I love all 3 sports, but I'll say Baseball requires A LOT more thought and adjustments on the part of the players themselves than basketball and football, which are coach-centric sports whereas baseball is a hybrid individual/team sport.
>Hurr durr, swing bat hard, throw the ball the hard
No. A baseball player/pitcher needs to know the tendencies of hundreds (i.e 9-12 batters and pitchers per, team, and a baseball roster dynamic changes a lot more since players are routinely called up) of individual players in order to develop a good plan of attack.
For a pitcher, facing a new batter is literally like a quarterback facing a new offense.
On the hitting side, a batter needs to know what a pitcher is likely to throw on this count, that count; what he's likely to throw depending on the inning, lead, men on base situation, etc.
Miguel Cabrera has often recalled what a pitcher threw him in a specific situation years ago to get a tactical edge on a pitcher.
Of course, like any sport, baseball has instances when pure skill and athleticism beats strategic and tactical advantages. Everyone knows Chapman is throwing a 103 mph fastball, just like everyone knows Curry is taking a 26 footer off a Draymond pick, and you still can't stop it.
People underrate baseball's depth because it doesn't have cute diagrams showing player movement, and I won't claim it's deeper than football, which I do think is the most complex sport out there, but again, it's primarily up to the players to figure it out while an NFL coach is the one spending 60 hours per week in the film room developing that weeks gameplan him and his staff will teach to the players. With 162 games, there isn't enough time for coaches to hand-hold players like that.
And yes, I know quarterbacks put in a lot of work on that end, too, but other than that, football is a coach-centric sport.
