Having watched a couple of baseball games, I honestly canāt see why itās considered more interesting than cricket. It seems excessively weighted in favour of the side in the field, so most of the time youāre seeing the batter miss the ball. When they do hit it, you donāt get the impression that they have a lot of choice about where to put it - the sweet spot is too small and it mainly seems to be a question of reactions. The window that the pitcher has to target is pretty small, so thereās no range of strokes. They can spin the ball better than Iād imagined, but thereās no effect from the ground conditions, weather or the age of the ball. The field is also too small, so you donāt get the tactical use of resources depending on the bowling and batting style. You do have a little more unpredictability in the basic outcome of a pitch (strike, home run, stealing a base, catch), but the innings are over too quickly to form much of a structure.
It has its own rhythms, but baseball is a good substitute for cricket. You just have to learn to see runs as the hard things to get, like wickets, because, as you say, the balance is the other way.
Thereās a lot to enjoy in a good batsman keeping a pitcher at bay for a long at bat, fouling away good pitches, trying to get him to use up his 100 or so pitches before they have to turn to the relievers.
Itās very much a pastime like cricket is, and its pace is much more like Test cricket than the 50 and 20 over versions. Itās definitely a lot less showy than T20, and all the better for it.
And you have the balance of the big hitters who get home runs but less frequently, vs. players like Ichiro who specialise in smaller in-field hits and getting on base.