A New Ball Game

The below was produced for our Franchise Owners and Executives by Rusty Guinn of Second Foundation Partners. Second Foundation Partners is a pioneer in natural language processing applications to financial markets and publishers of Epsilon Theory.

We probably are not the only ones to observe that the early 2023 MLB season feels different. After all, a dour, labor dispute-tainted start to the 2022 season followed closely on the heels of two seasons affected by pandemic restrictions and investigations of all manner of sticky substances. It would be more shocking if it felt the same.

But how do you quantify it? Is baseball back?

In the same way that artificial intelligence has fueled the real-time quantification of an outfielder’s break to the ball and the impact of a baserunner’s lead on the probability of a successful steal, those tools have also made it possible to delve into the nature of the MLB narratives promulgated by national sports media. In short, we can both quantify and visualize how much a particular story or framing for the league has taken hold.

In short? Everybody else thinks 2023 feels a little bit different too.

Imagine, for a moment, that you could create a map of every article written by major national sports outlets and blogs about MLB. Articles that use similar language and framing would be closer together, while those with more distinct language would be further apart. Well, for the period between Feb. 15 and May 1, here is that map for 2022.

Every one of those dots is a story. Every cluster of dots with the same color is a group of stories with similar language patterns. Dots linked by lines are articles in different clusters that share meaningful bits of language (e.g., “stories with language about Trevor Bauer’s suspension” and “stories with language about the Dodgers starting rotation”). Clusters close to other clusters are likewise more similar.

We can observe a lot with the underlying data.

First, we can see what clusters are the most connected to others. That is, what language is influencing how MLB news is being framed across multiple topics. Second, we can also see which topics are receiving the most coverage, and which have the most internal cohesion.

So, what were the narratives and dominant topics at this point in 2022?

Looking at the large categories of clusters we identify above, some of which seem pretty dire, we think it is important to realize that many of them were not really connected to mainstream MLB narratives. That is, while Trevor Bauer’s legal issues and suspension were heavily covered, that coverage remained mostly contained. It is isolated on the network map, near almost nothing and connected to almost nothing. Bauer was not broadly used to define what the season was about, nor to connect it to “larger issues” in baseball, nor even to frame the Los Angeles Dodgers’ expectations for the season. In short, it was not a major part of the narrative structure for MLB in the early part of the 2022 season.

Similarly, while Astros fans may have hoped for a viral narrative to emerge from the “Yankees sign-stealing letter”, it was only loosely connected to language used in other articles about Manfred’s commissioner regime.

What did connect in a big way to everything that baseball was the lockout. Nearly a full quarter of the network map consists of articles fearing the loss of the 162-game season, blaming various parties for the failure and bloggers publicly worrying if “1994 could happen again?” It invaded news stories and blogs about fantasy baseball. It invaded discussions of opening day festivities, and broadcast deals and speculation about when certain rookies might be promoted. It permeated discussions of the development of young players and full-season award winners. Of the 76 distinct clusters identified by natural language processing algorithms, nearly all of the ten most interconnected clusters fall into this quadrant. The underlying narratives of those clusters are as below:

Through May 2022, the story of MLB wasn’t really baseball. It was fear about whether baseball would return, and even if it did, whether that would dampen the excitement of fans, broadcasters, media and sponsors for the season. Even when sports media wrote and talked about games, players, prospects, trades or expectations for the season, this language was still present.

Looking at the network map for the same period in 2023, you might think the same thing is happening.

After all, like 2022, there are massive regions of the universe of articles in 2023 to-date that are defined by language about things other than baseball. In particular, there has been a lot of ink spilled on the various rule changes, and a lot of ink spilled on the World Baseball Classic.

But the role of these narratives in the structure of MLB coverage is distinct in two ways that have made all the difference in the world.

First, coverage of both the WBC and the rule changes started as broadly skeptical, then quickly transitioned to positive, supportive and pleasantly surprised. More importantly, however, we think that as the season got underway and fans, teams and media realized that neither the WBC nor rule changes had broken the game (and in many ways had injected joy and watchability), the issues simply went away.

What was left? Baseball.

The underlying narratives of those clusters are as below:

It is a far cry from the resilience of negative, bad narratives that permeated all MLB coverage at this point in 2022. Naturally, after a few rough years, fans, owners and sports media have asked the question, “Is baseball back?” In fact, we found 77 stories published by national media outlets and blogs that have used that precise phrasing this season alone. What they mean is, “Are the engagement, fan experience, brand values and growth opportunities in MLB that got sidelined by a few odd years back?”

Unfortunately, simple analysis of media coverage can’t tell us if baseball is “back” in that sense. It can, however, tell us that baseball – pitching, catching, hitting, running, throwing, winning, losing, prospects, veterans, superstars, fans, mascots, hot dogs, peanuts and beer – is back at the center of the MLB media narrative landscape.

©Arctos Partners, LP, 2024. All rights reserved.

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