MLB: 10 Changes

I love talking baseball, because I love baseball. So here are ten changes I've been talking about or wanting to but needed an opportunity to throw out there. So here I go:

1. Significantly reduce or eliminate altogether instant replay. I was once one of those who thought Major League Baseball needed to get with the times and add instant replay. Why, after all, should the broadcasters have more tools at their disposal than the umpires. But there are two big problems: the first is that it adds way too much time to the game. For all the talk of speeding up the game replay has significantly slowed it down. Now there have been improvements on this, but part of the problem is that every halfway close play it seems the managers need to hold up the game to determine if they are going to challenge the play. That should not be what instant replay is for, to me instant replay is for blatant and obvious errors on the part of umpires. I don't think managers should be having coaches looking at footage to determine if they should appeal. The decision should be instantaneous. If you cannot in the moment of the play decide if you want to appeal, then the umpire's decision should be enough. The other problem is that it has not necessarily removed subjectivity, it has just shifted it from one umpire to another. This has been obvious this year with how many plays announcers think will be overturned or stay and to their surprise find the opposite ruling. If you don't want to get rid of replay altogether, making the call have to come right away would go a long way towards speeding it up. And if the replay booth was stricter about clear evidence for overturning a call that would be nice.

2. Alter the service time regulations. Every year we hear about some player who is not called up right away because the team wishes to retain control of that player for another season. And I get that, from both a fan and business perspective it makes sense. Control is so important in baseball. The question is what could you do about that? Here is my take: any player who amassed enough time to to not qualify for rookie status the next season but did not amass enough service time that his free agency was delayed will qualify as a "Super Two". Under the old system, super-two status was granted to those with the most service time accumulated in a class of rookies and allowed them to go through arbitration one extra time. Instead, now, since those players are likely the same who also do not have a delayed free agency the super-two benefit would go to players who have to wait longer for free agency. It seems a fair swap as it would force teams to make a decision about what is more important: limiting arbitration earnings or lengthening team control. Now there is a risk that teams will delay a player until they are in the rookie-eligible bracket - especially teams that are in no need to bring a player up for competitive reasons (they are not in contention, they have a player at that position), but the amount of delay would be much harder to justify than the current couple weeks a team has to keep a player in the minors for now. At least if they do that, the player who is controlled longer gets more money during the time of control. This will likely also help some fringe super-two players under the current system who come up early because teams don't care about service time and qualify for super two, these players as super-twos suffer greater chance of being non-tendered.


3. Expand teams. It's time for expansion. Looking at how many quality major leaguers were unemployed in free agency at the start of spring training shows that there is an abundance of talent in the game. With greater emphasis placed on young players and there always being several teams in rebuilds too it seems that fringe veterans are especially suffering in free agency. Expanding the league would provide more jobs to extend careers and help spread out talent more. And frankly, spreading talent and diluding the pool some should be good for Major League Baseball that wants more offense and players on base. Only let's not put a team in Montreal. I remember the pitiful crowds they drew in that ballpark for years. There is a reason the Expos now are the Nationals. Puerto Rico and Portland strike me as two ideal destinations. I know Manfred wants to solve the ballpark issues in TB and OAK first, but those are long issues and really ballpark is not the only issues those teams/cities have, as the media restriction in Oakland and attendance in Tampa (and if the Marlins are any indication, a new stadium won't fix that) put these teams in regularly pitiful positions financially to compete.

4. Expand rosters. 25 is a nice number, but I say go to 27. That lets teams add a pitcher and a hitter (I mean they could do two of either), and it would also help clear the logjam in talented players. It could also let teams get more creative with their in-game strategies. It would allow non-DH teams to still carry a DH type bat. It would allow an extra starter to maybe get more teams into using multiple pitchers to fill innings 1-6 instead of just one. It would also perhaps add pressure to teams up against or over the luxury tax as they would have two more spots to fill.

5. Expand playoffs. I'd like to see this either way, but especially if we expand. Here is my idea, it is an adaptation of one I read about on I believe it was fangraphs. Expand from five playoff teams to six for each league. The top two records go on automatically to the division series. The 3-6 and 4-5 seeds play a one or two game play-in. Here's how it works, the first game is played at the six and five seeds' ballparks. If they lose, they are eliminated. If they win, then the next day they play a do or die game at the ballparks of the three and four seed teams. Then the winner of each plays the one and two seed teams according to their records (so if the six seed won they will play against the one seed while the winner of the other series played the two seed, but if the three seed won they will play against the two seed while the winner of the other series will play the one seed). Then the playoffs proceed as normal. Under this system, record matters most whereas under our current one, winning the division matters most. But the three best records can all come out of the same division. What is more, is if a team does not host the wild-card game, right now their fans don't get a playoff game at home unless they win the wild-card game. Under this system, every team that makes the playoffs is guaranteed at least one playoff game at their ballpark which is super good for baseball. Adding one more day won't be a big deal, especially if they cut some of the excessive off days in the playoffs.

