Baseball definitely has passionate fans, and it's still somewhat popular, but it has really struggled to adjust to the times. It's still pretty popular among white men over 40 though.
The M’s are extremely popular in Seattle. I’m often surprised at how much of a baseball town it is. Football is king of course but it’s a good sports town and baseball is relevant. When they made the playoffs in 2022, it was a big deal, everyone was talking about that 10-9 victory over the Blue Jays the next day.
The MLB regular season is a slog of course, even passionate fans don’t pay attention to every game.
I don’t think it was analytics that damaged the game as much as their delayed response to adjust the rules to compensate. Which is finally happening and needs to happen more. At least stolen bases are back in fashion now.