerrville, Texas look up to him, follow him, want to be him. He might not realize it right now, but baseball is more popular there than it would be without him. That’s a hell of a thing for a 21-year-old.
The same could be said about Baylor shortstop Nick Loftin, who the Royals selected 32nd overall, Chicago high school pitcher Ben Hernandez (No. 41), Alabama outfielder Tyler Gentry (No. 76), Oregon State pitcher Christian Chamberlain (No. 105) and Eastern Illinois pitcher Will Klein (No. 135).
They all have stories. They all have dreams. This column is not written to diminish any of that. Hopefully we see each of them at Kauffman Stadium in a few years.
But it’s becoming harder and harder not to wonder how strong baseball will be when that happens.
Actually, let’s be specific: Baseball will be fine. Baseball will be great. Baseball will be played by fathers and daughters and mothers and sons in backyards and parks and all-dirt infields with chain-link backstops. Kids will learn teamwork in baseball. They’ll learn to support each other, to work through slumps, to blow the biggest bubbles.
Afterward, they’ll go for ice cream.
The game is too great to die, but the highest level of professional baseball is not too big to fall. Right now, Major League Baseball — the suits in MLB, not the kids dressing up with eye-black on Little League fields — are testing the notion.
This is not another round of piñata-ing commissioner Rob Manfred and union leader Tony Clark. There has been some positive progress in recent days, and at some point next month we will probably be thinking a lot less about the current acrimony and a lot more about the beginning of a shortened season.
But that’s not the point. Damage has been done, already. Opportunities have been missed, already.
The novel coronavirus pandemic has put virtually all businesses under stress, and Major League Baseball doesn’t get to be exempt, but the league will look back on this moment as a chance to grow that instead turned into self-destruction.
The Royals should have drafted 41 or so prospects this week. Instead, just six. In the next few days they’ll offer no more than $20,000 (and a college scholarship, for high school prospects) to more.
Those kids will have a hard decision to make, but the Royals know many won’t sign. In baseball terms, $20,000 is low-round money. Some of these kids should’ve been selected in rounds that usually mean six-figure bonuses. That’s a hard sell, but that’s what happens when MLB voluntarily limits its talent pool and reach.
Long before anyone ever heard of COVID-19, the commissioner’s office planned on contracting 42 minor-league teams, which means 42 fewer towns across the country that can connect with the sport.
The people in charge talk a lot about growing the sport, and to be sure there are real efforts to do so beyond the usual talking points of pitch clocks and pace of play. Kansas City’s Urban Youth Academy is one of the country’s best examples.
But for a group of presumably smart people who claim they want their sport to grow, they sure are making a lot of decisions to shrink.
This is a particular problem at the moment, and a specific problem for baseball.
Let’s do the moment first. Major League Baseball is losing ground. Attendance has dropped each of the past four seasons. Television ratings continue to slip. Kids and young adults are far less likely to be baseball fans than in years past.
The pandemic has rocked many businesses. There’s no getting around that. It also created a vacuum of live sports and other freshly produced entertainment that could have been filled by pro baseball. MLB should have been best positioned to be the first sport back, the most motivated to play in front of largely homebound and captive potential TV audiences.
Maybe that didn’t make sense in the short-term. Owners claim they will lose money with every game played without fans. Players are — let’s be charitable here — skepitcal of those economics.
But even if it wouldn’t be immediately profitable, when will baseball ever again have an opportunity like this to reach new fans?
If the adults in charge of professional baseball merely passed on an opportunity to grow, that would be frustrating enough. But they’re doing more than that — they’re actively regressing.
Where is the long-term thinking?
Now, the part specific to this sport. Baseball is not like football or basketball. That’s always been at the heart of the game’s internal struggle in evolving to the digital age, but it’s also part of its identity. Some who love baseball bristle at the sport being labeled slow, but it’s true. Baseball is slow. Baseball is also constant.
The sport is ubiquitous, particularly in the summers. Baseball is personal. We can talk a lot about games being too long or the rise of strikeouts stealing action, but we should also save time to talk about baseball being the most popular television show between the NCAA Tournament and the NFL in most markets. Nearly every day from April to September, you know baseball will be there.
This is what the sport’s leadership is messing with. Oh, hell, let’s just say it: This is what the sport’s leadership is destroying.
They’re taking away connections. They’re taking away connections in small cities across the country — dismiss that if you want, but more than 41 million people bought tickets for minor-league games last year, an increase while MLB attendance continues to drop — and they’re taking away connections of more believers joining pro baseball.
Let’s be clear. This isn’t a Baseball Is Failing America take. Our ability to get on or not is independent of how badly the owners and players screw this up.
This is a Baseball Is Failing Itself take, which is much worse. The leaders of Major League Baseball long ago ceded the country’s sports passion to football and, more recently, the country’s youth to basketball. And soccer is catching up fast.
This was an opportunity to regain some of that ground — for men who claim to love baseball to collectively do right by a sport that has given them so much.
Instead, here they come, chipping away. Connections gone. Opportunities lost.
Genuinely: Best of luck, to Lacy and everyone else drafted this week. Your sport needs you more than ever.
This story was originally published June 12, 2020 at 5:00 AM.