Saving Baseball - Considering Dramatic Restructuring of the Game

Average Reds

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I would be fine (and it makes logical sense) if they changed the wild card play-in to a best of three. But we're getting to the point where the regular seaon will need to be cut back so that the World Series doesn't finish in November.

Other than this, I think the state of the game is pretty healthy. MLB does have to be more savvy than to take the short money while allowing Fox to leverage their content to build distribution for their ESPN competitors.
 

Shane

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From my experience: most people (especially young people) who wouldn't classify as big sports fans become interested when their team is in the playoffs. In 2013, there were a lot more people following the Red Sox than there have been the past couple years. Celtics fans have gone down since they traded Pierce and Garnett, officially saying goodbye to their previous dynasty, but seem to be coming up again with the young team. Patriots fans are always there, because they're always great (something we really shouldn't take for granted). I would imagine that's true in other cities, and that it's gonna continue to be true in the future. Even if a particular sport isn't your favorite, you're more likely to pay attention when your team is in the playoffs.
 

BestGameEvah

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BCsMightyJoeYoung said:
We have, of course heard this before .. Baseball is in a death spiral .. A 19th century game trying to survive in the 20th (now 21st) century .. Today's youth dropping baseball and playing basketball or football.

I have no problem with small improvement on the margins .. but I don't think major, massive changes are needed .. Or wanted.
Couldn't agree more.  NO more changes.  I would love to read the report from MLB players.  What do they think of the pace of play changes?  (And, btw, why aren't the pace of play rules enforced in the post season?)
Kids are dropping baseball because they fail at it.  About 10-15 years go you could see the shift in high school sports.  The move to lacrosse from baseball because lacrosse is not such a skill game.
 

Hombre

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I've often wondered if baseball, hockey and basketball only played once a week, and all playoff games were do or die, how the ratings would compare to the NFL.
 

brienc

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Average Reds said:
But we're getting to the point where the regular seaon will need to be cut back so that the World Series doesn't finish in November.
Schedule 5-7 doubleheaders over the course of the season, have 3 of them on the big summer holidays to appeal to traditionalists. This is my favorite suggestion.

The season could also begin a week earlier, as they are already playing exhibition games all over the country the weekend before the season starts. Have the teams from the frozen tundras up north open their seasons in warmer climates, or domed stadiums. I've read plenty of posts here in various threads suggesting these ideas and they make sense to me.
 

kieckeredinthehead

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jon abbey said:
This year's Yankees team didn't deserve a full postseason series, but Pittsburgh certainly did. 
Didn't we just spend half the St Louis thread discussing why that's not actually true?
 

JimBoSox9

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Average Reds said:
I would be fine (and it makes logical sense) if they changed the wild card play-in to a best of three. But we're getting to the point where the regular seaon will need to be cut back so that the World Series doesn't finish in November.
 
Sign me up for this: 154-game season, 5-game wild card matchup, and 7-game series the rest of the way.  That adds 6 more playoff games (4 WC, 2 ALDS) and takes away 8 on the back end.  Bonus is you also create a built-in reason for crabby old sportswriters to ignore season stats from the 'PED162-game' era.
 

Rasputin

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Average Reds said:
I would be fine (and it makes logical sense) if they changed the wild card play-in to a best of three. But we're getting to the point where the regular seaon will need to be cut back so that the World Series doesn't finish in November.
 
Nope. Just eliminate all the unnecessary extra off days from the post season schedule. An off day for travel. An off day between series. That's all they need.
 
Three wild card games, no travel, plus one day after = 4 days
Division series, five games, one travel day, one day after =  7 days
LCS, seven games, two travel days, one day after, 10 days
World series, seven games, two travel days, nine days.
 
4+7+10+9 = 30 days and that's only if every series goes the max. If you stagger the series to avoid days on which there is no game that still just adds a day.
 
Slide the schedule back a few days like it used to be so the post season can start October 1 and you're fine.
 
Or, if you rejigger the schedule to have longer series and reduce travel, maybe you can get some scheduled doubleheaders.
 
Four five game series against division rivals, two at each venue for a total of 80 games.
One five game series against other divisions in the same league with venue alternating by year for 50 games. That's 130
One five game series against an interleague division alternating by year and rotating divisions is another 25 games. That's 155
That leaves room for one five game series against a dedicated rival or random other opponent alternating venues by year, or if they're close enough, they can split a single season series.
 
