Welcome Back, Lapsed Baseball Fans. Do You Like What You See In 2024?

Image credit: Freddie Freeman (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

If you’re an average Baseball America reader, you settled down to watch the World Series on Friday and Saturday, whether you’re a Dodgers fan, a Yankees fan, a Pirates fan or a Royals fan.

You watch the postseason. It’s what you do as a baseball nut.

But the confluence of Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers and Yankees means that this World Series has likely gathered in some very casual baseball fans. Maybe there’s a sports fan who hadn’t watched a World Series since the Cubs ended their World Series drought in 2016.

So welcome back, long-lapsed baseball fan. What did you think? I’m guessing you may be surprised by just how enjoyable baseball in 2024 is to watch as a fan.

Baseball was great in 1950. It was great in 2000. It’s great now. But some of the most maddening aspects of the sport in 2016 have been wiped away since the last time those fans tuned in.

The time of game? It’s faster, but don’t worry about that. That’s not what you notice, other than the fact that sleep deprivation is no longer a big part of the East Coast fan’s postseason experience.

But a lot more has changed. Especially if you’re a casual fan, you probably are going to enjoy the changes.

The pace of the game flows a lot better than it did the last time you watched. All those in-inning meetings to go over the next set of signs to stop sign stealing? They fixed it. Instead of flashing a sign and multiple dummy signs, and then switching them every batter to make sure the other team can’t steal the signs, now the catcher and pitcher have the Pitch Com system. Either the catcher or pitcher presses a button to tell the other what the pitch is and its location. All the infielders have an earpiece to hear the call of the pitch.

The batter/pitcher battle to see who can outlast the other one with a stare, followed by a step out by the batter, followed by a step off by the pitcher, followed by a throw over to first, followed by the first pitch in a two minute timeframe has been eliminated. Batters get one timeout per at bat. Pitchers get two disengagements.

They’ve eliminated the four relief pitcher half-inning where you spend more time in meetings on the mound and commercial breaks than actual on-field action. Yes, I know that happened in the top of the ninth of that Cubs-Giants NLDS game you watched in 2016. Now a reliever has to face three batters unless he records the final out in an inning.

That has eliminated the lefty reliever who can only face lefties, but there are still lefty relievers. Now they just have to be pitchers who also have a way to get out righthanded hitters.

You may have been shocked to see high-90s fastballs seem commonplace, but yeah, velocity keeps rising. It was true the last time you watched a game, but it’s even more true now.

You probably don’t notice that two infielders have to be positioned on either side of second base like they always used to be, but that’s a thing too. Lefthanded hitters seem to like it.

Home runs are still a big part of the game, but even if you didn’t see it this past weekend, you should know that stolen bases are back. Thanks to rules changes limiting pickoff throws and slightly bigger bases, this year saw the most stolen bases per game in any season since 1992.

You probably noticed that Shohei Ohtani took advantage of that to record the first 50/50 season ever. I’m guessing you heard about that even before you tuned in tonight. Some things are hard to not notice, even if you haven’t been watching games.

And since you’re watching the Yankees face the Dodgers, you may worry that we’re seeing the big-market teams dominate the World Series year after year. Baseball continues to have massive revenue disparities. But we’ve seen eight champions in the nine seasons since you last tuned in, and nine different teams have made the World Series since then. The Angels and Pirates are the only two MLB teams to not make the playoffs since you last checked in.

So, overall, the game keeps rolling along. It has its problems. It always has. Baseball fans love to stress over the problems and complain about changes. But overall, a lot of these changes are now pretty popular. Attendance is up.

And yes, Aroldis Chapman still throws harder than anyone. He threw a 105 mph pitch this year, the fastest pitch we’ve seen since … 2016, when Chapman threw 105. So you haven’t missed anything there.