How to Fix Baseball
| 14
|
by Dacubanb
I am a new member to this wonderful site, actually making my first posting a few days ago. At the urging of a couple of other members I decided to sign up and make a presence. I see a lot of interested fans across many sports here and also see many “talk show callers” who show little or no insight. I am, by no means, insinuating that I have credible knowledge, I just wanted to share an idea and see what some other like minded fans thought. My first posting was in response to article written about the Revenue Sharing Program in the Collective Bargaining Agreement in MLB. I could not believe that other people actually found merit and insightful information in this (hence the reasoning for signing up). So I thought I might give this a shot (please be kind, I’m new).
My idea is called “How to fix Baseball”. While some may think that baseball doesn’t need fixing I firmly disagree. While not trying to “bash” or be negative, I believe that the Commish’ is ruining baseball and not taking an advantage to seize a golden opportunity. That opportunity is the unpopularity of the NBA. MLB has the chance to recoup many lost fans, as well as gain new ones in the wake of the NBA’s numerous “scandals”. Here are a few options that might make baseball a little more interesting to watch.
In business, when one model is doing well many copycats pop up trying to take a piece of the market. Baseball already has a model in place, but what’s wrong with using what’s working right in other models? If MLB can take what is working well in the NFL, NBA, Nascar, and even from across the pond in Club Football (soccer for us Americans), then that would make an even better model. Before I go further, I would like to say that much of this is a pipe dream and would never happen due to the amount of money involved and more importantly the unwillingness to change by MLB owners, but I think this might go a long way here (and if anyone reading works in the sports industry, I would love a job in sports…shameless plug, I know).
Change #1; Change the Revenue Sharing Program and instill a Salary Cap similar to the NBA.
The only thing the NBA has, in my opinion, going for them is it’s salary cap. It’s not a hard cap like the NFL, but allows teams to spend more then the cap but has to pay a luxury tax. Yes, MLB has a luxury tax also, but it does not really incent profitable teams (see Yankees, Red Sox) from not spending excessive amounts. Those teams are allowing agents such as Scott Boras et al in running baseball. They instead continue to drive up player salaries. With a cap like this owners would have a tougher time spending a proposed $30 mil a year on a player like A-Rod. Furthermore, NBA’s cap allows for teams to spend more on their own free agents. So teams like Minnesota have an easier time signing players like Johan Santana (who is coming up for free agency next year), instead of being outbid consistently by other teams. Also, teams have an exemption to sign free agents without going over the predetermined ceiling. With some tweeking this could work in favor of owners, who really do not want to spend that much but feel the need to be able to compete with others.
Change #2; Instill an age limit.
In the one year the NBA instituted this rule, tremendous results were produced. What results were those? Well, first of all, the two players who we believed to NBA ready proved such in a wildy entertaining college basketball season. Also, NBA execs got to see first hand what the other players were like playing against better competition. So, in turn, they were able to draft better. Another by product from it was the fact that those kids who believed they were good enough to make the jump proved staying in school was the better choice. No one seems to think this is a good idea in baseball? There are 50 rounds in the MLB draft. One reason is because there are so many kids, especially from the high school level. Why can’t you force those kids to go to school for one year, then see if they are good enough to be drafted? You could instill a similar rule to football’s and basketball’s draft that if you sign with an agent, you cannot retain your eligibility. One reason that GM Billy Bean of the Oakland A’s has been so good in drafting players is because he does not take high schoolers. He takes college players that he can study their stats against similar competition and makes more of an informed decision. This would make the talent coming in better and more MLB ready, make the college game better, reduce the number of kids who never make into the big leagues and not go to school, and make it more difficult for teams to make bad draft choices. I’m not sure what it is, but the percentage of kids that actually make into the big leagues is, I believe, far less than those drafted in the NBA and NFL.
Change #3; Make foreign born players be drafted just like everyone else.
For obvious reasons this rule has to be changed. This represents another chance for agents to control baseball. They scout players in Latin, Central, and South America and fill their heads with visions of million dollar signs and promises of a better life if they sign their lives away. What happens if they are not quite good enough? They are dumped like a bad habit. They can be scouted the same way but teams will be less likely to spend a draft pick and more money on a long shot. Again, this is taking away the GMs opportunity to screw up and make a bad and uninformed choice.