It's unbalanced. You don't play every team at home even once all season, I don't really care. That kind of shit only ever seems to be important to baseball and I think it's high time baseball stop holding itself to higher, stupider standards.
 

geoduck no quahog

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Bigger issue is the pitching for non-WC teams.
 
Division winning teams would find their staff having 9-10 days rest between starts through the first 3 games of the ALDS while their opponent is on a the regular rotation (at least through 3 games). Is that a reasonable outcome?
 
For example, when the Red Sox win the East next year:
 
Wednesday 9/28 (@ Yankees) Norris vs Miley
Thursday 9/29 (@ Yankees) Tanaka vs Cueto
Friday 9/30 (Blue Jays) Buchholz vs Strohman
Saturday 10/1 (Blue Jays) Porcello vs Estrada
Sunday 10/2 (Blue Jays) Edrod vs Dickey
 
Tuesday 10/4 (WC1) Price (5 days rest) vs. Tanaka (5 days rest)
Wednesday 10/5 (WC2) Strohman (4 days rest) vs Severino (4 days rest)
Thursday 10/6 (travel day)
Friday 10/7 (WC3) Eovaldi (5 days rest) vs Estrada (5 days rest) 
 
Sunday 10/9 (LDS1) Cueto (9 days rest) vs Price (4 days rest)
Monday 10/10 (LDS2) Buchholz (9 days rest) vs Strohman (4 days rest)
Tuesday 10/11 (travel day)
Wednesday 10/12 (LDS3)  Estrada (4 days rest) vs Porcello (10 days rest)
Thursday 10/13 (LDS4)  Price (4 days rest) vs Cueto (4 days rest)
Friday 10/14 (travel day)
Saturday 10/15 (LDS5) Buchholz (5 days rest) vs. Strohman (5 days rest)
 
Monday 10/17 -  Tuesday 10/25 (LCS)
 
Thursday 10/27 - Friday 11/4 (WS)
 
Monday 11/7 - Duck Boat Parade (no rest)
 

Grimace-HS

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I like a lot of the ideas posted here, and also suggest altering the schedule and playoff formats a bit before tinkering with anything major with the game itself.  The Wild Card has added a lot of additional excitement for teams in contention from mid-August onward, which is a good thing.  But I would consider a few other changes:
 
1. Set the regular season between the first week of May (or even a little later) and end after the first full week of September, ending the Sunday after Labor Day weekend (I was going to suggest to begin on Memorial Day weekend and end on Labor Day, but that might trim too many games off the regular season schedule).  I could see the regular season being somewhere around 140-145 games with double-headers.  The regular season becomes less drawn out and focuses the races for playoff spots into the summer months when the weather is better and kids are on vacation.  Each game has a bit more importance as well.  There is also little competition from other sports for fan interest; even the NFL's first weekend might have trouble competing with a team battling for a playoff spot on that final Sunday of the season.  The current March/April start battles colder weather and the NBA and NHL playoffs (sometimes even the ending of March Madness).
 
2. With a shortened regular season, the playoffs can be expanded an additional 2-3 rounds (possibly a round robin cluster, best of three, and/or best of five) until the last weekend of September.  More playoff teams, but also a bit fairer than single elimination games.  I could see this 2-3 weeks being extremely exciting for the fans and successful from a tv viewership standpoint.
 
3. The 2-3 playoff rounds listed above leave all of October for the Divisional, Championship, and World Series (ending in the last week of October). (I like Rasputin's scheduling idea here).
 
As for the lower levels:
 
 - MDL's mentions of "freeing the minor leagues" is great, with the regional teams offering a replacement with more fan interest.  I might consider leaving a AAA affiliate that for each franchise, but free all else below AAA and cluster them into regional leagues.  Players in these leagues could be drafted by MLB teams, but not allowed to be called up unless they are on the AAA team (to keep these regional teams from getting raided while in their own playoff hunt).
 
