Major League Baseball has taken a lot of flak for its Opening Day schedule — albeit there being two rain-outs on Thursday didn’t help. And the league, and more specifically ESPN, has taken some flak for its promotion (or lack thereof) of players around the sport.
This is an argument made repeatedly, but what drew it into question wasn’t just the mere fact that Opening Day was on Thursday. Rather, it was how it was presented and how ESPN’s primer featured four different starting pitchers that the casual fan may not know.
From left to right, Justin Steele (Chicago Cubs), Nathan Eovaldi (Texas Rangers), Zac Gallen (Arizona Diamondbacks) and Framber Valdez (Houston Astros).
A tweet from Derek Thompson of The Atlantic went viral as he proclaimed no knowledge of the four pitchers and it launched a greater discussion on the lack of visibility for MLB stars.
I'm a huge sports fan. When I was 10, baseball might have been the most important thing in my life.
Here is the opening day banner on ESPN right now.
If you offered me $100m to name all these guys by thinking about it for as long as I needed, the odds I could do it are 0.00%. pic.twitter.com/eLgoTv6glo
— Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) March 28, 2024
I’m going to be honest here. I immediately spotted three of the four as someone who frequently follows the sport. Still, it took me a minute to realize that front and center was Eovaldi, who started on Opening Day for the defending World Series Champions. And yes, every pitcher featured started for their respective team on Opening Day, which is what we can assume ESPN was going for here.
But the criticism here is that the majority of fans probably couldn’t name all four players. Thompson suggested that if you offered him $100 million to name all these guys by thinking about it for as long as he needed, the odds he could do it are 0.00%. And there are likely several others like Thompson.
It’s a valid point. And we can go on and on about Major League Baseball not marketing its stars, whether it’s Ronald Acuña Jr., Shohei Ohtani, or Mike Trout. We know why they wouldn’t include Ohtani at this current juncture, but the lack of visibility of him and Trout was a big point of contention with the league and its fans when the two best players in the sport resided in Anaheim.
At the same time, how can MLB make new stars if they don’t put new players in these positions where folks get to learn who they are? We can talk enough about how MLB has failed to place the aforementioned players above in positions to be the faces of their sport and has lucked into Ohtani becoming a worldwide phenomenon. But if we genuinely want MLB and its media partners to put their money where their mouth is, isn’t this a start?
Better late than never — right?
As mentioned before, the idea here was to showcase some of the league’s Opening Day starters and the better ones at that. You could make the argument that Steele (28), Gallen (28) and Valdez (30) are some of the better starting pitchers in the game and are the now and the future of the pitching position, but they are not some of the best young stars in the game. If you wanted to do that, it wouldn’t have been hard to make a graphic that included Juan Soto, Corbin Carroll, Julio Rodríguez and Adley Rutschman, each of whom played on Thursday.
The problem with having an unrecognizable face front and center isn’t that he’s the next best thing. In fact, the inclusion of the 34-year-old Eovaldi, who made his MLB debut in 2011 and was once traded for Hanley Ramirez, is puzzling at best. Yes, he’s the Opening Day starter of the defending WS Champions and pitched to a 5-0 record with an ERA of 2.95 and 41 strikeouts in 6 appearances in the 2023 postseason. But he’s also not the most recognizable or marketable figure from that World Series team.
Corey Seager, who won the World Series MVP, is 29. And if 29 is too old for what is probably one of the best players at his position in the sport, you have the 21-year-old Evan Carter and 22-year-old Wyatt Langford, who seem destined to take over Major League Baseball for years to come.
MLB finds itself stuck between a rock and a hard place; they’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
Highlighting established veterans can feel stale to those seeking fresh faces, but what’s the point if the average fan doesn’t know who those fresh faces are? And while showcasing unproven youngsters risks alienating casual fans who might not recognize them, the answer likely lies in a two-pronged approach.
MLB could create campaigns celebrating the game’s legends and the exciting young players who will carry the torch forward. Imagine a commercial featuring a seasoned star like Trout alongside a rising phenom like Rodríguez. This way, new fans are introduced to the sport’s future while veterans are still recognized for their contributions. By embracing its entire cast of characters, MLB can cultivate a fanbase invested in the present and the future of America’s pastime.
But as we all know, that’s much easier said than done, especially when you consider years of evidence that would point to otherwise and the commissioner, who is the brains of the operation.
[Derek Thompson on Twitter/X]