Change #4; Have the DH rule for both leagues.
To anybody who thinks it’s pure to have a pitcher go up and hack at a few pitches instead of watching natural born hitters like Big Papi and Travis Hafner slug away a homer, you’re crazy. I understand that is how the game was created but it’s 2007 and times have changed. To most fans it’s more fun to watch someone like one of the above instead of pitcher try to lay a bunt down.
Change #5; Reduce and reconfigure the schedule
This is one of the more interesting ones. One of the negatives hurting baseball is it’s schedule. THERE ARE 162 GAMES! Why are there 162 games? I understand the premise of this, but it’s not realistic. In today’s society most things are built on speed and ease. We want our information quickly, our travel quickly, and our entertainment quickly. MLB has tried (futilely) to speed the timing of the games. Well, it has helped but not worked entirely. Why can’t we speed up the season? In most cities April weather is still cold and not conducive to baseball weather. Now, this may be a little dramatic, but from a fans point of view, baseball is not fun in 30-40 degree weather. Even so, look at this proposed schedule; Play games from Thursday to Sunday, 4 games a week from April to the end of September. In this scenario there are 26 game sets that can be played and 104 possible games. Subtract one week for the all-star game and there are 25 weeks and an even 100 games to play. However, this creates an uneven amount of home and away games. Subtract another week either the first week in April or the last week in September (preferable) and you have 24 series sets. Many things come from playing Thursday to Sunday. First, the games are being played when fans are going to be more interested in attending. If you live in Miami, are you going to be more interested in attending a game against Pittsburgh on a Tuesday in August or on a Saturday or Sunday? Well, you do have South Beach there, so Sunday might be more preferable, but the point is the casual fan would be more inclined to attend the game on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday than a Monday or Tuesday. Second, the players will have more time in between weeks to recover from injury or practice and pitchers will be pitching once a week versus every five days. How cool would it be to know that every Thursday, Johan Santana will be pitching or every Sunday, Josh Beckett is pitching (injury withstanding of course). Third, one of the reasons of the popularity of the NFL is the importance of each game and the build up that comes with it. Each week during the NFL season every game is dissected and the ensuing hype begins. Websites and TV shows go on for days about whichever game is most important and fantasy football information is released two fold. This is already done when teams such as the Yankees play the Sox or Giants-Dodgers meet. In this scenario each team plays its division opponent 64 games or 4 series (2 home, 2 away). Milwaukee gets moved to the AL West to even each division at five. The remaining 8 series are whatever the more interesting match ups are. San Fran vs Oakland, Chicago vs Chicago, and this coming year the most anticipated match up, Yankees vs Dodgers. The better teams play better teams and the worse teams play other bad teams. Now, you may think that bad teams playing other bad teams is not interesting to watch, but if bad teams have more ability to make up ground on tough division opponents (see rays and orioles) than the games take on a different meaning. Plus, fans have the incentive to see their teams win versus consistently get beaten. This is of course will help create more parity in the league. Fourthly, player salaries will have to have to be reduced, not just because of the new CBA but also because (hopefully) no owner or GM can justify paying these ridiculous salaries to players playing less games and playing only 4 times a week. Lastly, (and probably the most difficult to pass) the demand for games will have to go up. Since fans will not have as many games to attend and since the timing of the games has been changed, more fans will attend each game. To use an example, take a team like the Cleveland Indians. They were 21 st in attendance with roughly 28,000 fans per game. Now, mind you, they were a competitive team for the entire year. If they can increase fan attendance by 10% for the year to 30,800 for 96 games, which equals 2.96 million, it is still almost 700,000 fans more in attendance than 162 games in 2007. I think 10% is pretty attainable considering fans will have less games to attend, better match ups to watch, and more desirable times to go to. The TV revenue will still be generated because there will be less availability for tickets and because, frankly, what else is there to watch on a Friday in July. Local TV packages will have more desirable time slots and MLB can sell it’s package to both cable (hopefully) and DirectTv for more.
These are not the only changes but I think these can make the game much more entertaining, promote a healthier league through lower salaries, promote more parity, and most importantly, generate more fan interest. Let me know what you think (as stated earlier, please be kind) and other changes you would make?