 - At the little league level (or even high school), shifting the season to May and June would be a good start.  I recall starting in March and wearing a winter coat to practice and games, which is just not a lot of fun (especially for a perpetual bench specialist like me).  I'm not sure if things have changed over time, but I remember when I played we all had to play at least three innings.  I think between the ages of 9-15 I may have played a full six innings 4-5 times, so I know the bench perspective of a kid very well.  I still never lost interest in the game itself, but I saw it happen a lot to other kids (even basketball ensured that you played a little in each quarter or half, keeping you into the game for the duration).  Perhaps changing the "playing time" ruling to necessitate that every kid plays at least 8-9 innings over two games would make it more fun for the kids that just don't get the playing time or at-bats....hmmm, maybe I can blame my never getting into that hitting groove or hitting above 0.100 on the fact that I got about one at-bat per game...
 
On a side note, I am happy this thread is revived.  Baseball was always my favorite sport growing up in the late 70s and 80s,  The intricacies went over my head, but I could still follow the game at a young age (followed by basketball and hockey).  I needed a few more years to mature into football and understand the strategies and appreciate the game.  And baseball didn't always require a perfectly coordinated athlete that could do everything.  One kid could hit well, another pitch, or even just catching consistently would give you a place and make you feel good and relate to the game.  
 
Last night I finally got to see my first ever playoff game with the Mets/Cubs; it was freezing in the upper deck, but a lot of fun and energy at Citi Field.  As a Red Sox fan, I had no real rooting interest, but was locked in just the same.  I left thinking that perhaps baseball really could get back if this type of atmosphere was harnessed at more games in the season, and more cities.  It is nice to see a different mix of teams this year, and that is also something that will help the game (which opens up the salary cap question too).
 
Hombre said:
I've often wondered if baseball, hockey and basketball only played once a week, and all playoff games were do or die, how the ratings would compare to the NFL.
 
I completely agree with this (and was reading this thread preparing to post pretty much the same thing). If baseball were a weekly or biweekly sport with a 30- or 60-game season, pitchers were fellated like quarterbacks, gambling lines were analyzed for days, fantasy teams only had to be adjusted once or twice a week, and a "Scoring Position" channel showed the best action from every game in a seven-hour loop without ad breaks, I bet its popularity would be much higher. The structure of game itself wouldn't have to be any different - NFL games last three-and-a-half hours or more, and nobody complains - although the game would look much different insofar as you'd obviously need far fewer pitchers to staff a roster, and the overall quality of pitching would be much higher, so you might want to tweak the rules or juice the ball, etc., to increase run scoring.
 
Within baseball's current structure, my own dumbass proposal (which will never, ever be implemented) is along the lines of the English FA Cup or other similar soccer competitions around the world - or if you prefer, Bill Simmons' "Entertaining as Hell Tournament" idea for basketball: shorten the regular season to roughly 144 games and add a knockout cup competition to be run in parallel with the regular season. Set aside three-day blocks at the end of each of April, May, June, July and August:
 
--In April, the two teams from the previous year's World Series get byes, and the other 28 teams are randomly drawn - no seeded teams, home field advantage determined randomly - to play best-of-three series against each other, with the same team hosting all three games. (If one team wins the first two games, you don't play the third game.)
 
--After the first round, you're left with 16 teams, and at the start of May you conduct another random draw to determine who plays who in the next best-of-three series at the end of May. (Eliminated teams get a few days off during the second round.)
 
The same format continues through to the best-of-three finals at the end of August. The rewards for advancing in the cup competition would be as follows:
 
1) The draft order and/or slot money allocations in the following season would be based upon which teams advance the farthest in the cup competition.
 
2) All statistics accumulated during the cup would count as part of the regular season - so counting stats (HRs, wins, saves, etc.) would be slanted in favor of teams which advanced in the cup.
 
3) Most importantly, all wins - but not losses - accumulated during the cup would count toward your regular season totals. So a team which won the cup would add an extra 10 wins to their total from the other 144 games, which could be enough to get it into the regular season playoffs.
 
Meanwhile, eliminated teams would get more rest, which in theory ought to improve the overall quality of play in the league. But the main benefit of having a cup competition is that it would help remove some of the sameness the regular season currently possesses: when you're playing more or less every day for the better part of six months, the games can start to blend together, particularly for the casual fan. Having blocks of interleague play was an older idea to help reduce the sameness, and it worked to a small degree for a while, but something bigger - whether this idea or something else - might be needed to break up the monotony on a larger scale.
 

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geoduck no quahog said:
I think some people just don't like baseball.
Those people suck.

Also, they're commies.

Fuck shortening the schedule, make it 200 games.
 

dynomite

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Rasputin said:
Those people suck.

Also, they're commies.

