What sorts of issues would you like the new commissioner to address?

Max Power

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adam42381 said:
I like a lot of the ideas above. I'd like to see the implementation of a 20 second (the exact time could be debated) pitch clock which would include a 5 second red zone at the end where the pitcher could deliver the ball whether the batter was in the box or not. If the pitcher fails to begin his windup by the time the 20 seconds expire, the batter is awarded a ball.
 
How exactly would this work? I assume the clock would be physical, so where would you put it? The pitcher and umpire are looking in opposite directions, so there would have to be two. I suppose you could put something on the backstop for the pitcher, but he's looking at the catcher and it wouldn't be in his line of sight. I can't imagine where the umpire's clock would be. 
 

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HriniakPosterChild said:
People, there are 15 teams in each league now. Without realigning the leagues, you cannot get rid of interleague if there are an odd number of teams in each league unless you are willing to have a team in each league idle every day.
or, as many of us have posited, perhaps expanding by two teams.  I'm not a fan of diluting the talent base further, but it's an option to at least consider.
 

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Lose Remerswaal said:
Which major sports league has a balanced schedule?  I'm pretty sure the Bruins play the Canadians more times than the Capitals do, that the Celtics play the Knicks more times than the Cavaliers do, and that the Patriots play the Jets more times than the Broncos do.
 
The AL did way back when there were two real leagues and two divisions per league. (Almost the dead-ball era, but not quite.)
 

CarolinaBeerGuy

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Max Power said:
 
How exactly would this work? I assume the clock would be physical, so where would you put it? The pitcher and umpire are looking in opposite directions, so there would have to be two. I suppose you could put something on the backstop for the pitcher, but he's looking at the catcher and it wouldn't be in his line of sight. I can't imagine where the umpire's clock would be. 
That's above my pay grade.
 

NortheasternPJ

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In a slow sport why would MLB ever want to eliminate a 100% offensive / home run batter? Who cares about the players union. It's bad for MLB to take pure hitters who can't field for shit out of the game.
 

grimshaw

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Papelbon's Poutine said:
 
 Adam Dunn has been shit this year, but I'll bet you dollars to donuts that someone will sign him next year at a number over 7 figures. Otherwise he would be looking at a cheap deal to be a PH. 
 
 
 
Sadly David Ortiz is gaining on Adam Dunn as an overall player this year. Same exact wOBA.347 and wRC 118 but they are such brutal baserunners that a lot of that value is offset.  Papi is still at under 1 WAR this year and Dunn is at .5  
 
Billy Butler is below replacement level this year as well.  He is barely hanging on and probably an NL bench guy a la Dunn.
 
See also Chin Soo Choo this year.  According to Fangraph metrics he is the 3rd worst fielder in baseball.  This is unfortunate because he is also OPSing .704 . . . in Arlington . . .in year 1 of a 7 year deal.
 
The other main reason the player's won't cave, though?  Albert Pujols.  He is under contract through 2021 and is already no longer a full time first baseman at his listed age of 34. If he can't DH, he isn't worth jack shit by 2017 and despite that is no doubt going to still be chasing Aaron and Bonds.
An absolute albatross waiting to happen.  
 
Such a shitty position.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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Max Power said:
 
How exactly would this work? I assume the clock would be physical, so where would you put it? The pitcher and umpire are looking in opposite directions, so there would have to be two. I suppose you could put something on the backstop for the pitcher, but he's looking at the catcher and it wouldn't be in his line of sight. I can't imagine where the umpire's clock would be. 
 
You'd need it in multiple locations so the fans know what's going on (like all the clocks in an NBA arena), but the umpire issue is easy, you make watching the clock the job of the Second Base Umpire, so he's watching the same one the pitcher is.  HP ump has too much else to worry about.
 

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I don't understand why fewer commercial breaks is always dismissed as an impossibility. If quicker games get more fans to watch, then they would get higher advertising rates, which might compensate for the reduced number of ads.
 
Getting rid of one commercial every half inning, plus during each pitching change would cut game time by 10-15 minutes and would not have any impact whatsoever on the actual game itself. 
 

Spacemans Bong

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I don't understand why fewer commercial breaks is always dismissed as an impossibility. If quicker games get more fans to watch, then they would get higher advertising rates, which might compensate for the reduced number of ads.
 
Getting rid of one commercial every half inning, plus during each pitching change would cut game time by 10-15 minutes and would not have any impact whatsoever on the actual game itself. 
Two reasons:

1) 30 seconds 17 times a game is 8.5 minutes. Not nothing but not game changing on its own.

