We are in the Last Month and a Half of the 2025 MLB Season.
Posted: 2025-09-08 06:19:40 (ET) [ 133 views ]
by Clifton Neeley
Will Anything Ever Change?
Why should anything change in MLB? Now that football has begun, baseball is essentially ignored until the World Series. However, the World Series too is not much of a surprise as only the same half dozen teams are ever in the thick of it.
Baseball has always been a sport that is difficult to figure out why performance changes so often. Players, therefore coaches, can't figure out why they hit so well one day and cannot the next. It has brought onto the scene sayings like "the baseball gods were just not on our side today."
Silly as it may sound, it has also caused players to be superstitious about their socks, underwear, beard, mustache, bat, etc, etc.
Currently in MLB there is only one team above .600 in overall win percent, which may be a duhhhh statement, but it points out that talent is not the issue, as I have often mentioned on this website.
Most people refer to the money capability of some teams to remain on top, but that doesn't make a lot of sense with the draft rewarding the bottom half of the league with first picks in the next draft. I have another theory: it is more about winning over the decades that gave those teams the success and money. Winning comes first, money follows.
Competitiveness is the answer to money issues, even if the Colorado Rockies keep drawing crowds with their stadium, views and additional amenities and Coors Beer sales. I realize that MLB has taken steps to keep the money flowing, but it is not the competitiveness of the league that keeps it up, so they will continue to be in the shadows of the NCAAF, NFL and maybe even Banana Ball.
The biggest deterent to competitiveness in MLB was the decades ago "profit sharing" decision by the owners. Since then, the owners of teams have been able to take the stance that they don't need to be competitive away from their home stadium, which in turn means they don't need to do anything for their players either. So coaches, players, managers, and scouts--not to mention the minor league--are harmed in progressing their careers. In our society, money rules and "he who has the money, makes the rules," but does that mean that MLB should just continue on and on? I hope not!
Baseball is such a wonderful sport, but competitiveness should always be the goal of a "professional" team. Why should high school, college, minor league and MLB players try so hard to win and be counted competitive enough to arrive at the major leagues, if the owners no longer care about winning when on the road? It does not make sense to me.
Of course owners have the right to make decisions for their franchise, but cities, stadium ownership groups and advertisers should have a say, as well. All are affected by losing seasons and here, I'm going to make a bold statement, and I can back it up.
The advantage in baseball goes to sea level teams that are the furthest north of the equator. Pitchers need the densest air to make their pitches move the most....especially in the last 5 feet of the pitch. It is not the pitcher, it is the air. Pitchers cannot control what the ball does in the air, they can only control their contracts to a degree, their spin, speed and to a level--their control. The densest air is cold, sea level air without considering the humidity. Humidity does not have much effect on baseball pitching at all.
Teams located in the Midwest between 400 feet elevation and 1200 feet elevation lose 8% of their overall scoring/base-hit production when traveling to a sea level location. This includes the Los Angeles Dodgers at about 400 feet elevation, the St. Louis Cardinals at about 340 feet elevation and Atlanta Braves and Arizona D'Backs at between 1000 and 1200 feet.
All teams at above 5000 feet lose 15% of their offensive production when traveling to sea level and 10% when they travel to those midwest, Dodgers, and St. Louis locations (oh, there is only one MLB team at that level--until the Athletics move to 2,000 feet). Plus, every team to leave Colorado, after 3 games or more there, lose close to 15% of its production. But, there is some good news! All teams traveling from sea level to the midwest gain about 8% of their overall production and at Colorado they gain about 15% production. All teams from the midwest gain about 5% production when traveling from their home stadiums to 5,000 feet elevation even if it is not enough to win all the games in Colorado. It will be a simple conclusion to estimate what MLB and the Las Vegas Athletics will do, as well. However...there are many University baseball teams above 2,000 feet elevation that have the same issues--we list those stadiums on basketballvmi.com
Statements about road woes are typically countered with nay-say and attitude, including "Both teams play in the same conditions, so don't give me excuses, just get out there and play ball", as if pro players need to have something like that said to them. Coaches say those things, because they actually don't have answers. Other players pick up on the mantra because they don't want to be the one comments are directed toward. And, when you consider the overall concept of sports, it is meaningful to populations everywhere, to see if a team can travel and still win in another environment. But since all sports have gone to an extent to "level the playing field", then why ignore and hide the fact that a team like Colorado needs stadium help to compete on the road? Offering up the "draft" and "trades" and "re-build" and "we have some young talent coming up this year", is bologna. Every player who has ever played more than 3 games in Coors Field has come away unable to quickly adjust to normal baseball in MLB. And every college team that plays at an altitude above 2,000 feet elevation cannot compete well with teams based at sea level "any year," except in their own unique environment.
So, in my opinion the Colorado Rockies and MLB are shooting themselves in the upper portion of their thighs to ignore and suppress the idea of building a slightly pressurized batting/pitching cage at their home stadium. And, yes they are suppressing it including all MLB writers who have wanted to write about it.
This batting cage would be the worlds foremost hitting and pitching and research environment. Every physics professor in the world would want to get in there. It would be the most interesting and sought after baseball cage the world has ever seen. It could not be ignored. It would give aerospace, engineering, physics and others a chance to get data on an object without a fully smooth surface flying through the air between 30 mph and 130 mph of which they do not have data, according to the late Dr. Robert Adair, in his book the physics of baseball, whom was hired by MLB to write the book before approving a Denver, Colorado MLB franchise. It will support itself by tours and research alone during off-seasons.
This cage alone would put both the midwest teams and the higher elevation teams on a much more equal basis to the sea level teams than anything else these teams including the universities could do with any other option besides moving to a new location.
It is interesting to see the reaction of teams, owners, players, coaches and managers who are collectively paying out payrolls of nearly $200,000,000 per year to players, but will not get real about buying into a relatively small project that would make them a competitive and very popular team and location for 20 years or longer with one investment. This would save the players' careers, put the team in a position they will never achieve otherwise, save the coaches and managers' careers and put the ownership in a position to be respected instead of considered the worst ownership in the history of MLB.