Fuck shortening the schedule, make it 200 games.
When this was proposed a few years ago I remember the two of us defending the 2nd Wild Card idea against a fairly steady opposition. I have to say I'm thrilled with the results thus far. Do you feel the same?

I'm relatively agnostic about making the Wild Card game a series -- personally, I love the drama of the one game play-in, and think it is a perfect device for the TV era -- but overall I think the new system has been a net positive.
 

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dynomite said:
When this was proposed a few years ago I remember the two of us defending the 2nd Wild Card idea against a fairly steady opposition. I have to say I'm thrilled with the results thus far. Do you feel the same?

I'm relatively agnostic about making the Wild Card game a series -- personally, I love the drama of the one game play-in, and think it is a perfect device for the TV era -- but overall I think the new system has been a net positive.
Absolutely pleased with it. The impact on the regular season has been exactly as I'd hoped.

I do want a series because as exciting as do or die is, going out in one game is terrible.

In my dream world that will never happen, we'll have a three game series with doubleheaders.

One series has it for games 1 and 2 and the other for 2 and 3. Frenetic madness of awesome.
 

Curtis Pride

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Rasputin said:
Absolutely pleased with it. The impact on the regular season has been exactly as I'd hoped.

I do want a series because as exciting as do or die is, going out in one game is terrible.

In my dream world that will never happen, we'll have a three game series with doubleheaders.

One series has it for games 1 and 2 and the other for 2 and 3. Frenetic madness of awesome.
 
If they do  that, they should do this at a neutral site. Perhaps in Omaha.
 

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Carrie Muskat ‏@CarrieMuskat  55s55 seconds ago
TBS says Game 3 between #Cubs and Mets averaged 9.2 million total viewers, and was the network's most watched LCS Game 3 ever
 

rymflaherty

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Seeing this thread makes me think of a sports talk show I heard while living in Chicago. It was on the local ESPN affiliate and the host was in his 20's, his premise was that he found it funny that whenever you heard people talk about "saving baseball" those people were baseball fans, and most likely older, but for the host and all of his friends, they don't care about baseball, they don't like baseball and all the changes that get discussed wouldn't make them watch or pay attention to baseball.
The show  than had a lengthy segment of callers, mostly younger, that echoed this sentiment.
There was a similar situation last week on Le Batard's show as he was surprised that he was killed for discussing baseball, and that virtually anyone contacting the show through socal media wasn't interested in baseball.
 
That discussion was eye-opening to me, as a baseball fan I honestly had not thought about that, and now I see this thread and I can't help but think that if you make any of the changes suggested here it's going to do little to bring in people who aren't fans.  If anything you're likely to alienate current fans. There was a similar situation last week on Le Batard's show as he was surprised that he was killed for discussing baseball, and that virtually anyone contacting the show through socal media wasn't interested in baseball. It's a difficult situation and obviously one that doesn't have an easy answer.
 
I will say baseball doesn't help themselves. Just look at Bautista's bat flip. 
That was an actual viral moment for baseball, as it was one of the few times baseball took over my Timeline, with vines and pictures of Bautista.  Baseball should take a moment like that and try to create a star...Instead you had half hour debates the next morning about how Bautista was an asshole and was ruining the sport. A kid sees something they think is cool, and in return they get a lecture.
 

Fred not Lynn

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Rasputin said:
Absolutely pleased with it. The impact on the regular season has been exactly as I'd hoped.

I do want a series because as exciting as do or die is, going out in one game is terrible.

In my dream world that will never happen, we'll have a three game series with doubleheaders.

One series has it for games 1 and 2 and the other for 2 and 3. Frenetic madness of awesome.
I think pro lacrosse does an interesting thing. They have a 2 game series, and if it's 1-1 after game 2, they play overtime to decide it. How about the same in baseball; two games and winner take all extra innings if necessary...
 

geoduck no quahog

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Now that's an interesting prospect. If you're going to make a wild card play-in as arbitrary as one game w/l...then why not go to an out of the box solution...
 
I'd only modify your idea as follows: Do a double-header two days after the season ends. If one team sweeps, they're in. If it ends up 1-1, then start again by playing an inning-by-inning game until someone wins.
 