2) when you're in a park, you really never see people just standing there hands on hips like you see in the NFL. Pitchers need to warm up and infielders need to loosen up.I think the longest I've ever felt players were just standing waiting for the TV commercials to end was about 10 seconds, and that's less than three minutes in the course of a game.

Meanwhile the extended time pitchers and batters spend not doing their job is immediately obvious to anybody who has watched a baseball game played before 20 years ago. Which is more and more people thanks to YouTube.
 

geoduck no quahog

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I'll apologize up front - but you probably know that I deride the hand wringing over length of games...from the fan's viewpoint.
 
I'm really sick of hearing how the yutes of today won't put up with periods of inaction and that the timeless game better modernize or risk losing that critical under-15 fanbase.
 
Fuck them. I could make hyperbole about how the game would be "so much faster" with 2 outs/inning, 1 strike and 2 balls, etc. but that misses the bigger point.
 
Let the teams manage their own clock (where they can). Pitchers like Dice-K apparently drove their fielders crazy...so maybe it's up to management to avoid pitchers like that (Buerhle - the other end of the spectrum).
 
It's been repeated here 100 times that the length of games is more related to
 
- Commercial Breaks
- Pitches / Plate Appearance
- Pitching Changes
 
and none of that is going to change.
 
I sincerely believe their are bigger issues to address than the minor gratification of speeding up the game by 10 minutes. Maybe those with ADHD should stick to minor league games that aren't televised.
 
On another (unrelated) note. Am I the only one here that's finding on-screen pitch tracking too much of a distraction and an annoyance? I used to watch games and get occasionally annoyed at an obviously blown call but now find myself getting annoyed 80 times a game. Can someone recommend a psychiatrist?
 

Marceline

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Spacemans Bong said:
Two reasons:

1) 30 seconds 17 times a game is 8.5 minutes. Not nothing but not game changing on its own.

2) when you're in a park, you really never see people just standing there hands on hips like you see in the NFL. Pitchers need to warm up and infielders need to loosen up.I think the longest I've ever felt players were just standing waiting for the TV commercials to end was about 10 seconds, and that's less than three minutes in the course of a game.

Meanwhile the extended time pitchers and batters spend not doing their job is immediately obvious to anybody who has watched a baseball game played before 20 years ago. Which is more and more people thanks to YouTube.
 
Take off another 30 seconds from each pitching change and you can easily knock off 10 minutes. Now knock off another 10 minutes from the endless standing around between pitches and between batters and you've got 2:45 games again, which is a significant improvement.
 
Commercial breaks used to be shorter and the fielders and pitchers managed to do just fine getting loose between innings. You're telling me it's going to make a major difference if they only have 90 seconds between innings instead of 2 minutes?
 

I sincerely believe their are bigger issues to address than the minor gratification of speeding up the game by 10 minutes. Maybe those with ADHD should stick to minor league games that aren't televised.
 
I don't think that's the right approach for MLB to take at all. They want to continue to grow the fan base and bring in a lot of the more casual fans - they need to speed up the games.
 

NDame616

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Max Power said:
 
How exactly would this work? I assume the clock would be physical, so where would you put it? The pitcher and umpire are looking in opposite directions, so there would have to be two. I suppose you could put something on the backstop for the pitcher, but he's looking at the catcher and it wouldn't be in his line of sight. I can't imagine where the umpire's clock would be. 
 
How in the world did the NBA come up with a shot clock when they play at 2 nets??
 
Easy answer: MLB puts one behind the backstop and in CF. Like the new shot clock in the NBA, it blinks when it goes off.
 

snowmanny

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1. Eliminate the DH but don't let pitchers bat either.
2. The winner of the All-Star game gets to decide, by a vote of the teams in said league, whether they would like the Brewers or the Astros in their league the following year.
 

OttoC

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Either have the DH in both leagues--the quickest solution, or eliminate it entirely, in which case pitcher batting needs to be reintroduced back in the pipeline from Little League, on up, and it will take a few years to get pitchers comfortable at the plate working their way through the minors.
 
While today there are some DHs who basically only DH, I think the majority of them are position players who fill in at DH. From 2000 through 2013, there was one year in which 6 players had at least 400 PA as DH and two years in which there were 5. In the remaining years, there were five with 3, five with 2 and one with 1.
 

