Garbage Pail Kids

BY KEVIN KERNAN

MLB now stands for Mediocre Baseball League.

Congratulations, Rob Manfred, who doesn’t care and – like the owners and players – is laughing all the way to the bank. Saying MLB is Mediocre is being extremely, extremely kind.

I’m totally with four-time Yankees World Series champion Jorge Posada who told Abriendo Sports this week: “The baseball being played these days is straight up garbage.’’

When I covered the Yankees, Posada was always the first player I would go to for the unvarnished state of the team comment. Good for Jorge. Garbage it is. Call MLB for what it is: The Garbage Pail Kids.

Here at BallNine we have been warning about the downfall of what used to be the National Pastime for the last six years, and personally I have been warning about the downfall of what used to be the National Pastime for the last decade and taking on the Nerds who have outright ruined the game.

I’m not here to say, “I told you so.’’

But I told you so.

While pretty much the rest of the Media World has been going ga-ga over such things as the readings of the modern radar gun, much like a cat chasing a shiny object, the modern radar gun that measures the pitch out of the hand and not across the plate as in past Nolan Ryan-like baseball generations.

The new way has taken so much skill out of the game. Skill and action have been replaced by formula baseball, where teams, hitters, pitchers and fielders all look the same.

Pitchers can’t command. Hitters can’t hit. The average Mediocre Baseball League batting average is .239, tied for the lowest league-wide batting average since 1968. And may I add, and every former pitcher I know will concur, since 1969 baseball has done everything in its power to favor the hitters over the pitchers — including much smaller ballparks, lethal bats, livelier balls, smaller strike zones, the pitch clock and so much more that favors the launch-angle hitter, who can’t make contact.

Outfielders can’t throw accurately or play caroms like they used to when they actually practiced playing outfield. See Juan Soto on George Springer’s Little League home run the other day; on the same misplay there was a terrible transfer from centerfielder A.J. Ewing when he ran down the baseball that got past Soto. That is something else I am noticing, so many balls are mishandled on the transfer because they don’t work at it anymore.

Like Jorge said: “Straight up garbage.’’

Hitters can’t put the ball in play because the Ivy League Nerds running the game are obsessed with Launch Angle. And because those Nerds don’t want any pushback from anyone, veteran coaches, managers, scouts – men who could all teach the game – have been replaced by “Yes men robots’’ who only read metrics.

Look at the Mets and look at all the media members who said David Stearns was going to be a Citi Field savior and are still carrying water for Stearns and Steve Cohen.

Here is another staple of baseball taken away from the fans: a regular season that meant something.

A scout who watched the extremely talented AL All-Star starter Cam Schlittler get hit around by the Tigers on Tuesday night in the Yankees 9-3 loss to Tarik Skubal (four home runs the first three innings) told BallNine this — and read it carefully because you are not getting inside information like this from anywhere else in the media world.

“Schlittler got hammered,’’ the scout began. “It took until late in the 3rd inning to use his very solid curveball and he still hasn’t thrown one changeup. He was cutter and fastball only, his delivery was off, no trip to the mound (by the pitching coach) to slow down his front side and body so his arm could get back on time. Both cutter and fastball velo was between 95-98, both were middle of the zone. Not one person could help him get through or has taught him or the catcher how to stop the bleeding … all he had to do was throw some changeups and curveballs to slow the hitters down … but he struck out five, yay!’’

That is real baseball talk, not Nerd gibberish where it is only about the manipulation of the baseball and the sequencing of pitches and velocity.

This is what has been stolen away by the Nerds.

Here is another staple of baseball taken away from the fans: a regular season that meant something.

Real baseball action, strategy, the thinking man’s game also has been stolen. But hey, did you hear that batter’s walkup song or that your team only has one ABS challenge left?

Me? I’m happy when ABS challenges are used up, then the umpires can just umpire.

The Nerds have stolen the physicality, the manliness and the artistry of the game. Since all the Nerds dress the same, it’s no surprise they are making the game look the same.

Catchers who ran the game like Posada have been replaced by robots on one knee with devices.

Infielders, who once were ballet dancers skilled on all things baseball – think Ozzie Smith – are now looking at a card to see where they will be positioned, another robot moved to his Nerd spot, and usually they are not positioned where a DP can be turned.

