Fixing Baseball: 2015 Edition

It is that time once again, time for me to fix baseball. What I have been trying to make into a yearly tradition is come up with new ways to fix my all-time favorite sport, while reemphasizing certain points I have made throughout the years. Ever since I started this, some of the ideas I had suggested had actually gone through---maybe they actually read my blog…

The ideas range from simple to ridiculous, similar to my recent one about changing things in the NBA. The main points would be expanding the game to reach new audiences while also cutting corners to bring a better experience within a shorter timeframe. Baseball is the toughest sport to get into and get involved (yet the most rewarding once you are in) so there needs to be ways to not be so intimidating from the start. No more interruptions, here comes my suggestions.

For starters, the length of the season has remained a hot point, and our new commissioner has even considered scaling back into a 154 game season. Although the ownership would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever approve of this, 100 games is the absolutely perfect number. 20 games a month from April through August, with the playoffs starting at the end of August and the World Series making its way into September before the chill truly starts. Each team plays their division rivals 10 games a year, and then plays the other teams in their league 6 games. With the current 30-team format, that would equal an exact 100 games. Under a 4-man rotation, each pitcher would get 25 starts. Under a 5-man rotation, each pitcher would get 20 starts. This limits injuries, allows for each game (especially the divisional ones) to be much more important and crucial, and would allow for more days off and an easier schedule to follow.

You can allow for baseball to be mainly played on weekends, and give the players (and fans) Monday through Wednesday off. Increase the amount of doubleheaders over the weekend so that way more people have a legitimate shot at seeing a ballgame. Those Tuesday evening games are rather tough to attend because life just moves a lot faster compared to 100 years ago. But can you imagine 20-25 teams playing 40-50 games in the span of one lazy summer Saturday? Now of course with my current scheduling format, this leads to another major change:



No more interleague.



I know, I know. But its time….

Destroying interleague forever makes the schedules slightly fairer, and gives more weight to the All-Star Game as well as the World Series. And to an extent, even Spring Training (Which should hold more baseball games in the Caribbean and Mexico to spread baseball awareness) will benefit from this as that time period becomes a rarer and more valuable event. With the teams never seeing each other, you will see two different brands of baseball being played—allowing for newcomers and casual fans to pick two teams to root for. The NFL has a similar following simply because certain teams don’t get to play each other for years, allowing for the chance to pick multiple favorites without them clashing and making it awkward. Of course, you need less games in order to give more space for days off since both leagues have odd-numbered amount of teams. Adding two teams down the road would definitely fix this (which I will discuss a little later) but for now removing the amount of games and giving the scheduling more space to breathe would make eliminating interleague possible.

The All-Star Game will become a blessed must-see-TV event because this will be the first (and for most of the teams and players, only) time that the two leagues wind up in the same ballpark together. Now, this exhibition needs to remain an exhibition. So, we are eliminating the home field advantage to the winning league. It is not fair, and prevents the players from having fun and put on an entertaining show. These players already go through a tough, grueling season—don’t add any extra pressure by adding weight to the all-star game. Speaking of improving the all-star game…

We need a Rookies vs. Sophomores event, which would allow for two recent draft classes to go up against each other to see which batch is superior. This would also allow for young players to make their mark on baseball by impressing the television and home crowd. Baseball has dozens of underrated and understated talent; adding this event prior to the big game gives youngsters a chance to unleash their potential just for a weekend.

Home Run Derby needs to be smaller. Three rounds, 7 outs on the first round, 5 outs in the second round, 3 outs in the final round. 10 players total, 5 in each league. The top 4 players advance to the next round, and of course the final round consists of 2 players. What if there is a tie you ask? There will be a tiebreaking round in which it consists of just 1 out. Whomever hits the most before the 1 out continues. Limiting the number of outs allows for the event to be much faster, and would limit the potential for injuries with all that ferocious swinging.

Now let’s talk about what happens on the field. I don’t think a pitch clock is necessary, since baseball is a very chess-like game. That being said, umpires should have more power in dictating the pace of the game. They should be able to warn certain players that are taking too long to get the next sequence of events started. We need more threats of balks being called. Now, the playoffs should have a little more leverage, since every pitch is extremely important and could change the course of the entire playoffs. But we do indeed need to make sure we don’t have more of those 3-4 hour games that had only 2 or 3 runs of scoring.

Another way to speed up things is to speed up the challenge system. The manager should just have to be in front of his dugout and make a specific signal to challenge the call. There should be a fifth umpire in each baseball stadium watching the game from multiple angles with the scorekeeper (not sure why they don’t work together, I feel like this is a grand opportunity) so that way the call can be made much quicker. Usually by the time the challenge is issued the viewers can tell what the call should be. No challenge should ever take more than 2 minutes. We need to take more notes from the challenge crew in professional tennis.

Lastly, if you are warming up in the bullpen, you should not have to throw another 20-30 pitches when you get called to relieve someone. Make it like a basketball substitution, get in, and immediately start. The only exception is if there is an injury, then give the reliever the warm up pitches. There should only be one timeout per at bat, and only 3 timeouts per inning. You need to limit the interruptions.