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I think the NL will adopt the DH than the AL dropping it. The union loves one thing. $$$$$$. If the NL and AL both have the DH a player will get a larger contract because both teams have the benefit of sliding the player into the DH role down the line. Thus there would be more competition for big name FA hitters.
 

Fred not Lynn

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Spacemans Bong said:
Hello, expansion!
Baseball needs two more teams...the only question is when and where. Actually, the only question is when and how can it be done to maximize expansion fees, because once you reach 32, you're done forever.
 

Fred not Lynn

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Awesome Fossum said:
[*]Do whatever needs to be done to get the NCAA to switch to wood bats (and while I'm talking to them, strongly encourage expanding the NCAA season to include the fall and/or summer as has been proposed). 
[/list]
This one is easy. "Whatever needs to be done" = "Write a bigger check than Easton/Rawlings/Worth/Dimarini/Etc..."
 

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Fred not Lynn said:
Baseball needs two more teams...the only question is when and where. Actually, the only question is when and how can it be done to maximize expansion fees, because once you reach 32, you're done forever.
If it's forever, you almost have to wait for Cuban relations to normalize; Havana baseball is completely compelling, and almost has to happen at some point. In real life you could expand earlier and move there later. Mexico City is also interesting but not as much of a must as Havana.

But I really find baseball in Havana to be one of the most compelling sports possibilities for the big four going forward.
 

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I would find some way to get offense up and the easiest way to do that is to call automatic balls and strikes. The offensive levels have declined so much so that I feel that the enjoyment of seeing great pitching isn't the same as it was before. There was a Posnanski article a few months ago about this and I completely agree. There needs to be more hits, more doubles, more runs, more HRs in general.

I'm not concerned about the length of a game if the game is very tight and there are lots of dramatic moments that keep you engaged. Who didn't love the ALCS last year? The games were long but they were very tight and there were lots of dramatic moments.

But those moments only happen when guys get on base, when there are at bats with runners in scoring position, when a HR is hit that turns things around. You know which one I'm talking about. Without all of this, the game is increasingly becoming monotonic, purely because offense is down to a historic low.
 

Apisith

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I still love watching the game, even in a losing season like this, but I have enjoyed our games after the all-star break a lot because they've all been pretty damn close games with lead changes. I'd like to see more of this in general.
 

Fred not Lynn

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The problem with pitchers batting is that they don't get enough plate appearances to really ever get into the rhythm of hitting every day. In High School the pitchers usually are their team's best all-around ball players, and do play a position when not pitching - but then that makes arm care and recovery difficult to manage around the need to throw as a position player.
 

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What about getting rid of the DH, but only having the 8 fielders bat?

I hate watching pitchers hit into automatic outs and I hate the different set of rules for each league. This gets both leagues in sync and also relieves us of watching pitchers hit.

Edit: sorry didn't see it mentioned above before I posted. Ignore me.
 

OrlandoMerced

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I like baseball, so I'm not a huge fan of rules that fundamentally change the game, so I would hope the pitch clock ideas never happen.  Of course I'd like to see games sped up, but that one is a non-starter.
 
I'm surprised nobody has brought up as an issue for the commissioner the antiquated blackout rules.  I get NESN at home, but there are probably 3 to 5 times a week when I would watch at least part of a game (or a whole game) on another device. I'm not buying the streaming package if I cant see my favorite team.  Don't they want more eyeballs on their product rather than fewer? If I'm not getting to the ballpark on a given day, they should be encouraging willing customers to find a way to watch, not prohibiting it.  And wouldn't the networks appreciate more eyeballs regardless of whether the picture came from a tv, a laptop, a tablet, a phone?  I know there are issues with advertisers, but they could easily work those out (count all viewers when setting prices, stream all the ads, etc.)
 
(This rant brought to you by my broken slingbox)
 

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If it's forever, you almost have to wait for Cuban relations to normalize; Havana baseball is completely compelling, and almost has to happen at some point.
This really needs to happen someday.

DH in both leagues, please.