Official scorers, who really know the game, now have to call almost everything a hit even when obvious errors are made because of Manfred’s infatuation of trying to artificially raise batting averages.

Remember what the scout said about stopping the bleeding? I have a friend in Carlsbad, California – a baseball connoisseur who is also good with numbers – insisting to me all season that he has never seen such a state in the game where there are so many innings of five and six runs or more scored. Like the scout, he said they can’t stop the bleeding. And just look at some of the scores from Wednesday’s games, including the Cubs’ 23-3 win over the Padres.

This explains it all. because The Baseball Men who knew how to stop the bleeding, and would hold players accountable, and not be afraid to change tactics on the fly have been bled out of the game by the Nerds.

There is much more to get to about the degradation of baseball. Another pet peeve of mine is that the first and third base lines are no longer covered late in the game, resulting in doubles when they should be outs. I first noticed this trend years ago when the A’s blew a playoff game in this manner; of course, it goes back to Moneyball.

As we all know, too, hardly anyone can pitch a complete game.

Memories, such as no-hitters, or a pitcher digging deep in the ninth inning for the win, have been stolen from the fans because of max-out mph philosophy and spin. And I am not going to even mention the onslaught of injuries in this Nerd era.

There once was the Steroid Era, now this is the Nerd Era.

Across the board, action has been replaced by boring robotic movements.

Even what are commonly referred to as “brawls’’ today in the media, are merely “look at me, I’m mad’’ skirmishes between a batter and a pitcher. “Hold me back. Please.’’

Google baseball brawls of the ‘70s to see real baseball brawls.

Also, there is no more breaking up of double plays, which was a way for hitters to retaliate against up-and-in pitches. Fans loved that physical action at second base and maybe a fight like Bud Harrelson vs. Pete Rose would happen or at third base with Graig Nettles and George Brett. Hint to baseball: That’s one reason football is the No. 1 sport. They still have physical action.

The standard homeplate collision – not the Pete Rose running over of Ray Fosse kind – are ancient history too, again manly action stolen away from the game. And if there happens to be any contact, the players and managers immediately look to the video coach and then make the absurd sign of putting on headsets.

Nothing speaks leadership and toughness like a manager making the cupped ears headset sign or the even more flaccid “play on’’ rolling of the hand. I can’t picture Billy Martin making those signs.

There are stoppages all the time in the game now, too … all in the effort to speed up the game. Pitch Coms break, the ABS challenge slows everything down constantly, while the fans get excited for big screen action of seeing the screen turn green or red, much like those cats chasing shiny objects. Replays take forever on bang-bang plays.

All these are done laughably in the name of baseball progress and making it a non-action, non-confrontational “sport.’’ Fans used to love the aggression of a red-blooded manager getting in the face of an umpire who would argue right back, adding to the theater of the moment. A good old-fashioned Lou Piniella or Earl Weaver dirt-kicking argument used to be worth the price of admission. Again, action taken away.

And just look at the team records to see mediocrity everywhere. It’s a joke.

Teams 10 games under .500 are being heralded by the media as still being in the race. What race, the race to the bottom?

Aces like the Tigers’ Tarik Skubal, who knows how to “Go the distance’’ will be traded, starting pitching is the most important commodity in the game, and they tell you that is for the betterment of the team, and the gullible fans fall for it partly because some guy who makes a prospect list says, “The Tigers just got the No. 1 and 3 prospects of (fill in the blank).”

Yo Tigers, if you don’t want to keep an ace like Skubal, don’t even consider yourself a real team.

Then you have your super rich teams like the Yankees, losers of seven straight, having committed nine errors over that span — and you know how difficult it is to be assessed an error in Manfred’s Everything is a Hit World — and having 71 strikeouts and only 31 hits over that span. In those seven losses they have been outscored 43-17 but they have the second-best record in the American League and it seems every season they collapse in the same manner.

Katie Sharp notes that during the seven-game losing streak “the Yankees have 17 runs scored, 17 unearned runs allowed. Teams in the last 100 years to have a 7-game stretch in a season with 7 losses and 17-plus unearned runs allowed and 17 or fewer runs scored: 2026 Yankees and the 1989 Tigers.”

I looked it up. Those Tigers finished in last place with a 59-103 record, 30 games behind the AL East winning Blue Jays. Tell me again, how baseball has never been better. Straight up garbage.