We have no Tigers game for the second night out of four. I'm desperately -- and you don't know how hard it is -- trying to avoid writing about the offseason before it arrives. I have topics -- oh I have topics. But it's not time for them. We have months of offseason to debate the merits of Jhonny Peralta, Will Rhymes, Johnny Damon, the catching plan, and more. I probably have a dozen or two topics I want to write about. When it's time.
So in the meantime, I'm going to borrow an idea. Hat tip to David Tokarz for offering it up. Fangraphs.com recently had an interesting discussion. What if you were the God of Baseball? What would you?
Would you institute a salary cap? How about change the divisions? Smite the Yankees? (How about the Twins?) Get rid of Interleague Play? Add more Interleague Play? Maury Brown wrote about more interesting possibilties in the article I linked to.
Here's a few thoughts of mine.
- End interleague play. I don't like it. Schedules are completely unbalanced. Some teams with natural rivals have a great time -- Bay Bridge Series, Freeway Series, Subway Series, those are all cool -- while some teams from the great state of Meeechigan end up playing the Diamondbacks. So it just doesn't work for the vast majority of teams that don't have a natural rival, and we end up with races decided by a game or two when one team ends up playing the Yankees and another the Mets, so to speak.
- The All-Star Game doesn't count. I mean, seriously. That's just an idiotic rule. What was wrong with the all-star games of the past? One tie and it's messed up forever.
- Home field in the world series goes to the team with the best record. Not a completely perfect solution, given AL teams and NL teams don't play. But I prefer it to the current one.
- Balance the schedules better. If we're going to have a wild card, we need to have schedules that are balanced better.
- Salary floor. Seriously, teams should not be able to pocket the profits provided by the Yankees. No more spending $40m and pocketing the rest of the revenue sharing, teams.
- Fix the blackout rules. The MLB's rules make little sense. Some states have like 6 teams they can't watch.
- Here's one: Let eveyrone pick a favorite team they can get all the games for online for free. Just one team. You pay for the other teams. But if you move from Michigan to California, why should you have to settle for the local team and pay for your favorite team? I'd rather fans stay connected with their team, and through that team they enjoy the league.
- Have officials in the league office watching every game and allow them to signal down when an obviously awful call was made and overturn it. Kinda like Toronto reviews goals in the NHL. Yes you'd have to set some guidelines here, but getting the calls right should always be the goal of a legitimate league.
- End the draft. If international players are not drafted, why should domestic players be? International players can sign with who they want for what they want. That's the way it should be. You scout them, you talk them into playing for you, you pay them, you got them. No, the best teams aren't going to get all the prospects. For one, they don't now with international prospects. And for two, the teams won't have anywhere to play them all. Prospects, understanding they might end up blocked by a star player for years, will decide it's in their best interest to sign elsewhere.
I'm sure there's other schemes I've thought of or spoke about, but I can't remember them. So now, what are your changes to baseball?