Also, as I learned from the commissioner selection thread:

An interesting article written by Bill Madden of the NY Times explaining why the Red Sox ownership would not want Rob Manfred to take over for Bud Selig. Apparently, the Red Sox have been paying far less in TV revenue sharing than they should and Selig has been trying to change that. According to the article, the TV deal with NESN is worth approximately $80 million but the team is only paying revenue sharing portions as if it was worth $40 million.
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/madden-faction-owners-moving-block-rob-manfred-succession-bud-selig-article-1.1898077#ixzz3A0HsgJvv
The new commissioner should fix that ;)
 

Buzzkill Pauley

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  1. Renegotiate blackout terms so that anyone can watch any game from anywhere;
  2. Expand the number of teams to 32 so that a truly balanced schedule is possible;
  3. Either standardize the DH across both leagues or abolish in-season interleague;
  4. Stop awarding home field in the World Series to the winner of the All-Star Game;
  5. Allow only one pitching change per inning, except in case of pitcher injury; and
  6. Automate the call of balls and strikes.
Don't worry about speeding up the game beyond limiting pitching changes --  please no abominations like pitch clocks.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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Spacemans Bong said:
2) when you're in a park, you really never see people just standing there hands on hips like you see in the NFL. Pitchers need to warm up and infielders need to loosen up.I think the longest I've ever felt players were just standing waiting for the TV commercials to end was about 10 seconds, and that's less than three minutes in the course of a game.
Compare how long the team moving from hitting to fielding ties to get on the field to their positions now vs. how long it took 25 years ago and you'll see what happened to that time. Pitcher and catcher sometimes come out quickly, but everyone else must be at the water cooler, texting, or beaver shooting (Bouton) in the dugout.
 

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One question concerning auto calling of balls/strikes:
 
The Amica Pitch Zone (which you already know I hate) doesn't seem to change vertical size from batter to batter...is this just a factor of perception, or is it simply a TV graphical thing where they translate the actual pitch data to something visual that the audience can understand?
 
This was particularly noticeable when an Astor like Altuve is at the plate, and then Carter. They have very different actual strike zones, but the TV gimmick doesn't seem to acknowledge that.
 
Someone tried to explain to me before how the 2 dimensional visualization works when the strike zone is 3 dimensional, but I didn't understand it. For example, a pitched ball just hitting the lower boundary closest to the field is a strike. A ball hitting the upper boundary at the back of the strike zone is a strike. Ditto all the other boundaries front versus back.
 
How does the software work?
 

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HriniakPosterChild said:
Hell, in the American League, managers may choose to allow their pitchers to hit. None of them do, for obvious reasons, but that's the rule.
It's too bad Micah Owings never pitched for an AL team.  Though they'd probably still DH for him because you want a DH for later relievers, and if you eschew it at the start of the game you can't reinstate it later on.
 

snowmanny

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HriniakPosterChild said:
#1 is a very old proposal, and the objection was that it would make it to easy to shatter old records because the hitters would get more AB's in an 8 man lineup.
Not if the games were eight innings long.
 
Edit: The proposal was no DH and pitchers do not bat.  This would speed up the game considerably, since you would lose one inning, and that inning would have presumably been pitched by a relatively less competent reliever. 
 

grimshaw

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Enact the Kris Bryant rule, wherein starting the major league service time clock on well marinated minor league players isn't equivalent to starting the Doomsday Clock.
 

grimshaw

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HriniakPosterChild said:
Hell, in the American League, managers may choose to allow their pitchers to hit. None of them do, for obvious reasons, but that's the rule.
I was curious about NL pitchers offensive effectiveness.  Since the DH, 46 pitchers have contributed 1 or more offensive WAR in a season.  Catfish Hunter, Fergie Jenkins, Rick Rhoden, Mike Hampton, and Carlos Zambrano were around 1.5.  The Braves staffs in the 90's had quite an offensive advantage over the next best NL teams.  Median offensive pitcher WAR is -.3 over that span.
 
Teams could steal a game or two over the course of a season if pitchers could hit, run, bunt etc over replacement level.  It's risk reward though as you alluded to.
 

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I don't like NL style baseball, but I'm not sure I get the desire to standardize rules across both leagues for standardization's sake. We accept differences in park dimensions that can have a major impact on the game depending on which team is the home team.

Seems to me the current situation keeps the most fans happy, and allows two groups of players - DH-types and good-hitting pitchers - to find jobs that they might not have with standardized rules.
 

SumnerH

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grimshaw said:
I was curious about NL pitchers offensive effectiveness.  Since the DH, 46 pitchers have contributed 1 or more offensive WAR in a season.  Catfish Hunter, Fergie Jenkins, Rick Rhoden, Mike Hampton, and Carlos Zambrano were around 1.5.  
 
The aforementioned Micah Owings is right there with them--in 2007 he OPS'd 1.033, for 1.4 offensive rWAR. Career .813 OPS.
 

Infield Infidel

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HriniakPosterChild said:
#1 is a very old proposal, and the objection was that it would make it to easy to shatter old records because the hitters would get more AB's in an 8 man lineup.
 
