Gerrit Cole and company have “broken” baseball

I am not someone who is overtaken with panic for baseball’s future. I think that that panic is often used in bad faith, to remark upon a change in the game that someone morally disagrees with. There was panic around Babe Ruth clubbing 20 home runs a season and Jackie Robinson integrating the game, and neither of those things threatened the future of baseball.

However, while I’m not panicking, I am Officially Concerned™ about the state of the game. This past April was a standout month for offensive ineptitude, with more than 1,000 more strikeouts than hits and the lowest triple slash line in at least 30 years. The league is striking out, on average, 25 percent of the time. Doc Gooden’s…