Suggestions to improve Major League Baseball

Ideas to improve baseball:

* Salary Cap, Salary Floor, splitting money on TV deals

Somehow, I've become a sports socialist.  Strange for a confirmed capitalist like myself, but I'll explain.

If you own a Mom-and-Pop Diner, you're not trying to compete with McDonald's.  You're trying to make a profit.  If McDonald's sells a billion burgers, you don't care, as long as you're making money.  Even though you're in the same industry, you're not using the same scorecard.

Not so in sports.  For every team that wins, some other team MUST lose.  And when you have some teams spending 200 million while other teams are spending 30 million, it creates a disparity that is impossible to overcome.

I understand.  Right now, the system works for a lot of people.  It works for the Yankees- they spend money, win titles, make money.  It works for the small market teams like Pittsburgh- they don't spend money, but they make enough to earn a profit.  It works for the players- the teams with money spend a fortune to get their stars on their teams.  It works for everyone.

Unless you're a fan of a small market team.  Like me.  Then, the system doesn't work.  Oh sure.... if EVERYTHING breaks right and the Tribe gets 4-5 young players to develop, they have a 1-2 year window to win a title before the Yankees and Red Sox take their players.  Then it's time to rebuild when the window closes.  But teams like the Yankees and Red Sox never have a window of opportunity.  They just reload every year.

Really- unless you're a fan of a big-spending team, it's a really bad idea to root for a team in baseball.  And a few years ago, I stopped trying.

What would it take to fix this?  A salary cap.  It's one thing for the largest market to outspend the smallest by a 2 to 1 ratio.  But 6-1, 7-1 is impossible to overcome for 162 games.  A cap and a floor would get the ratio to a manageable level, and keep the players happy by forcing the smaller markets to spend money.

Now, the Yankees get a ton of money from their cable network- much more than the smaller market teams get.  And they end up with all of the proceeds from the cable deals.  With the tickets, they split the proceeds with the other team (and vice-versa).  Why can't this apply to the cable deals as well?  The Yankees might dismiss teams like the Royals, but how will they make their cable deals if the Royals just refuse to play?  

* Change the variables to allows more styles to win

OK- I love the book Moneyball.  I love the concept behind Moneyball- that by using statistical analysis, a smart team can find talent that is underappreciated and a bargain, and use those players to put together a team that is more successful than one that spends more money.

It worked- the Oakland A's could never reach the World Series, but could match any team's record, even though it was outspent by a fortune.

The problem was, Moneyball worked too well.  Smart teams figured out what the A's were doing and replicated the results.  And success is duplicated- which lead to several teams using the Moneyball formula.

And the Moneyball formula- get players with low batting averages and high on-base percentage with power, sacrificing defense for offense- is not an exciting form of baseball to watch.

My favorite period to watch baseball was in the 80's, and a large part of the reason was that there were several styles that succeeded in creating winning teams.  You had teams winning by pitching (1985 Kansas City Royals), by speed and defense (1985 and 1987 St. Louis Cardinals), by power (1988-89 Oakland Athletics).  When every team is a duplicate of each other, the game gets boring.

Right now, all of the outside factors favors teams that build around on-base percentage and power- "Three-run Homers".  As long as that is the most successful formula for baseball, every team will duplicate it.

How to fix it?  

- Widen the strike zone so that batters stop trying to draw walks

- Allow the pitcher to only throw a couple times to first base to encourage stolen bases

- Encourage new stadiums to be larger and favor pitchers over hitters

You don't want to go to the extreme of the 60's, when pitching dominated.  You want to strike a balance when any style can win.

* Revert back to two divisions per league.

Here two simple rules of thumb:
1)  The more playoff teams, the less important the regular season is
2)  The more teams and the fewer games, the more you need playoffs

So football- 32 teams, but only 16 games in a season- needs playoffs.  It's too easy for one team to play an easy schedule and end up with more wins than a better team that played a tougher schedule.  

But baseball has 162 games in a season.  Everyone plays everyone else 6-7 times, at a minimum.  There's no need for multiple rounds of playoffs- the regular season is enough to determine who the best teams are.

If you go back and recalculate the past few seasons with two divisions, you realize that we've missed out on some incredible September playoff hunts.  In fact, my friend dboy has done so here.

And don't tell me about the wild card- no one cares if the fourth or fifth best team makes the playoff.  We want epic pennant races, like the Braves and Giants in 1993.  Not coincidentally, that was the last year before the Wild Card was introduced.

Go back to two divisions in each league (I'd even support the pre-1969 rules and only have one division per league, but I think I'd be outvoted here) and the games in September mean a lot more.

* Hold Interleague games in one year every decade

Interleague play has ruined the All Star game.  Part of the magic of baseball was that the two leagues never interacted, so people in Seattle never saw National League players.  But Interleague play also is a moneymaker for several cities.  

OK- we can't get rid of it.  But by having it every year, it ruins the impact.  Change it so that it happens only once every ten years- it makes the interleague games more meaningful.