When was the last time you watched a regular-season MLB baseball game and didn't regret it, other than maybe Red Sox - Yankees on a Sunday night, or Phillies - Braves on a Saturday night, OK, fine, or Cubs - Cardinals on the weekend? Ever noticed that nearly every member of the Phillies is a big greasy ugly fat guy with Vaseline in his beard or hair? Why is that? Why do all the Phillies players look like they had an accident with a hair trimmer? Why is Bryce Harper always angry? You ever turn on Tigers - Rays on a Saturday afternoon, the game is all blurred with afternoon light, the announcers sound like they are doing an NBA game or are trying out to be Price is Right announcers, and you wonder why did you do this to yourself?
That's why I'm writing this article on How to Improve Major League Baseball (MLB). It's a beautiful sport and it needs to improve soon or go extinct.
I used to love baseball. I'd watch every Braves home game or every Cubs home game on Cable TV (Chicago or Atlanta feed) and on the weekends I'd watch the big Sunday game and then whatever the big Weds or Thurs game was during the week, and I'd watch all the playoff teams and games, all the time. It felt like an emergency you had to watch every time SFG played LAD, or every time the Braves played the Mets, or every time the Yankees played anyone.
As I got older I kept following the sport closely through cable and ESPN and fantasy and newspapers and such and kept following the Braves and all the playoff games. I enjoyed keeping track of the BA and OBP and runs and HR leaders, as the season progressed. Like many people I LIVED for the USA Today weekly piece about the AL and NL leaders - that was a powerful drug. Then I went crazy and learned about sabermetrics in the early 2000's and that added a whole new dimension--the value of walks!!. But lately I tune in only to a few Braves playoff games, a few WS games, and that's about it. I can't get pulled into a regular game, there's no stakes, no pull. There are a few interesting players, namely Judge (modern-day Paul Bunyan), Ohtani (of course, he can do everything), and Ron Acuna (makes the game so fun). Update: Acuna out for season, sucks bad.
Hello! Major League Baseball (MLB) sucks and needs to be fixed. How do we know it sucks? I just told you. No one watches the games anymore. It's just highlights. The game itself doesn't have a tempo, a flow, it feels like a collection of highlights, interspersed with pure boredom. The pundits are saying MLB is a "regional" game rather than a "national" game meaning you might watch your local team play, or if you live in Utah, you'll be forced to watch the Rockies, but that's about it.
Not a new point but it feels like the game has been optimized or hacked or cracked. Every pitch we know how fast it was thrown, the spin on the ball, the angle of the break, we know the hitter's bad speed, we know the launch angle and speed of the ball. It feels like a game made by AI. It feels unnatural in some sense.
Herein, or hereinafter I should say as a lawyer, I outline the problems with MLB currently (mostly, regular games often lack stakes) and what can be done to fix the problem. Please forward this immediately to all your baseball-loving friends, to Commissioner Manfred, to Craig Bolerjack and Gordon Monson and other Salt Lake City sports pundits who are weird and boring, and to your podcast friends like Bill Simmons. On our own we can't save baseball one by one, but together maybe we can. "People will come, Ray!!!"
PROBLEM ONE, MANY TEAMS NOT COMPETITIVE OR TANKING
If a team sucks, like the White Sox, there are no stakes when that team plays. You expect them to lose, so when they lose there's no pain, and no joy for the winning team, given the winning team beat a team not trying.
The first problem with current Major League Baseball is there are teams that are absolutely not competitive year over year, like the Pirates, Marlins, and Royals. The Pirates are probably the best example of a team that has not been competitive for forty years. While the Marlins and Royals have each won a World Series in the last 20 years, both teams, for the most part, by the end of May in any year, are out of the playoff hunt. Even worse, no one attends Miami Marlins games. Even Derek Jeter, who pretended for 20 years that Jorge Posada was an elite player, could not talk himself into being a Miami fan for long.
It is hard to care about a team that doesn't care about itself. It's hard to want to give someone a bath when that person doesn't care enough to give himself a bath. Looking at the Marlins' empty stadium on game day is depressing. I doubt even the parents of the players care about the team. When one team has no fans and no payroll, it immediately makes it uninteresting to follow that team. Do you like to watch your kids' soccer team lose 12-0? I didn't think so. What if they win 11-2? Also not fun. It doesn't mean anything either way.
Whenever a crappy team plays, there are no stakes. If they win or lose, it doesn't matter, because they're not going anywhere. If you beat them, it doesn't count because they suck. If they win, it doesn't matter, they're not going anywhere anyway. Every game by a crappy Marlins team is an exhibition game. Last year if I turned on the TV and it was the Tigers, the Pirates, the A's, I wasn't watching, not for one second. These games were all horrible.
Remember when baseball was beautiful? In 1989 I watched Field of Dreams by myself. I cried so long and so hard, it was beautiful. It was cathartic. These were burning tears of fire and truth and purification. I wanted to BE there. This was before Kevin Costner started dressing Yellowstone all the time, when he was kind of a normal person making it big instead of a big-shot personality pretending once in a great while to be normal. I mean, look how handsome he was in Field of Dreams. He was the handsome but dorky kid from high school that went on to bigger things, and took all of us with him. Now he's like an oil baron drinking $1000 glasses of whiskey and shouting at the waiter, totally unrelatable.
The sport of baseball, back then, was beautiful in its own right, the pace of play, the long summer afternoons, the idea of hanging out with your buddies in the sun, the memories, the records, the nostalgia, the history. George Brett, Nolan Ryan. It was a game that aged well, that only got better with age. The whole idea of baseball was people who wanted to play and to hang out, and it happened to be baseball as the raison d'etre. Now it seems many players don't want to hang out, and don't even want to play. Go figure.
