Managers now treat the bullpen like a chess clock. We’ve seen the rise of the “opener,” the two-inning specialist, and the 13-pitcher roster.
Starting pitchers are treated like expensive china - get them out before they break. The complete game - where a pitcher goes 9 innings all by his lonesome - is basically extinct. Some nights you feel like you’re watching a seven-inning game with five different closers. It feels like that because… that is exactly what is happening.
Down in the minors, the picture is more complicated. Major League Baseball’s 2021 reorganization cut the number of affiliated teams and tightened control.
A lot of small-town franchises disappeared or became “partner” clubs with less money and fewer prospects. The players who remain are developing faster because the leagues are better, but the ladder to the big leagues feels steeper.
For every kid who gets the call, there are dozens grinding in Triple-A on shuttle-bus money, wondering if the game still loves them the way it used to.
To fill in the chasm left by the cutbacks to minor league baseball, big-college baseball has exploded.
The Southeast and Atlantic Coast Conferences are drawing 10,000 fans a night in places like Baton Rouge and Omaha. NIL (Name-Image-Likeness deals - thank you CGI and AI), television money, and transfer-portal freedom have turned campuses into semi-pro factories in all sports.
A star pitcher at Texas or Louisiana State University can make six figures before he ever sees a minor-league bus.
Some of the best young talent is skipping the minors entirely - or spending only a cup of coffee there - and jumping straight to “The Show” (the once-insider-now-commonplace nickname for Major League Baseball).
The old “pay your dues in the bushes” path is no longer the only path.
And then there are the Savannah Bananas.
Call them entertainment baseball, viral baseball, or the greatest marketing stunt since the Harlem Globetrotters.
They play with no walks, no strikeouts in certain innings, and a rule that every player has to bat every inning. They dance between innings. They sell out stadiums that the local minor-league teams couldn’t fill on Bat Day.
Kids love them. Grandparents love them. Even some big-league players have shown up in Banana gear on social media.
The Bananas didn’t just fill a niche - they reminded everybody that baseball can still be fun without being solemn. It isn’t just the old guy with the scorecard in the bleachers, penciling in every pitch, every at-bat, every hit and out and error and RBI… Bill Veeck is somewhere smiling and cheering and telling anyone who will listen: “SEE? I WAS WAY AHEAD OF THE GAME! WHERE IS EDDIE GAEDEL?”
So where does all this flotsam-and-jetsam leave the game?
Here’s where: it is faster at the top, leaner in the middle, and suddenly glamorous at the college level.
Young players today have options their fathers never dreamed of. They can chase the big money in college, go viral with the Bananas, or grind the traditional minor-league route.
The ones who make it to the majors will be more athletic, better prepared, and a lot less patient about wasting time.
Baseball isn’t dying. It’s just growing up in public - louder, quicker, and a little weirder than the game I fell in love with as a kid.
My oldest son and I take in a game every summer. I acknowledge the changes and improvements and the real-time-edits right there - live and in person. You know what that proves? I’m still buying a ticket to watch baseball!
GO CUBS!
Thanks for reading!
Taylor
Podcasts Spotify Cameo Irreversible (my book)