The WC teams need to burn two starters each and start the playoffs at a distinct disadvantage. They need to manage their bullpens for/against a potential sweep. They may need to burn a third starter if it comes to the "extra-inning" re-start, depending on their bullpen usage. All this without impacting the days off for division winners, and a huge benefit to the team that wins the most games in the league - who now plays an exhausted wild-card winner at home.
 
Maybe even consider playing the WC games in a domed stadium(s) with no crowds...only TV/Radio coverage...to ensure the thing gets resolved that day. Wild cards should have no privileges,
 
Regular season ends on Sunday, WC "day" on Tuesday - playoffs start on Thursday.
 
I like it.
 

Fred not Lynn

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Well, doing the two games on two days let's you play in both cities - but there's something to a one day plus extras idea you have there...but I would make the double header be two seven inning games.

I would also consider more double-headers and more days off for the regular season, but with 7 inning games, like they have at every other level of baseball, including AAA.
 

soxfan121

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What the hell, baseball? The World Series in November is such an MLB idea - let's drag this thing out as long as possible, screw the poor people who attend our game. They'll sit in the rain and cold because...baseball.
 
Fans tolerate cold weather games in April because the promise of warmer days (and pennant races) lie ahead. One of baseball’s primary appeals is the lack of a clock – games take as long as they take. But when the temperature outside is falling into the 30s and the game starts four hours after sunset and concludes near midnight, the fans are entering into some sort of endurance contest, pitting themselves against frostbite and numb extremities. And losing.
To be fair, most baseball fans have already checked out for the season, their favorite team eliminated two (or more) months ago. The NLCS garnered nearly 8 million viewers, an increase over last season’s numbers – mostly attributable to the size of the TV markets involved in the games. By contrast, the NFL’s internet-only broadcast of a game on Yahoo.com from London at 9:30 AM EST grabbed nearly 15 million viewers – and that is the lowest “rated” NFL game in recent memory.
 
 

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Wait, you're complaining about fans sitting out in the cold for the final games of the World Series and then link to a story comparing baseball to the NFL? Did every football team move indoors when I wasn't paying attention?
 

DJnVa

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About those Yahoo football ratings:
 
Moreover, all of those streams accounted for a total of 460 million total minutes of football. Were you to put this in television terms, that would imply viewership just south of 2.4 million
 
 

soxfan121

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No, I'm complaining that baseball's schedule creep is stupid - the World Series being played in November is hurting the game. I'm using the fans being cold and MLB allowing the WS to drag into November as an example of how baseball gives little or no thought to fans. Football is played outdoors, in the fall and winter, in any weather conditions. Baseball is a spring/summer game that is halted when it rains and isn't meant to be played in cold weather. When baseball moves their November World Series to a neutral-site in a warm weather city, it'll make sense to have baseball in November.
 
MLB pushing later and later into the fall isn't good for fans, or for ratings, or for the quality of the product. Pitchers who can't grip and feel the ball, hitters who are wielding a frozen stick that stings their hands, fans in the ballpark who are made to endure a delay in the on-field game because the TV truck is broken ... there's a lot to dislike about November baseball. 

Seems to me that MLB thought that simply extending the season would get them more fans. It's far from clear that it was a good idea. There are few Rasputins in this world - fanatics who want 200 games. Most fans don't want more baseball, or for baseball to go into November. They'd prefer the game address its major problems - pace of play, dwindling youth participation, the fact that the post-season games gets half the viewers that a Sunday morning game broadcast only on Yahoo between two shitbag teams gets two times as many viewers. The baseball number cited is total viewers over four games, meaning less than 2 million people tuned in to each game. On a network. In primetime.
 
Baseball should end, at the latest, by October 31st. If I were the commissioner, I'd keep the 162, re-institute Sunday doubleheaders, and wrap the whole season up by the end of September, so games are played as they are meant to be played - in sunshine. If we must start playoff games after 8 PM EST because of TV, then at the very least move the postseason games up in the calendar, so that there's at least the memory of sunshine and warmth for fans on game days. If you live in New England, you had frost on your windshield this week. Frost is a sign from the baseball gods to wrap it the fuck up and start dreaming about spring training.
 

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soxfan121 said:
 
Seems to me that MLB thought that simply extending the season would get them more fans money. 
 
FTFY, and has it really not worked?  I'm not sold.  I agree in the main with the goal, but you have to address the elephant in the room, which is that games are discrete events, and taking away each one is a loss of gate receipts, merchandise sales, and broadcast advertising dollars.  I dunno what the right $$ number is for the incremental cost, but it's definitely significant and soft downsides become very hard to argue for in the face of that.
 
