This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.
You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95
using your PayPal account or major credit card. (Zelle users, please email me for details.)
--
Look around the league. You can’t swing a stick without seeing a veteran collapsing at 32 or 33. Jake Cronenworth, 32, is hitting .144/.272/.196. Trevor Story, 33, was at .206/.244/.303 when he got hurt. Dansby Swanson and Corey Seager are both under a 90 OPS+ at 32. Mookie Betts slipped a year ago at 32 and now, at 33, is hitting .190/.259/.365. Manny Machado is also 33 and hitting .171/.253/.342. You don’t want to ask how much longer any of these players’ contracts run.
Baseball, more than ever before, is about raw physical talent. How hard can you throw it, how fast can you spin it, how quickly can you get your bat to it, how far can you hit it? A game that had, for more than a century, plenty of room for nuance now has very little. Hitters who could adapt to declining hand-eye coordination and reaction time now find themselves with no room to maneuver. The pitchers are just too good, they’re too well-trained, they’re too able to expend every ounce of energy on every pitch, with durability no longer part of the job.
