As the MLB season is set to begin Sunday, the league's "greatest challenge" this year will be "selling itself," according to Jeff Passan of YAHOO SPORTS. By all circumstances, Pirates CF Andrew McCutchen "should be a household name," but "he's not." Passan: "This is a baseball problem, and perhaps its greatest." McCutchen said, "When you turn the TV on, what’s a face in sports that you see? LeBron James. Why is it LeBron James? He has Nike commercials, Beats commercials, this and that, plastered all over television. Football, who do you see? Peyton Manning. He has Papa John’s, State Farm, commercial after commercial. Baseball, who do you see? Mike Trout maybe? He’s in a Subway commercial. Anything else?” Passan wrote it is a "vicious cycle for baseball, one in which a decade-long marketing vacuum has sucked baseball into a troubled area: Not only are kids not watching baseball, they’re not playing it nearly as much as they used to, either." Among the many priorities on new MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred’s docket, "marketing the game and re-engaging a diverse and young core of fans sits atop the list." Baseball "understands the likelihood of turning into a star-making machine like basketball or reclaiming the pedestal of America’s pastime from football aren’t realistic, not yet." So the league is "altering the strategy, trying to emphasize the relatable aspects of the game today while not completely abandoning the nostalgia that serves as baseball’s bedrock." Manfred "wants fans to know players better, to understand who they are and what made them." But "carving out time" for marketing deals and promotional appearances "isn’t easy" for MLBers, with 162 games over 183 days. Passan: "For Manfred’s plan to succeed, however, it’s vital" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 4/2).
ON THE OFFENSIVE: In N.Y., Tyler Kepner notes with offensive production down in recent years, MLB hitters "would welcome a stimulus package, of sorts, in an age when every new edge seems to benefit pitchers." MLB teams last season "scored roughly 5,000 fewer runs, and hit roughly 1,500 fewer homers, than they did in 2000 -- statistically, the height of the steroid era." The league expanded in '77 and '93, and the "influx of previously unqualified pitchers helped stimulate offense." MLB "has no plans to expand now, and while Manfred has shown a willingness to consider many types of changes, he is not sure the game on the field needs to be modified." Manfred "has no interest in bringing the DH" to the NL, or "eliminating it altogether." Manfred said that he "did not sense an outcry for changes to promote offense, the way he did to implement the pace-of-play changes that go into effect this season" (N.Y. TIMES, 4/3).