I think the stronger argument is health of players and quality of life over the season, especially when it comes to pitching arms.  The only way a change like this actually happens is if the union decides its important enough to make an issue of in CBA negotiations, because then they can eat some or all of the revenue gap to make it happen.  Otherwise, it's a change without a clear empowered advocate, which makes it DOA.
 

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I'd like baseball to tighten up the postseason a bit, but to get the season done by the end of October requires starting the season on April 1, and fans whine like fucking crazy when it's not 75 degrees out on opening day, or when opening day falls in the middle of the week.
 

soxfan121

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JimBoSox9 said:
 
FTFY, and has it really not worked?  I'm not sold.  I agree in the main with the goal, but you have to address the elephant in the room, which is that games are discrete events, and taking away each one is a loss of gate receipts, merchandise sales, and broadcast advertising dollars.  I dunno what the right $$ number is for the incremental cost, but it's definitely significant and soft downsides become very hard to argue for in the face of that.
 
I think the stronger argument is health of players and quality of life over the season, especially when it comes to pitching arms.  The only way a change like this actually happens is if the union decides its important enough to make an issue of in CBA negotiations, because then they can eat some or all of the revenue gap to make it happen.  Otherwise, it's a change without a clear empowered advocate, which makes it DOA.
 
I would argue it has not worked, as baseball had better shares/ratings/fan followings 15/30/45 years ago than it does today. Now, it has become a truly regional sport, where no one really cares about the World Series (or the playoffs) or the local 9 like they used to. Some of that erosion and fan apathy has to be seen as MLB's fault. 
 
More events is not necessarily a path to more revenue. And turning your showcase event into 'must-not-see-TV' further erodes that (future) fan base and potential for revenue. Short-term, a scheduling change would hurt MLB's bottom line. Long-term, it would help bring in new fans. 
 
Spacemans Bong said:
I'd like baseball to tighten up the postseason a bit, but to get the season done by the end of October requires starting the season on April 1, and fans whine like fucking crazy when it's not 75 degrees out on opening day, or when opening day falls in the middle of the week.
 
Right, which is ass-backwards and so totally MLB. Just like their media use policy (see the War on .GIFs thread). 

Prioritizing Opening Day over the World Series is ... stupid.
 

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soxfan121 said:
 
 re-institute Sunday doubleheaders, 
I think it would likely be better to revert back to the earlier tradition of Saturday DHs for the sake of ending the single Sunday game early enough time for the visiting club to travel back home or to the next city.  It would also ease the ability to schedule day-night DHs, which could end later on Saturday, instead of the old traditional 1-ticket-2-gamn DHs.
 
But they wouldn't do that because the reason for switching from primarily Saturday DHs to Sunday DHs (sometime in the late 30s-early 40s) remains: to increase gate receipts.
 

soxfan121

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SoxJox said:
I think it would likely be better to revert back to the earlier tradition of Saturday DHs for the sake of ending the single Sunday game early enough time for the visiting club to travel back home or to the next city.  It would also ease the ability to schedule day-night DHs, which could end later on Saturday, instead of the old traditional 1-ticket-2-gamn DHs.
 
But they wouldn't do that because the reason for switching from primarily Saturday DHs to Sunday DHs (sometime in the late 30s-early 40s) remains: to increase gate receipts.
 
Separate tickets/admission? And yeah, Saturday makes more sense. 1:05 start time is most likely over (latest) by 5:00, with an 8:05 evening start time (because if it's good enough for the World Series, it's good enough for a random Saturday night in July). 
 

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soxfan121 said:
No, I'm complaining that baseball's schedule creep is stupid - the World Series being played in November is hurting the game. I'm using the fans being cold and MLB allowing the WS to drag into November as an example of how baseball gives little or no thought to fans. Football is played outdoors, in the fall and winter, in any weather conditions. Baseball is a spring/summer game that is halted when it rains and isn't meant to be played in cold weather. When baseball moves their November World Series to a neutral-site in a warm weather city, it'll make sense to have baseball in November.
But it seems to me that you're identifying two issues:

1) Baseball season is too long.

2) Baseball ratings aren't great.

