Scoring is up. Athleticism is demonstrably higher.
When a celebrated football voice declared baseball's soul lost to analytics and home-run obsession, he was invoking a memory rather than consulting a record. The data of 2025 and 2026 — rising attendance, surging ratings, faster pitchers, smarter baserunning — tells a story not of decline but of evolution. Nostalgia is a powerful lens, but it distorts as often as it clarifies, and in this case it has led a knowledgeable sports mind to mistake the past's familiarity for the past's superiority.
- Kirk Herbstreit's viral social media critique landed like a familiar summer complaint — baseball has lost its athletes, its small ball, its soul — but nearly every specific claim he made is contradicted by measurable evidence.
- The 2025 World Series drew 51 million viewers across three countries, attendance is climbing in small markets, and competitive balance has shifted away from big spenders — none of which fits the portrait of a sport in crisis.
- Fastball velocity has jumped from 90.4 mph in 2008 to roughly 95 mph today, stolen base success rates have climbed from 67% in 1986 to 80% in 2024, and scoring has risen from 8.26 runs per game in 1989 to 9 in 2026 — the athletes are better, not worse.
- The irony sharpens when the lens turns on football itself: NFL broadcasts deliver only 10–11 minutes of live action per three-hour game, yardage is down, and quarterback protection rules have become a fan punchline — yet the sport's broadcasters rarely turn that critical eye inward.
Kirk Herbstreit, whose voice has defined college football for two decades, recently took to social media to deliver what he believed was a damning verdict on modern baseball. Where were the athletes? The starting pitchers who could go deep into games? The base runners who actually knew how to move around the diamond? He invoked Tony Gwynn and Rod Carew, suggesting players of their caliber couldn't survive in today's analytics-driven, home-run-obsessed game. It was a familiar lament. The only problem is that nearly every claim collapses under the weight of actual data.
Start with the premise of decline. Attendance has climbed for several consecutive seasons, with the White Sox, Blue Jays, and Mariners posting substantial gains in 2026 alone. The 2025 World Series drew 51 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan — the most-watched domestic broadcast since 2017. Small-market teams are outperforming big spenders through the first half of the season. The sport is not hemorrhaging fans; it is attracting them.
On athleticism, the data moves in the opposite direction from Herbstreit's nostalgia. The average fastball has risen from 90.4 mph in 2008 to roughly 95 mph today — a product of better-trained, better-nourished, biomechanically schooled athletes. And yet hitters are still succeeding. Shohei Ohtani dominates as both pitcher and hitter. Aaron Judge and Cal Raleigh have posted historically strong offensive seasons against harder-throwing pitchers than any previous generation faced. If the game had truly lost its athletes, this would be impossible.
The stolen base complaint similarly misleads. In 1986, teams attempted more steals but succeeded only 67% of the time, giving away outs at a remarkable clip. In 2024, the success rate had climbed to 80%. Fewer attempts at higher efficiency produces better baseball than more attempts at lower efficiency — a lesson learned through experience and analysis, not laziness.
As for the players Herbstreit invoked, Tony Gwynn's career OPS of .847 would place him ahead of several current stars this season. A player who hit .370 with a .447 on-base percentage and 56 stolen bases in a single year, as Gwynn did in 1987, would almost certainly win an MVP in the modern game. The skills those players possessed remain enormously valuable. The game hasn't rejected them; it has simply learned that home runs guarantee runs score in ways that singles do not.
There is an irony worth noting. The NFL — Herbstreit's home — delivers only 10 to 11 minutes of live action per three-hour broadcast, yardage per game has dropped from 353 in 2015 to 326.6 in 2025, and quarterback protection rules have become a running joke. Baseball, meanwhile, continues to improve across nearly every meaningful measure, and still must defend itself against the nostalgia of commentators who mistake memory for superiority.
Kirk Herbstreit, the football commentator whose voice has defined college sports for two decades, recently took to social media to deliver what he clearly believed was a damning indictment of modern baseball. The game, he argued, had lost its way. Where were the athletes? Where was the speed, the clutch hitting, the starting pitchers who could go deep into games? Where were the sacrifice bunts and the base runners who actually knew how to move around the diamond? He invoked the ghosts of Tony Gwynn and Rod Carew, suggesting that players of their caliber couldn't survive in today's home-run-obsessed, analytics-driven version of the sport. It was a familiar lament, the kind you hear in bars and at kitchen tables across the country every summer. The only problem is that nearly every claim he made collapses under the weight of actual data.
Start with the premise itself: that baseball is in decline. The numbers tell a different story. Attendance has climbed each year for several seasons now, with teams like the White Sox, Blue Jays, and Mariners posting substantial gains in 2026 alone. Television ratings have surged. The 2025 World Series drew 51 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan—the most-watched domestic broadcast since 2017. Game 7 of that series pulled in viewers at a scale that suggests the sport is not hemorrhaging fans but attracting them. Pace of play has improved. The new automated ball-strike challenge system has been largely embraced. Even the competitive balance that Herbstreit might worry about has shifted: small-market teams are outperforming the big spenders through the first half of the season, which is precisely the kind of parity that should excite a sports fan.
