Focus on power making MLB games unattractive to watch

TOKYO — The big league game has changed in many ways over the years, and not always for the better. To cite one example, it is now a sport played largely by highly paid men who hit .250, swing for the fences on every pitch, and strike out at an alarming rate.

Poster boy for this type of player is Philadelphia Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber, who finished second in the major leagues in home runs with 47 last season, but also struck out 215 times to lead the major leagues in that category while compiling a batting average of .197.

Then there was Pete Alonso, the big star of the New York Mets, who hit 46 homers with a batting average of .217 and struck out 151 times. Max Muncy of the Los Angeles Dodgers hit 36 homers with a .212 batting average. There are many players of this type in the big leagues, batters who have replaced a focus on contact batting with launch angles to better deal with the ever increasing onslaught of 100 mile-per-hour fastballs.