Let’s talk playoffs, shall we? Baseball has the best playoff system amongst the four major sports, because with the way the Wild Card is set up you can have 15-18 teams in playoff contention even with just a month to go. In 2014, 17 of the 30 teams were whether in playoff territory or within 5 games of playoff territory. This is excellent because more fans remain invested in their squads while believing that they still have a good shot at sneaking in. We don’t need more playoff seeds at all. What we do need to fix is the Wild Card series just a little.

It should become a 3-game series, with all 3 home games belonging to the wild card team with the better record. The reason for this is because it allows for a heavier disadvantage against the team that wins here for when they take on the #1 seed. Although nobody wants to be in a lose-and-be-eliminated game, it’s not enough punishment because the wild card team only had to sacrifice their top pitcher in the rotation. With the 3-game format, there’s a chance the wild card team has to use their #4 and #5 starter to begin their series against the #1 seed. I think it’s much fairer for the team that had dominated the entire season to get some extra rest and take on a depleted wild card lineup in the opening round.

The rest of the playoffs don’t need changing, with the exception of two things: time of World Series games and the home field advantage situation. World Series games should be between 6 and 7 P.M. on weekdays (and potential championship clinchers), and should be even earlier on weekends. What the World Cup and NFL Playoffs have proven is that it doesn’t matter the time if the game is exciting and important people will definitely still watch it. And the World Series will never reach the ratings of the past, so why not allow for daytime World Series games to give kids a chance at home to see it? I know that because of television rights, this will never happen, but I think the idea of Game 2 or Game 3 being in the afternoon on a Saturday/Sunday would be quite entertaining. There’s something more special about daytime baseball.

The other throwaway idea would be to make the League that wins the World Series receive home field advantage for the next series. The goal here is to get non-fans more excited as their eliminated team automatically gets home field advantage if they ever went the distance the following year. It would be more bragging rights for the League that wins the Fall Classic. Of course, it’s much easier to hand home field advantage to the team with the better record---but baseball has never been one to do things the easy way.

So how do we make sure that the incredible parity currently plaguing the league continues? It is time for that salary cap, but then establish a salary base. No team should spend more than $150 million a year, but no team should be spending less than $50 million either. That would eliminate potential tanking, and would prevent teams from just nabbing the baseball profits without providing much of an effort. Players should not have contracts past $400 million, and no player should be paid more than $30 million a year. Simple as that.

Now, let’s discuss adding teams. The 30 teams we have now is fine, the only franchises in trouble are the Tampa Bay Rays and the Oakland Athletics. Everyone else (barring some crazy conflict) should be fine where they are for the time being. If it were up to me, I would pretty much force St. Petersburg to come up with a deal within the next couple years or we move the team. The franchise has turned things around, has developed a winning culture, and a winning attitude. Unfortunately the fans still haven’t responded, and the city has pretty much been holding the team hostage without any sort of solution.

Montreal has been the popular solution. However, we shouldn’t look past San Antonio, Portland, or even Orlando. Orlando has the space, capacity, demographics, and tourism interest to draw a successful and popular baseball team. Especially if Disney gets involved and is willing to shell out some of its land. Of course, if the Rays are close by the chances of an Orlando team are slim. And we need to end the nonsense with Oakland, and allow the Athletics to search for a stadium in San Jose. No questions asked.

Now let’s talk about destinations for if we do expand the league to 32 teams. Mexico needs a team, baseball should be the first of the major sports to jump aboard this huge, huge market. Cuba (thanks Obama) can also be a magnificent market for a baseball team, as the only country in the Caribbean more in love with baseball is the Dominican Republic. Puerto Rico should also be considered for a baseball team, look how well they treated the Expos. Montreal has earned the right for reconsideration. Lastly, I can see the Montana/Idaho/Wyoming area support a baseball team quite well since there are barely any professional teams out there in the first place.

One final change I would make would be to make a yearly commercial promoting the upcoming season to air on the Super Bowl. Air it sometime in the fourth quarter, and make it a symbolic passing of the torch from football season to baseball season. You can make it a sample to an eventual full music video that can be displayed on YouTube and/or the official MLB page. I can see songs like Boys Are Back in Town, The Final Countdown, Knights of Cydonia to create baseball montages with. With a Spring is Coming tagline, MLB can benefit greatly in nabbing some of the Fantasy Football and casual audience that watches the Super Bowl yearly. That being said I am not 100% sure if the NFL would be even willing to take the money to air the ads.

Like I always say, baseball is a beautiful, beautiful game and the bigger it expands, the better and healthier the league will become. The league isn’t broken at all, but can definitely benefit from shortening the games, making them more accessible (especially to the young crowd), and potentially moving some teams while making new ones. MLB’s biggest issue is that it loves the past so much it’s restricting itself from improving in certain important aspects. It needs to become a mix of the old-school and the new-school. With a better embrace of the present and the future, major league baseball can improve as a whole.







I am still ridiculously excited for 2015 though.



P.S. Pete Rose needs to be in the Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame argument will be saved for another time---because that…..needs help.