On #1, I don't really care either way, but given the raucous crowds at these games it doesn't seem to be dampening the actual fans excitement. Personally, I like the emphasis on pitching and defense of cold-weather playoff baseball, but that's admittedly anecdotal and subjective.

On #2, we've discussed this in a few places, but it's certainly a conundrum.

The fact of the matter is that I think the NFL is an unstoppable juggernaut in this country for a whole host of reasons -- football owns Saturdays and Sundays in this country, to paraphrase the terrible trailer for that Will Smith concussion movie, with billions of dollars of online fantasy and gambling (DFS) architecture to support it.

Compared to its closer peers the NBA and the NHL (and MLS?), though, I honestly feel like baseball is doing pretty well.

I wouldn't mind changing a few things up, but I think the state of the baseball Union is relatively strong.

Edit: I don't want to distract from the generic point by making a small one, but I wonder whether baseball stands to benefit from the (probable) decline of football due to head trauma concerns over the coming decades -- basketball will still require kids to be freakishly tall, hockey is plenty violent itself and also requires a lot more gear and expensive ice time, and soccer and lacrosse will probably grow but have never gained a similar professional foothold in the U.S.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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soxfan121 said:
No, I'm complaining that baseball's schedule creep is stupid - the World Series being played in November is hurting the game. I'm using the fans being cold and MLB allowing the WS to drag into November as an example of how baseball gives little or no thought to fans.
 
I thought the TV stations wanted the World Series in November to get to sweeps period.
 

Fred not Lynn

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soxfan121 said:
 
Separate tickets/admission? And yeah, Saturday makes more sense. 1:05 start time is most likely over (latest) by 5:00, with an 8:05 evening start time (because if it's good enough for the World Series, it's good enough for a random Saturday night in July). 
At every other level of baseball I know, including all the way up to AAA in MiLB (I don't know about Japan, Korea, etc) when there is a double header, the games are 7 innings. Why not let MLB tighten up the season using 7 inning double header games?
 

Fred not Lynn

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There's a remarkable tool called "math" you could use to make the necessary adjustmemnts.

That and the game managed to weather a change from 154 games to 162. Shaving a few innings off the season isn't going to destroy the game.

I think stats and the famous "numbers" are a great tool for enhancing fans enjoyment of the game, but we have to be careful not to let them become an anchor that overly restricts the evolution of the game.
 

soxhop411

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This is the most asinine thing I have ever heard.

“@ChrisCarlinSNY: Rob Manfred just told us he would consider limiting the number of pitching changes in the game. Thinks it hurts pace of game.”
 

joyofsox

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Why not limit the number of pitches that a team can throw? Too many pitches makes for long games.

Oops, Twins, you just threw pitch 150. The game is over!!!
 

Hagios

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Dec 15, 2007
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In 1920 the average game lasted 1:47

I don't see any reason why baseball can't get back to something close to a two hour game. Throw the kitchen sink at it:
* Mid inning pitching change walks the batter (or better yet, counts as a balk)
* Pitch clock
* Batter can't step out of the batter's box
* Limit of three timeouts per game (for catcher or manager to visit pitcher)

The number of pitches per game is going up, and I think MLB should do something about that too, but I'm less sure about what. I'd love to go back to the old days of bad grass, chunky infields, and older balls that made it much harder to field. That increased the incentive of swinging versus looking. However, I suspect it would also result in more injuries and that tradeoff wouldn't not be acceptable.
 

Harry Hooper

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I've said it before, but make every mound visit (manager, pitching coach, catcher, shortstop, whoever stops in for a chat) count as an official visit.
 

DJnVa

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This is the most asinine thing I have ever heard.

“@ChrisCarlinSNY: Rob Manfred just told us he would consider limiting the number of pitching changes in the game. Thinks it hurts pace of game.”

Why is it asinine? It could be interesting. There are numerous ways to do it--2 pitchers max per inning. Maybe each pitcher must throw minimum of 20 pitches unless they end the inning.

I could see the game threads now: "Buchholz is at 15 pitches--think he can throw 5 more without giving up 2 runs?"
 

FanSinceBoggs

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Jan 12, 2009
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This is the most asinine thing I have ever heard.

