Things Baseball Need to Fix

[Birds08]

Let me preface this by saying that I love the Orioles, and they are probably my favorite sports team, period. Having said that, I have a lot of trouble respecting the sport for a variety of reasons, especially when you compare it to how other sports have gotten it right. Anyway, just wanted to list what I think is wrong with the game. If these things aren't fixed, the game is slowly going to lose fans.

i) Salary disparities between teams / lack of mechanism to normalize for this

ii) Lack of mandatory slotting in draft (ie., creating situations where small market teams with top picks can't always pick the best possible player and expect to sign him)

iii) Lack of replay

iv) 5 game series in first round of playoffs despite 162 game season

Do you agree with these? What else do you think needs fixing.

[sangar]

Keep Umpires on the bases and lines but when it comes to strikes and balls it's time to introduce electronic sensors. Too much disparity and favoritism.

[crowmst3k!]

The World Series often times ending in November.

No World Series day games.

The World Series lasting until 1:00 in the morning some games.

And, yes, the draft slotting system needs to be fixed, but it wont.

Also, I think that shared revenue should be earmarked for signing players. Have it exist so that a team can only get it's money if they're covering a contract beyond their their normal means.

[Crazysilver03]

The World Series often times ending in November.

No World Series day games.

The World Series lasting until 1:00 in the morning some games.

And, yes, the draft slotting system needs to be fixed, but it wont.

Also, I think that shared revenue should be earmarked for signing players. Have it exist so that a team can only get it's money if they're covering a contract beyond their their normal means.

This is why the season starts around March 28th next year and ends by September 29th.

[Crazysilver03]

While I love having the rosters expand in September, I do think it is unfair for the rules to change in the heat of a pennant race. Of course, all teams are allowed to do the same thing, but in general, why should it be a battle of 25 man rosters up to the very end and then all of a sudden you can have four or five pinch runners on your bench.

The way to fix it, IMO, is to allow roster expansions, but a manager must designate 25 players prior to the game that they can use, though thinking about it, they could very well only designate 8 pitchers or so, so many being able to only designate 13-14 position players and 11-12 pitchers.

[Can_of_corn]

ii) Lack of mandatory slotting in draft (ie., creating situations where small market teams with top picks can't always pick the best possible player and expect to sign him)

I love the lack of slotting in the MLB draft. I love that draftees have leverage in baseball. I love that a team can draft a kid that wants to go to college in the 20th round, throw him a big bonus and end up with a 2nd round talent. Heck I even love that the 20th pick in the draft can sign for more then the 6th player in the draft.

For the record I do not believe that small market teams can't pick and sign the best player available, I believe that some times they choose not to. Huge difference there.

[BaltimoreTerp]

Also, I think that shared revenue should be earmarked for signing players. Have it exist so that a team can only get it's money if they're covering a contract beyond their their normal means.

Now that's an interesting idea.

[Crazysilver03]

Also, I think that shared revenue should be earmarked for signing players. Have it exist so that a team can only get it's money if they're covering a contract beyond their their normal means.

How do you define normal means for a team though?

[BaltimoreTerp]

While I love having the rosters expand in September, I do think it is unfair for the rules to change in the heat of a pennant race. Of course, all teams are allowed to do the same thing, but in general, why should it be a battle of 25 man rosters up to the very end and then all of a sudden you can have four or five pinch runners on your bench.

The way to fix it, IMO, is to allow roster expansions, but a manager must designate 25 players prior to the game that they can use, though thinking about it, they could very well only designate 8 pitchers or so, so many being able to only designate 13-14 position players and 11-12 pitchers.

You could make a rule that a team must keep anyone that was in the game active for the following game, with accounting for injuries and extra-inning situations (maybe only use the first nine innings). That will account for a starter, a couple pitchers and maybe a couple position players.

[DrungoHazewood]

i) Salary disparities between teams / lack of mechanism to normalize for this

I think this is a problem, baseball generally doesn't. They think it isn't because they like the fact that big markets are usually really, really into baseball because their teams win a disproportionate share of the time, which increases revenues for all.

