FanPost

Controversial Comment

At your request

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Ok, here goes

Number 1: Manfred is concerned that baseball is too slow.

Suddenly elevated to the role of Commissioner of a sport that apparently he has never witnessed, Rob Manfred has discovered to his dismay that baseball is a sport of skill and thought, and rarely is anyone ever permanently disabled due to repetitive cranial impacts.

With an ample supply of dangerous sports competing for their attention, today's audience is easily distracted an unable to concentrate on a game that lasts more than 2 hours and contains roughly 1.9 hours of people staring at each other wondering what they're going to do. Thankfully, we can take cues from other sports to find our solutions.

Football: American football has a lot to offer, with violence, injury, and short intervals between huge bursts of activity. But the best part is obviously the cheerleaders. Mascots in big puffy costumes pulling pranks on players and fans is amusing, but less entertaining as the season goes on. Watching pretty girls dance makes the time fly. Get rid of Bernie! Bring in the bikini tops and pom-pons!

Basketball: Everyone loves a flourish, and there's none better than the slam dunk celebration. It is a part of play, but also a performance unto itself. Steal! Fast Break! He's in the open - tongue-wagging mega super slam! Baseball has the opportunity to create the equivalent of this event and it's staring them right in the face: The home run celebration. Why are players expected to take the most joyous victory in the game and be subdued about it? This is the problem! First, it should start with an artistic bat flip, preferably with great embellishment like pretending the bat is a baton and marching to first base, or spinning it around and over his head like Conan the Barbarian. The trot should be a lovefest. The game is stopped, the player has plenty of time to smile and wave and throw love to the crowd as he rounds the bases. When he arrives at home plate I expect his teammates to come out of the dugout and take a big group selfie and tweet the opposing team's fans. It's big. Make it big! Sure it takes a couple extra minutes, but it creates anticipation for the crowd about what someone might do when they hit a dinger. It's drama! It's fun! Tap into that enthusiasm and make home runs a celebration instead of filing a TPS report.

Hockey: The best part about hockey is checking. Take away the safety of the basepaths and let runners collide with middle infielders and catchers again. Nobody gives a damn if someone loses a tooth in hockey, why are baseball players entitled to be sissies? This is our entertainment dollar, if you want to earn it you need to fight for it.

MMA: Simple change here, if managers want to change pitchers for a second time in an inning then the player on deck can challenge the manager to a fight in the space between home plate and the pitcher's mound. This should eliminate a lot of silly pitching changes, and possibly create a few entertaining managerial hirings.

Number 2: Realignment

First of all, either get rid of the DH or put the DH in both leagues. The needs of baseball outweigh the needs of individual fanbases to hold on to their petty differences. This is essential, because realignment will be dynamic. The divisions will change every year. There's no more American league or National League, there's just Major League baseball.

30 is a stupid number of teams. 32 is a much better number, and all the best mathematicians agree. Immediately expand the league by 2 teams and I don't care where you put them, although Mexico City and Havana would be good options imo.

Now that we have 32 teams, set up the league tournament style. Have 8 divisions of 4 teams each, and have them sorted out like a tournament bracket, so the #1 team is at the far end of the bracket from the #2, etc. Play your 162 games, and the winners of each division face each other tournament style. You will have a much better chance of seeing the best teams compete at the end of the season, which is what ESPN wants. Nobody wants a poopy team like the Brewers squeaking into a Wild Card slot and overcoming great financial inequity to steal precious TV time away from Jose Molina and Mike Trout.

Number 3: Financial Inequity

Every other major sport has a salary cap, and baseball will too. It will be capped by your attendance. Each team will have a salary cap of a league multiplier (starting at the league average of $51.38) times the number of people who showed up to watch games. You want more money to compete? Better build a better stadium and put a better product on the field. You can spend all the money you want, but no more than that on player salaries.

Don't worry about tanking teams, they won't bring your average down: If you finish dead last in the league your team is relocated to one of the cities waiting in line for a franchise with a fresh new stadium and a waiting buyer with a 5-year grace period to turn the franchise around. Any team that can't finish out of last place and is protected by the grace period has their logo change to a cartoon pony and their uniforms must be pink.

Make it so.

Fixed. You wanted controversy, there you go.