On athleticism specifically, the data moves in the opposite direction from Herbstreit's nostalgia. Modern baseball players are more athletic than their predecessors, not less. The evidence is written in fastball velocity. In 2008, the average fastball in the major leagues traveled at 90.4 miles per hour. Today, that number sits around 95 miles per hour. That increase exists because pitchers have become more athletic—better trained, better nourished, better schooled in biomechanics. And yet hitters are still succeeding at historic rates. Shohei Ohtani is dominating as both a hitter and a pitcher, something virtually unprecedented over an extended period. Kyle Schwarber is threatening home run records. Aaron Judge and Cal Raleigh have posted historically successful offensive seasons despite facing harder-throwing pitchers than any generation before them. If the game had truly lost its athletes, this would be impossible.
The complaint about starting pitchers no longer going eight or nine innings deserves a more careful answer than Herbstreit offered. Managers stopped letting exhausted pitchers stay in games not out of laziness or a failure of will, but because data revealed something true: pitchers become less effective as they tire and face the same hitters repeatedly. The third time through the order carries a measurable penalty. This isn't a new phenomenon—it's always been real. Front offices simply recognized that bringing in a fresh reliever offered a better chance of winning than allowing a tired starter to prove his toughness. That's not a decline in the sport; that's an evolution in how it's played.
On stolen bases, Herbstreit's nostalgia again misleads him. Yes, there are fewer stolen base attempts than in the 1980s, but the ones that do happen succeed at a much higher rate. In 2024, there were 3,617 stolen bases league-wide with an 80 percent success rate. In 1986, there were 3,312 stolen bases but only a 67 percent success rate—meaning teams were giving away outs at an astonishing clip. The math is simple: fewer attempts at higher success rates produces better baseball than more attempts at lower success rates. Teams learned this lesson through experience and analysis.
As for the players Herbstreit invoked—Gwynn, Carew, Boggs, Ichiro—the suggestion that they couldn't thrive in 2026 is demonstrably false. Tony Gwynn's career on-base percentage was .415 and his slugging percentage was .459, for a combined OPS of .847. That figure would place him ahead of several current stars this season, including Pete Alonso, Cody Bellinger, and Ketel Marte. A player who hit .370 with a .447 on-base percentage and 56 stolen bases in a single season, as Gwynn did in 1987, would almost certainly win an MVP award in the modern game. The skills those players possessed—contact hitting, speed, intelligence—remain enormously valuable. The game hasn't rejected them; it's simply learned that home runs are more efficient at producing runs, so teams optimize for that outcome.
The real shift in baseball is this: hitting has become harder than it's ever been because pitching has become better than it's ever been. Teams have responded by prioritizing home runs over singles because a home run guarantees that runs score, while a single does not. That's not a failure of athleticism or a loss of skill. It's a rational response to the constraints of the game. And the results speak for themselves. In 1989, the year Herbstreit seems to lionize, the league averaged 8.26 runs per game. In 2026, that number is 9 runs per game. Scoring is up. Athleticism is demonstrably higher. The product is stronger. The fans are returning.
There's an irony worth noting. Herbstreit broadcasts football for a living, and the NFL is the sport that actually deserves scrutiny. Quarterbacks are protected to an almost absurd degree, with late-hit penalties becoming a running joke among fans. A typical broadcast contains only 10 to 11 minutes of actual game action stretched across nearly three hours. Teams averaged 353 yards per game in 2015; by 2025, that had dropped to 326.6 yards. The sport is objectively less exciting by multiple measures. Yet the NFL faces almost no criticism from its broadcasters, perhaps because gambling has made it profitable enough to ignore its obvious decline. Baseball, meanwhile, continues to improve—in attendance, in ratings, in competitive balance, in the quality of athletic performance—and still it must defend itself against the nostalgia of commentators who remember a different era and mistake memory for superiority.
Citações Notáveis
Those types of players are still enormously valuable because many of their skills are always valuable. A player who hit .370 with a .447 on-base percentage and 56 stolen bases, as Gwynn did in 1987, would almost certainly win an MVP award in the modern game.— Analysis of Tony Gwynn's hypothetical value in 2026
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does Herbstreit's critique resonate so much if it's factually wrong?
Because nostalgia is powerful. He's describing a version of baseball that feels simpler, more heroic—a pitcher battling through nine innings, a speedster stealing bases, a contact hitter slapping singles. That story is emotionally satisfying even if the data says it was less efficient.
But if modern baseball is objectively better by the numbers, why does it feel like something is missing?
It's not missing. It's different. The athleticism hasn't gone away; it's been redirected. A 95-mile-per-hour fastball requires more athletic development than a 90-mile-per-hour one. But that's invisible to someone watching. What they see is fewer stolen bases, fewer complete games, more strikeouts. The game looks different, so it feels like decline.
Is there any legitimate criticism buried in what Herbstreit said?
Not really. He's wrong on the facts. But the underlying anxiety—that baseball is becoming too specialized, too data-driven, too removed from the human element—that's something people genuinely feel. It's just not supported by what's actually happening on the field.
Why does he get away with this? Why isn't he called out more?
Because he's a trusted voice in sports. People listen to him. And because the critique fits a broader cultural narrative about analytics ruining sports. It's easier to believe that than to look at attendance numbers and World Series ratings.
What would change his mind?
Probably nothing. This isn't about data. It's about what he remembers loving about the game. You can't argue someone out of a feeling with statistics.