MLB has responded to the MLBPA's new collective bargaining agreement proposal with a surprising counteroffer: the MLB owners will drop their push for a salary cap in exchange for the abolition of all sabermetric statistics and research.
"Everyone's tired of the nerd shit," MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said in a press release earlier today. "no more WAR, no more wOBA, no more wOBACON, no more BACON, no more BABIP. Hell, we're even considering getting rid of batting average."
Manfred's tenure as MLB comissioner has already overseen major changes to america's passtime, such as the addition of the pitch clock in 2023 and the automated ball-strike system in 2026. These changes were made with the intent of quickening pace of play and improving approachability to new audiences, goals that MLB's proposed statistics changes also hope to achieve, according to Manfried:
"You've got one number, that's okay. Anyone can handle one number. Two numbers is pushing it. Adding two numbers together is okay because then you've just got one number again. Now you might think that's as far as this kind of thing can go, but those geeks down at SABR just don't know when enough is enough. Those godforsaken freaks have started taking two numbers and seeing if they cant figure out how many times one can fit inside the other. They call it division. I call it perversion. Woke nonsense. They're rummaging around the number bin with their clammy nerd-hands, greedily returning for seconds, and trying to get the results of their demonic copulation sent off to Cooperstown. It has to be stopped. For the health of the game, the players, and the fans it has to be stopped.
"Players already spend too much time thinking about numbers. .342, 1.164, 2, meaningless shit like that. And it shows. You see it in their hands before they strike out swinging, in their legs when they get caught stealing, in their eyes when they make an error. Thinking about numbers makes players perform worse and if this division shit breaks containment the game is as good as dead. Innings will take an hour and box scores will resemble those of football games from a hundred years ago. It'll undoubtedly alienate the fanbase as well. Most fans will leave when they realize they need a calculator to follow the action, and we can't afford to give a TI-84 to every schmuck that walks into the ballpark.
"The solution? A return to counting stats. Hits, Strikeouts, RBI, the classics. You dont need some four-eyes with a PhD to calculate your star pitcher's number of strikeouts, you just add one to the count when he does it. Most fans and the vast majority of players can add one. Better yet, they can do it fast. No more losing games because your shortstop was busy calculating a liniar regression. Every time he's on the field all he has to think is: one. That puts his glove one inch closer to the would-be line drive. It gets his cleats one inch closer to the plate on a slide home. It wins games, it wins brains, it wins hearts.
"As an olive branch to the fiends at SABR, we're letting their boys suggest some new things to count. Number of times a player steps to the plate with dirt on him, times a player falls over, number of scrote touches, something like that. But you never know with those degenerates, they might misuse counting to create other types of stats again. So we plan to keep them on a short leash."
The MLBPA has yet to release an official response, but whatever their response is it is unlikely to be the last as negotiations are expexted to last well into the offseason and possibly threaten the 2027 regular season. "We're ready to go to war over this," said Manfred during the questions period of the press release, "We have the resources to starve out the players. We're gonna kill them."
