Tuesday, September 21, 2010

If I were commish....

Blog Bat Around. Never participated in one of these. David over at Tribe Cards posed the question, "What would you change about baseball?"

I've thought about this for a few days. What do I hate the most about the sport? A lot.

1. Get rid of the DH. I live in an American League town with the Tribe. I've grown up knowing nothing other than the DH. My childhood was during the McGwire-Sosa race. Looking back, it sucked. I absolutely hate waiting for the long ball to score runs. I want double switching, stealing, sacrificing guys over, ya know, real baseball. I don't care if it makes some guys not able to find work. You shouldn't be in the league if you cannot field a position.

2. Re-align the divisions. 2 Divisions per league. Go back to the way things were prior to the 94 strike. I loved taking the stickers off my back door and rearranging them in order of the standings. Looking up at the top and waiting for my club to be number 1 in baseball.

3. 140 Games. Start in May. End in September. Playoffs October. Northern clubs get wrecked in April and early May with rain/snow outs. So eliminate April.

4. Eliminate the Minor Leagues. Yup. Get rid of them. Allow clubs to fully be independent of their parent clubs. All levels of baseball will be their own leagues. Which segways into my new idea...

5. Promotion/relegation. Don't want organizations fielding garbage teams and making profit? They lose, they are relegated. The levels of baseball are similar to that of the English Football System. Low to highest levels are Rookie, A, AA, AAA, Majors. Teams who are promoted will receive large cash sums for winning their league and being able to field a competitive team in the new more talented league.

Granted, all the players playing for their minor league clubs will still be owned by the Major League clubs. This is somewhat of a problem to overcome. However, to eventually overcome the problem, the MLB Draft will be disbanded. There is no point for the draft, at all. Players will be scouted and able to sign with whatever club they wish.

6. Playoffs. Top two of each division move on. The winner of each division plays the second place club in the other. 5 games. 7 game league championship. 7 game world series. All playoff games start at 1, 4, or 7.

7. More day games. 5-7 weekday games in a 162 game season? How is the schedule formed, by computer? In my 140 game season, I'd want a max of 30 games to be during the day.

8. Bye interleague play. You served your purpose, now there's no reason for it. For all the Mets/Yanks, Sox/Cubs games, there are always Pirates/Indians or KC/Arizona. It was fun, memories were had. But now it's time to say goodbye.

I gurantee barely any of these ideas would happen, but it'd be cool to see some of them enacted. If I were the Commish, of course.

2 comments:

Matthew Glidden said...

What do you think of dropping "official" interleague play, but adding some games against local foes, regardless of league? The Yanks and Mets could each host a 3 game series, for example, ditto Chicago, LA, and the Florida teams. Stoke the rivalry fires instead of making it "equal" by playing the whole division--which really just makes it unequal when others face a weak division.

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