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Make Baseball Better

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I will have to dig it up but I know Francona had an idea about what he would do if he had to tweak the playoffs.

The season is shortened about 8 games and playoffs started a week early. No more Nov. baseball. Also allowed a few more off days in the year.
The wild card game becomes a best of 3 series with all games at the better seed's home.
Games 1 and 2 are a double header, game 3, if necessary, is the next day. Winning wild card team gets one day to travel for next series. Series allows more chance for best team to win instead of team with best pitcher. Series also helps the the top overall seed because winning WC team has to use at least 2 of their starters before moving on to the divisional.

Again, not 100% sure if this is what he said but will update when I track it down.

I absolutely love the idea of that first day being a doubleheader.
 
Half the fans leave in the middle of game 1 because it's always freezing and people work the next day. I think scheduled double headers every other Saturday in May-August would help.

Right -- there is the weather issue if you're in a northern city without a dome. But if you scoot it up a bit, maybe the end of September, it shouldn't be bad.
 
It's the offseason (for Tribe fans anyhow) and we won't get hot stove news until the World Series is completed. I thought it'd be fun to discuss how you, if you were commissioner, make baseball better. Here's a few of mine:

1. Universal DH

It ends issues like the Indians faced in their final series (losing a DH in crucial games), it improves interleague, for the same reason, it gives more hitters a starting gig, and allows NL players longer longevity.

2. Expansion, Relocation, and Realignment

The Tampa Bay Rays move to Montreal and become the Expos while Portland and Charlotte get expansion teams. We move to eight, four-team divisions.

AL East - Baltimore, Boston, New York, Toronto
AL Central - Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Minnesota
AL South - Colorado, Houston, Kansas City, Texas
AL West - Los Angeles, Oakland, Portland, Seattle

NL East - Montreal, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh
NL Central - Chicago, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, St. Louis
NL South - Atlanta, Charlotte, Miami, Washington,
NL West - Arizona, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco

Wild Cards are no more, with each division winner reaching the Playoffs. ALDS moves to a 7 game series along with the ALCS and World Series.

3. Minimize the shift

I'd allow the shift to be somewhat maintained, but infielders have to stay in the infield, outfielders in the outfield. I think it can be a part of strategy without getting extreme.

4. Franchise Tagging

You're never going to have a salary cap, so let's use the NFL-style franchise tag. Teams can only use the franchise tag once every off-season, and it only guarantees a player's salary for the following year. A player can be tagged up to three times by their team.

I’d a few things:

Accept the advice of the committees they’ve commissioned and realign their revenue streams. Local revenue, gate receipts, concessions, etc remain local and national revenue, all media, merchandising, etc is collected and distributed evenly to the franchises.

That alone changes the face of MLB.

As far as realignment. The goal should be to get clubs into their proper time zones and reduce travel. To accomplish that they’d need to expand in the south and east (both clubs on EST). Moving the mountain time club to central from pacific would create another issue. So I’d leave Colorado were they are.

NewYork (east), Chicago (central), LosAngeles (pacific) should anchor six divisions. Then I’d create North (NL) and South (AL) divisions and that’s where it gets controversial.

North: Cincinnati,Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburg.

South: Atlanta, Charlotte, Miami, Tampa.

Note: I’ve been drooling over the composition of that North Division for years.
 
I’d a few things:

Accept the advice of the committees they’ve commissioned and realign their revenue streams. Local revenue, gate receipts, concessions, etc remain local and national revenue, all media, merchandising, etc is collected and distributed evenly to the franchises.

That alone changes the face of MLB.

As far as realignment. The goal should be to get clubs into their proper time zones and reduce travel. To accomplish that they’d need to expand in the south and east (both clubs on EST). Moving the mountain time club to central from pacific would create another issue. So I’d leave Colorado were they are.

NewYork (east), Chicago (central), LosAngeles (pacific) should anchor six divisions. Then I’d create North (NL) and South (AL) divisions and that’s where it gets controversial.

North: Cincinnati,Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburg.

South: Atlanta, Charlotte, Miami, Tampa.

Note: I’ve been drooling over the composition of that North Division for years.
I don't think there's any reason to mix up AL and NL

Re-aligning the divisions within each makes some sense although the current set up isn't bad at all
 
Play games in warm weather, with crowds.

I mean maybe that's why they are trying to get global warming so the whole US is warm year round.

Honestly going forward they almost should have all northern cities have retractable roofs for their stadiums
 

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