David Ortiz: Baseball Is 'Straight-Up F--king Boring' Due to so Many Strikeouts

David Ortiz thinks baseball is boring. Well, at least he thinks all the strikeouts in the modern game are pretty darn dull.

"To me it's messed up," Ortiz told Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe. "The game has changed a lot. Coaches only want kids to hit home runs and that's all they practice because they want to get paid. We used to want to develop great hitters. Now it's all strikeouts with some home runs and it's straight-up f--king boring. If you could bet in Vegas that the next hitter was going to strike out, you'd take it every time."

David Ortiz made his MLB debut in 1997. That season, Major League Baseball had a total of 29,936 strikeouts. In 2019, the last full MLB season, there were 42,823 total strikeouts, a staggering jump in 22 years. Strikeouts increased every season between 2009-19.

"It's not good for the game," Ortiz continued. "If there's a runner on first, you want to use that hole and hit the ball to right field. Then the runner has the opportunity to go to third and can score on an out or even a wild pitch. That's how I was taught to play. We used to be criticized for taking big swings in certain situations. Now that's all they want every time. It's hard to watch for me."

Former athletes complaining about the current state of the sport they once played is nothing new. Games evolve and rely more on statistical analysis to identify the most efficient ways to win.

But in this case, Ortiz isn't wrong. Baseball is declining in popularity. America's pastime needs a jolt, or maybe just fewer strikeouts.