It'll never happen, but this would allow the season to be shortened to <150 games without affecting hitting records too much. Pitcher records would change less frequently, but so would their UCLs. 
 

sean1562

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how would cuban baseball be even economically feasible for the next few decades? who is gonna buy expensive mlb tickets, merchandise etc in Cuba? that team is certainly not signing a massive tv liscensing deal, that seems like a pipe dream. montreal and another us city are much more realistic
 

OttoC

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geoduck no quahog said:
One question concerning auto calling of balls/strikes:
 
The Amica Pitch Zone (which you already know I hate) doesn't seem to change vertical size from batter to batter...is this just a factor of perception, or is it simply a TV graphical thing where they translate the actual pitch data to something visual that the audience can understand?
 
This was particularly noticeable when an Astor like Altuve is at the plate, and then Carter. They have very different actual strike zones, but the TV gimmick doesn't seem to acknowledge that....
 
I don't know what the Amica Pitch Zone uses but at its start, Pitch f/x had operators who added the lower bound by hand. I went to a demonstration of very early Pitch f/x at a ball game during a SABR National Convention (2007 maybe) and was told they were planning to automate that process after they built up a database (I'm assuming from the operators' input). I don't know whether they came up with a better method but that is is fraught with potential inaccuracies (the bound was placed before the batter took his final stance, the batter changed stances during an at bat/versus different pitchers/handedness). By the same token, the top bound is subject to change for some batters.
 

OttoC

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This is a graph of the average number of pitchers used by game by season for the AL and NL. As can be seen there has been a huge change in that number as time has progressed. What is not shown is that the number of starters used per team per year has also increased. In the beginning days, there was essentially one starting pitcher per team, with others filling in as needed, and that gradually increased until we get to today's five-man starting rotation. So, in early days, starting pitchers batted about as often as their teammates and the pitcher/hitter dichotomy was not what we now see. Then pitchers started getting fewer and fewer times at bat compared with the position players and today we are left with a group that averages .122/.156/.150/.306 (contrasted with .223/.264/.295/.560 for NL ninth-place batters in 1930 when that league hit .303 overall.
 
 

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grimshaw said:
Enact the Kris Bryant rule, wherein starting the major league service time clock on well marinated minor league players isn't equivalent to starting the Doomsday Clock.
This is important. Teams should not have incentive to keep their best players away from the majors.
 
In the NHL they base this on age; you can't be a UFA until you are either 27 or you have had 7 years in the NHL. So if you made the rule in baseball that you can gain un-restricted free agency at age 26 or with 6 years service time, there would be a lot less incentive for teams to hold players back because you're going to lose them when they turn 26 anyway. Yes, if you had a Bryce Harper who was ready at age 19 they might be incentivized to wait a year, but that seems pretty rare. You could also say you couldn't be a UFA until you had three years' service time so that teams didn't immediately lose older rookies. This would also solve the kind of BS thing that Daniel Nava is under team control until age 35 should the Sox wish.
 

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Papelbon's Poutine said:
 
There are literally zero pitchers in the major leagues that are there because they are good hitters. 
I was thinking "good-hitting for a pitcher" - the Micah Owings type who would survive a little bit longer in the bigs than he would if pitchers didn't have to hit. I agree that they are few and far between, so perhaps shouldn't have cited that as an example. The main point is, you have two fan bases who each like their kind of baseball and there doesn't seem to be much evidence that the difference in baseball rules is leading to a decline in popularity, so why would this be a major issue that needs to be fixed?
 

HriniakPosterChild

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sean1562 said:
how would cuban baseball be even economically feasible for the next few decades? who is gonna buy expensive mlb tickets, merchandise etc in Cuba? that team is certainly not signing a massive tv liscensing deal, that seems like a pipe dream. montreal and another us city are much more realistic
 
The assumption would be that after the end of communism, half of Miami would go back where they came from, bring Yankee Dollars with them.
 
Edit: I am not necessarily buying into the assumption, and I don't see how MLB could con the Havana city government into building them a retractable roof stadium when there will be More Important Things(R) for them to worry about.
 

snowmanny

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1. I would announce that the all-star game means nothing, will go a maximum of 10 innings, will have a 25-man roster, and will not require one player from each team.
 
