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[QUOTE="Cusefan95, post: 4924764, member: 173"]
The problem isn’t analytics - it’s that most sports when played well (giving a team the highest chance to win) are boring.  Boxing is another example, people loved to watch fighters like Tyson or Rousey because of their style.  But their style opened up all kinds of opportunities for opponents who eventually figured out how to take advantage of it.  Mayweather was considered boring - but IMHO he’s the best technician I’ve ever seen.  His style created no opportunities for opponents, which was boring but effective.  All that analytics is doing in baseball is starting to push teams to eliminate the exciting but counterproductive stuff like steals.

My hot take is professional sports all have a short shelf life until they get optimized into something not entertaining anymore.  Baseball is trying to make changes to bring steals back - but analytics say you need a 90%+ success rate to justify trying.   I don’t think rule changes will do much other than continue to make the game less recognizable - and if they “succeed” in making steals more common it’ll only be because it’s virtually a sure thing and seeing it happen isn’t exciting anyway.

I don’t think any sport is as entertaining as it was in the 80s - the problem isn’t analytics.  It’s that no sport is sustainable as a form of entertainment.
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