You Own Baseball

[Crow]

You now own the MLB and install yourself as commissioner.

What do you do differently, if anything? Your vision for the future, stance on where baseball is right now?

[Jax Dawg]

Baseball is dying because of a lack of bold leadership. Most fans have become so apathetic because it is impossible for the Pirates and Royals or Indians for that matter to financially compete for good players with the Yankees and Red Sox of the world year after year. A small to mid-market team these days has to be extremely lucky to be competetive and even then it doesn't last long.

Here's my reform:

1.) Institute immediate salary cap and salary minimum. There will no longer be a AAA Florida Marlins and their $30 million payroll competing with the Yankees and their $250 million payroll. $120 million max, $85 million min this year for now, adjust the window and max/min every year to account for changes.

2.) True revenue sharing. This makes #1.) possible. Without it there is no real equal competition in baseball. The Yanks and their YES network to 20 million plus people in metro NY makes more money than 4 or 5 mid-major markets combined! How can there be an even playing field when this exists? I'm sure Jerry Jones would love baseball rules in the NFL! Not to mention the massive team sales for the NY Yankees. I'm so sick and tired of seeing the NY cap on every wannabe rapper and superstar not to mention all the idiot NY/NJ transplants here in northern Florida. Did I mention I hate NY and the Yankees?

3.) Major draft reform. Some sticking points - slotting system similiar to NBA just to piss off the Boras' of the world who make major $$$ demands for the 4-5 budding superstars to be every year. Some end up re-entering the draft the following year due to being unsignable which just hurts the shitty teams that drafted them even more. I would also advocate an international draft with an age minimum for latin American players - no more signing a 15 year old kid. I'm also in favor of making the pick's rights stick to the drafting team for a minimum of two years. This would entice some teams to draft a potential Japanese star when his contract is running out and possible Cuban defectors who are still stuck in Cuba. This could also lead to mad speculation on which college players become stars the year before they declare for the draft.

[SoCalBrownsFan]

Salary cap and an overhaul of the economics of baseball. Small market teams can't compete with the way baseball is set up right now.

Get rid of Bud Selig....he sucks, and is part of the reason why baseball sucks.

[Tobalaz]

Scrimmage games against the NFL to boost ratings and let those whiney little overpaid b@st3rds learn what if feels like to play a real game.

Want to know the reason I can't get interested?
Too many regular season games, the games take forever and it's more of a 1 on 1 sport (pitcher/ batter) than a team sport.
It's damn near impossible to keep up with a sport where your team can play up to 5 games in a 3 day period (with doubleheaders)(and it never happens, but IS possible).
It's never played in bad weather, really, a slight drizzle and you're sitting in the stands for 5 hours with warm overpriced beer and cold undersized hotdogs while the players go back to their climant controlled clubhouse to eat shrimp and drink hot coco making a 4 hour game take forever.
Man up! You're not playing with metal bats (cork isn't conductive either), go play in the damn rain!
Random drug testing is pulling a day and year out of a hat.
Add a little conflict! Let the batter keep his bat as he's running the bases!
Make it a fair fight, give the basemen brass knuckles.
How many farm systems do you really need? Three?! Try one.

[Crow]

Some good suggestions. I too like short regular seasons, it's why I struggle to care about the NBA/MLB. Too much shit, most games individually mean little.

And of course, economics needs to change. As long as bad teams are screwed into forever being bad, baseball will in my eyes always be fatally flawed.