2. I would reinstate Melky Cabrera's batting title. I'm really not in favor of pretending numbers do not exist.
 

Plympton91

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I'd like to see the new commission make an investment in expanding the game of baseball and restoring its prominence in the national sports hierarchy. I'd do this through expansion on multiple levels. Of course none of this would happen because both the owners and plAuers union are cartels.

Expand the major leagues to 36 teams over the next two decades. Immediately plan to expand to Montreal and NC. Then find 4 more cities as demographic patterns develop over the next 15 years after that. Use the power if the commission to solve the stupid squabbling between the A's and Giants. Use the expansion fees to build new stadiums for the Rays and A's.

Increase the pay of the minor leaguers, at least at A+ AA and AAA to make those real middle class jobs that attract two sport stars who know they've got a better chance of a long career in baseball even if they don't make the majors than they do in the NFL or NBA.

Bring the independent leagues under the banner of organized baseball and give then a subsidy to entice 3 or 4 recently retired major leaguers per team to play in them, thus giving them gate attractions. Bringing them in also makes PED use there less rampant. These would be the new D leagues, with players remaining free agents who can sign with any organization.

ExpAnd rosters to 26 or even 27 players, but limit pitching staffs to the current standard of 12 pitchers. I like to see excellence. Bigger rosters means more Nava's vs righties and less Nava's vs lefties. More late inning defensive subs and base stealers pinch running.

Make the NL adopt the DH like almost every other baseball league in existance.

Institute a max contract like the NBA. Every free agent says it's not about the money. Prove it. 7 years, $175 million and after that it's about where you want to live, love, and work. This should not affect the total amount of money going to players, but rather the distribution of players' incomes
 

grimshaw

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I never understood why not all the stadiums since the early 90's (Toronto/Baltimore) didn't have retractable roofs either to avoid all the PPD's or fan discomfort.  I'm especially talking Minnesota, Texas, Miami, Houston etc. I understand it adds greatly to the expense, but  how do you explain Yankee Stadium???.  Cleveland had 1000 fans the other day for game 1 of a doubleheader and ratings take a big dump.  Plus the players union hates double headers.
 
Agree with the above about increasing minor league salaries.  We also need to find a way to reverse the trend of African American player decline (27% during the 70's and 80's, Willie Stargell, Frank Robinson, Jim Rice, Dave Parker, Fergie Jenkins, Bob Gibson, Vida Blue etc. to 7% now).  That's a huge audience being turned off.
 

Plympton91

bubble burster
SoSH Member
Oct 19, 2008
12,408
grimshaw said:
I never understood why not all the stadiums since the early 90's (Toronto/Baltimore) didn't have retractable roofs either to avoid all the PPD's or fan discomfort.  I'm especially talking Minnesota, Texas, Miami, Houston etc. I understand it adds greatly to the expense, but  how do you explain Yankee Stadium???.  Cleveland had 1000 fans the other day for game 1 of a doubleheader and ratings take a big dump.  Plus the players union hates double headers.
 
Agree with the above about increasing minor league salaries.  We also need to find a way to reverse the trend of African American player decline (27% during the 70's and 80's, Willie Stargell, Frank Robinson, Jim Rice, Dave Parker, Fergie Jenkins, Bob Gibson, Vida Blue etc. to 7% now).  That's a huge audience being turned off.
That's a great point and reminded me of something else I wanted to add to my list. MLB should set up academies like they do in the DR in all of the major league cities. Directly fund 50 to 100 spots depending on population, 200 spots in cities with 2 teams, with 5 hour summer camps serving brunch and dinner for the best 13 to 18 year olds in Detroit, Miami, LA, etc. another way to keep the best athletes playing baseball keep young pitchers from throwing 175 pitches in a game and give back to the city that probably gave you a sweetheart stadium lease.
 

OttoC

Member
SoSH Member
Dec 2, 2003
7,353
Plympton91 said:
That's a great point and reminded me of something else I wanted to add to my list. MLB should set up academies like they do in the DR in all of the major league cities. Directly fund 50 to 100 spots depending on population, 200 spots in cities with 2 teams, with 5 hour summer camps serving brunch and dinner for the best 13 to 18 year olds in Detroit, Miami, LA, etc. another way to keep the best athletes playing baseball keep young pitchers from throwing 175 pitches in a game and give back to the city that probably gave you a sweetheart stadium lease.
 
The Kansas City Royals, under owner Ewing Kaufmann, decided to create a baseball academy ca. 1969, to tap non-traditional sources of ball players. It really did not produce much in the way of players and it was more costly than the minor league system and closed down after about five years. Ted Williams taught hitting, btw.