The problem I see is that people stop caring about their local team, and instead root for some good team hundreds or thousands of miles away. One of the best things about the roots of baseball was that it was largely a local game, every town had a team, and everyone went out to root for the local nine. Bud Selig largely doesn't care if most of the baseball fans in Kansas City or Salt Lake City are Yankee fans.

ii) Lack of mandatory slotting in draft (ie., creating situations where small market teams with top picks can't always pick the best possible player and expect to sign him)

Not sure this is a problem, so much as a feature. With hard slotting the O's might sign an extra Wade Townsend once a decade, but they'd lose all of their above-slot picks annually.

Slotting would probably also mean that many lower-round picks would never sign coming out of high school, instead going to college and probably playing football. There are a lot more scholarships in football. Hard slotting might just reduce the talent base in baseball.

iii) Lack of replay

Technology will be better implemented as time goes on. Baseball tends to take specific actions to fix things years or decades after it seemed to first make sense. So we should give them a bit of time to figure this out. It'll probably be working well just after they find a way to keep shattered bats from occasionally killing people in 2033.

iv) 5 game series in first round of playoffs despite 162 game season

The playoffs used to be about figuring out which team was best. 154 or 162 games of balanced schedule, best team goes to the Series.

That basically ended with divisions in the 1960s. Five-game first rounds are just a way to add random noise to system, ensuring that the Yanks don't win as often as they would on true talent. Actually, five game series aren't a lot more random than seven-gamers, and seven-gamers usually generate more revenues, so they'll probably go there sooner or later. Unless they find a better way of generating that revenue.

[Birds08]

The playoffs used to be about figuring out which team was best. 154 or 162 games of balanced schedule, best team goes to the Series.

That basically ended with divisions in the 1960s. Five-game first rounds are just a way to add random noise to system, ensuring that the Yanks don't win as often as they would on true talent. Actually, five game series aren't a lot more random than seven-gamers, and seven-gamers usually generate more revenues, so they'll probably go there sooner or later. Unless they find a better way of generating that revenue.

Interesting - never thought about it in that context. I guess I am just put off by the fact that as long as a team has three dominant starters, they have a great chance of winning a 5 game series (would still have a huge advantage in a 7 game series as well), when over the course of a season the backend of a rotation is a key contributor to team success/failure. Just feel baseball is a game of averages, and longer series allow the game to play out a bit more as it should in that context. That said, that could result in the Yankees winning more, which I would never want to see.

[DrungoHazewood]

Interesting - never thought about it in that context. I guess I am just put off by the fact that as long as a team has three dominant starters, they have a great chance of winning a 5 game series (would still have a huge advantage in a 7 game series as well), when over the course of a season the backend of a rotation is a key contributor to team success/failure. Just feel baseball is a game of averages, and longer series allow the game to play out a bit more as it should in that context. That said, that could result in the Yankees winning more, which I would never want to see.

I used to be a big supporter of the purity of pennant races, and of the best team usually winning and being declared champion. But this is an imperfect world, and while it would be nice to have 30 teams with fairly equal resources competing on a balanced schedule, sometimes you have to live with imperfect solutions.

I'll take revenue-generating randomness over the Yanks just being declared champion every year.

[Sanfran327]

The freaking NLCS doesn't start until Saturday. It was decided on a Monday night. That's why the playoffs last so long. It should start NLT Thursday, but probably more like Wednesday.

The team that sweeps their series should have an advantage over the team that wins in the final game.

[DrungoHazewood]

The freaking NLCS doesn't start until Saturday. It was decided on a Monday night. That's why the playoffs last so long. It should start NLT Thursday, but probably more like Wednesday.

The team that sweeps their series should have an advantage over the team that wins in the final game.

If you make all the postseason series start as soon as both teams are available, don't you run the risk of one of the teams in the World Series being off for, like, 12 days or something?

[Sanfran327]

If you make all the postseason series start as soon as both teams are available, don't you run the risk of one of the teams in the World Series being off for, like, 12 days or something?

Under the current crappy schedule? Potentially. But today is the last day of the ALDS, so the ALCS can start on Thursday. If all four division series started on the same day, the longest a team would have to wait is 8 days, which I grant you is a long time. But that assumes that the AL or NL rep sweeps through the division and champoinship series and the opposing league goes to 5 and 7 games in their matchups. If the games are staggared, it could be as long as a 9-day break or as short as 7. I suppose you have to build in time for what-if scenarios, but it really drags the playoffs out.

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That's a lot of off days, to be honest. It's not like these guys aren't used to playing everyday.