“@ChrisCarlinSNY: Rob Manfred just told us he would consider limiting the number of pitching changes in the game. Thinks it hurts pace of game.”
John Farrell doesn't like the idea:
http://nesn.com/2016/07/john-farrell-thinks-limiting-use-of-relievers-would-artificially-control-the-game/

I like the idea, but start out small and see how it goes. Pass one rule: every relief pitcher MUST face two batters or more. I think that would make things more interesting. To be sure, mediocre lefty relievers would lose some of their value.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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In 1920 the average game lasted 1:47

I don't see any reason why baseball can't get back to something close to a two hour game. Throw the kitchen sink at it:
* Mid inning pitching change walks the batter (or better yet, counts as a balk)
* Pitch clock
* Batter can't step out of the batter's box
* Limit of three timeouts per game (for catcher or manager to visit pitcher)

The number of pitches per game is going up, and I think MLB should do something about that too, but I'm less sure about what. I'd love to go back to the old days of bad grass, chunky infields, and older balls that made it much harder to field. That increased the incentive of swinging versus looking. However, I suspect it would also result in more injuries and that tradeoff wouldn't not be acceptable.
Pitch clock is coming. Won't stop throws to first, but it will help. Batter already can't step out of the box, but it's not being enforced like it was early last season with warnings being given to players
 

Khabibul35

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Mar 27, 2006
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This is an interesting thread, but it's gone into the direction of making small incremental changes rather than changing the structure of the game dramatically to preserve popularity. To me, I see the problem of baseball as being the fact that it's fundamentally boring to watch unless you're invested in it. The same problem is actually true of soccer in my opinion. It's hard for the game to attract fans unless they grew up playing the game. On the other hand, football (American football that is), is incredibly entertaining even if you've never played a game, or even thrown/caught a football.

At the moment, I live in Europe. There's tremendous interest in football on the part of Europeans - way more than I expected. Part of that is the whole idea of a weekly game, the super bowl phenomenon, etc. but there's more to it than that. The game is fun to watch! Baseball is not. When I try to show my friends baseball, they come for one game, and then never want to watch another game again. For me, soccer is not fun to watch, even though I grew up playing it. My European friends disagree, but in my opinion it's because they are used to the boring parts and see it as strategy, which to some extent it is. The point though is, if you change the rules, new types of strategy would evolve - ideally a balance of strategy and entertainment would be created, as in American football. (If I had my way I'd change soccer dramatically, e.g. get rid of offsides and institute a backfield clock to stop tick-tack passing to run out the time once a team scores). Similarly, baseball needs to get rid of aspects that make the game boring. Here's my opinion on what that the biggest problem with baseball:

People keep talking about time between pitches/outs/hits, but that's not a problem. The real problem is that even if you hit the ball, there are far too many routine plays. An easy out is not fun to watch and it happens in baseball - a lot. I don't know how you can fix this with regards to the outfield, but the infield is a place you can tinker with it since ~70% of balls hit into the infield are routine outs. The ball is at first before the person on TV has a chance to adjust to the ball. In live games, you basically yawn as it happens.

Possible solutions:
a) don't groom the field as much (somewhat dangerous hops can happen though - don't think it's worth it for player safety),

b) alter the size of the infield to make it easier for players to reach on infield hits, or take away the short stop so that players need to cover more ground, and so on

c) (maybe my favorite) in Finnish baseball, you don't have to run if you hit the ball in play except on the third strike. For example, on a 0-0 count, if you hit a dribbler and don't run, it's 0-1 now. Reducing routine outs like this would be huge. This would likely increase scoring, increase strike outs, etc.

Conclusion:
I know this would be changing the sacredness of the game, and even personally, I'm against it since I'm used to the game and like it how it is. It's boringness doesn't bother me. I don't watch baseball for action, but because it's a relaxing way for me to spend 3 hours and I'm used to it. However, I realize I wouldn't think this if I just started watching without having played it and so I think rule changes are needed to make the game more "fun" to new players.

In my opinion, the game needs to evolve to continue to live and to spread. Nothing should be sacred in pursuing that goal. If rule changes are well thought out and experimented with, it would be win-win.
 
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wade boggs chicken dinner

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easiest way to shorten game and have more action is to go to 3 balls and 2 strikes. Would also reduce the number of marginal pitchers pitching.
 

NoXInNixon

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How about this: a pitcher can't be taken out in the middle of an inning unless he has already faced a minimum of three batters.
 

Rasputin

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Baseball doesn't need to be saved from anything.

There are plenty of tweeks that could improve things, but major changes are unnecessary.