6. Change divisions and schedules. This really has to happen if you expand teams and playoffs. But it would be nice to anyways, especially as interleague play is a greater part of the game. Instead just move towards records and brackets for the playoffs. But also because it would just be nice for a more even division of games, allowing the popular teams to buoy revenue for all other teams, not just some. Assuming 32 teams, 16 per league, here is what I would recommend: Play every interleague team four times (two at home, two away). That would amount to 64 games. Then play the other fifteen teams in your league six times (three home, three away) for a total of 90 games. This comes to a 154 game season which can allow for the playoff expansion and more off days. If you were really opposed to shrinking the schedule then just rotate one extra game against each team in basically a three year cycle (although I would just make those longer series, not a random one-gamer here or there).

7. Change the trade deadlines. Along with the rules of the August trade deadline just being weird, I think we should eliminate trade deadlines altogether. Any time, all year, let teams improve their roster, and let those improvements play in the playoffs. It would make things far more interesting as teams falling out of contention late may make a last ditch trade to recoup some value. Teams making surprise pushes or suffering a September injury could still get in the game. I also think that the arbitrary July 31 deadline delays earlier deals because teams wait until right around that time when "all the offers come in" whereas a player should in theory be more valuable earlier because you get more control of them. Ditching the complex rules and restrictions and allowing more teams to be active year round would greatly increase the excitement of the game and allow more movement of talent.

8. Trade draft picks. We are so close to this I think it may come up in the next CBA. Already the competitive draft picks can be traded as can international bonus pool money. Now it's time to go full boar. It is interesting to think what trading of picks would add, especially if number seven above happened. As the draft approached in June and teams had a clearer picture of their top targets and where that player might fall in the draft, it would especially promote more early season trade activity. There is not a real good argument against it except that teams that rely on their draft picks might get leveraged in trade talks to give them away. But that's not a very compelling argument I think.

9. Eliminate Sept roster expansion. If you have more teams, more roster spots, and no trade deadlines I think this is the natural consequence. But additionally the utter shift this creates in baseball is more annoying than it is beneficial. With service time issues so many good prospects are not brought up nowadays anyways. To prevent the unending pitching changes and pinch-hitters that comes in this month, which of course delays games, just get rid of it. It can be exciting, especially for fans who are so out of the playoff picture anyways it gives them something to look forward to, but if a player deserves a call up they should get it whether or not rosters expand. Last minute trades can shake up rosters enough too to allow these players to get these opportunities. I mainly just want less bogged down games that don't feature three pitching changes in an inning just for the sake of match ups. It minimizes the cost of managerial decisions, which to me takes away from the strategy and role of the manager.

10. Transform the DH into a team rule not a league rule. I've advocated for this before, but instead of one league having a designated hitter and one not, or getting rid of it or forcing it across the board like most debate/suggest, I think each year the team should decide if home games will utilize a DH or not (you could even make that a decision they make for each home game not each year, but for the year would be simpler). The idea being that some teams/managers may benefit from having a DH who don't and some may benefit from not having a DH. If you spent most of your money on a couple big free agents and couldn't add a quality DH, or your DH was among the worst in the league last year, then make sure for half your games there will be no DH. If you have a lot of positional depth, or you like to rotate and rest your players, or you got a great hitting prospect who can't field for a lick, then make sure half your games are played with a DH. Additionally teams could sign players to bigger deals knowing that at the end of the contract they can move that player over to designated hitter, or if they have a positionless prospect they could that year decide to have a DH. If they have a manager really good with match-ups or some good hitting pitchers, they may not want or need a DH, a move that will handicap other teams. The flexibility would make sure that NL teams are not penalized more than AL for aging players on longer contracts and it would only add to the strategy and diversity of the game. It would also better justify the need for rosters to expand from 25 to 27. Also, it would let the industry settle the DH debate. If everyone really would benefit from having one, then certainly every team would do that if they could.

So there you are. Additionally I would add one more, but since it is a media not baseball rule I thought I would add it more as a post-script than as a point: eliminate market blackouts. Create some kind of partnership or get local media networks to also allow online streaming/subscription options because the reality is the next generation will not be using cable near as much as the preceding one did. Media that relies on networks and not online streaming seriously limits the ability of the fanbase to watch games. Right now one of my colleagues who only has the Brewers by streaming services has to wait 30 minutes until after the ballgame to start watching it because we are in the Brewer's market (but if we were 10 miles West into Iowa it wouldn't be a problem!). This is a problem, because most ballgames end so late that to watch them after the fact likely means the next day. No thank you.

Hope you agree with my changes. If not...get your own blog!