The games were as beautiful as this movie. I watched the Royals beat the Cardinals in the World Series in the 1980s. So beautiful. It seemed to last forever, it seemed unending. One team in baby blue or royal blue, the other in one of the coolest jerseys of all time, white w/ red or light grey with red highlights. The pressure, the build-up, runners on base, the idea that a sac fly or bunt or great defensive play could be the difference. The sheer joy of the thing. Willie Stargell and the Pirates brought tears to my mother's eyes. Seriously. The Orioles in the 80s. Obviously the Red Sox losing to Mets sent many grown men to the psych ward or jail. The Oakland A's of the late 80s, all roided up (we didn't know at the time) completely battering every other team into submission. The glory of Rickey Henderson either homering or stealing a base nearly every time he got up to bat. The earthquake World Series between SF and Oakland, it makes me shudder to think of it. I am shaking now, I have tremors. It was pretty much international news.
I'm not going to try to prove my point(s) with statistics. That's not what this is about. Many things are factual but not true. Some things are true but not factual. Many religions are true but not factual. This article is true but perhaps not factual. If you want to read a factual but un-true and boring article, there are tons on ESPN. Basically every article on ESPN is factual but not true. Meaning the story might contain facts but it takes you nowhere. Beauty was the illusion previously in baseball, the perception, the feeling. Baseball was a sport for people like Costner, a sport for handsome all-around athletes. You had to throw, run, catch be smart. You had to be fast, quick, athletic, stop-start fast. You had to throw it hard and long and fast and sharp. You had to think ahead. You had to be a leader, to think on your feet, to remain calm, to stay up there quietly and then explode into a ball. You had to play every day for six months, day in and day out, and every game was 4 hours, and if you cared you were always there. Cal did it. George Brett did it. Mike Schmidt did it. Eddie Murray did it. Obviously Aaron and Mays did it. Chipper. And Mantle, the greatest of them all. could hit left or right. Played center. Power plus speed. Catch, throw, hit, think. It was s a sport for handsome men who were athletic and who cared a lot and who tried their hardest. You didn't need to weigh 400 pounds or have Olympic speed, what mattered was all-around skill, being tough, fighting through a slow day, playing with diarrhea, playing without diarrhea, playing full, playing hungry. Scrapping out wins, overcoming the boredom, getting out of a rut.
A lot of the best players were around forever. Ozzie Smith. Joe Morgan. Mike Schmidt. George Brett. Johnny Bench. Koufax. Henderson. It was exciting to see them PILE UP greatness day after day, at bat after at bat, defensive play after defensive play. You could probably predict the 9-man lineup for a game and be right 40% of the time. Familiarity. Comfort. Tradition. A greatness in familiarity. The idea that playing every day for ten years gave you a leg up over someone who only played every other day for five years. Now every gameday line-up is a mystery. Fred Kopchik starting at 3B? Who is Fred Kopchik? No one ever heard of him. He just landed from Mars and got one start for the Braves. Here today, gone tomorrow. I would give my left nut for a guy like Joe Morgan on the Braves. To have a guy like that at second for twenty f****** years. Can you believe that once was? Probably he is the most underrated player in history.
The NYY of the late 90s. You knew who was in the lineup. It was always going to be Jeter, Williams, Posada, Martinez, O'Neill. You were always going to get at least five dudes you knew very very well.
PROBLEM TWO, TOO MANY SPECIALISTS
One of the reasons baseball is no longer beautiful is because of all the specialists; this breaks up the familiarity and the beauty and the tradition. The platoon hitter like Ryan Klesko who is good from one side of the plate but sucks from the other; not even really a great all-around athlete. The left-handed long reliever. The right-handed short reliever who is only good for 18 pitches. The backup catcher, the third backup catcher who catches only left-handed spitters at 68 MPH. The pinch runner who sucks at hitting. The outfield defensive specialist who totally sucks at hitting. The slap-hitting RBI man, usually a member of the Phillies, who is not a good hitter but gets lot of RBI by going up there and slapping at it and there are always guys on base in front of him. It's hard to form a history with the specialist. Is he really on the team or is he a paid assassin of sorts. Like cheering for the German soldiers during the Revolutionary War? You want to see what a guy can do under pressure for 6 innings, not what he can do in 1 or 3 pitches. You get the sense the specialist is not even a baseball player, he's a car mechanic or bread maker who happens to be able to put a lot of torque on the ball for 1 minute at a time. Does this guy even like baseball? We don't know.
You want to see a guy get tired and play through it. You don't always want everyone to be successful. The reason you love your team is because they get tired and hurt and they lose, and that hurts. You are watching normally people, people LIKE YOU, play through pain and boredom. You don't want AI specialists who don't even sweat.
So two problems so far. Teams that are not competitive at all in MLB, like Pirates. Too many specialists especially at pitcher and backup catcher and utility fielders. Players come up or down for two games. When you don't have a history with the players, there are no stakes. When your best friend win or loses, it means more. When Karl Mizer wins a game in his first start out of jail, it doesn't matter, no stakes. If I follow Joe Morgan for twenty years, I can get interested in every AB, every defensive play. He's my brother out there on the field. I live and die with him, especially because he's also playing in meaningful games of consequence, impacting the playoffs or the pennant race.
PROBLEM THREE, TOO MUCH FOCUS ON TECHNOLOGY
Third problem is the focus is too much guided by technology, by stats. Go up there and throw it 98 MPH with right to left torque like this. Try to hit it at such and such angle to blast it out of the park. Sure you miss it 9 times out of 10 but when you hit it, it goes to the moon. That's not fun to watch. Imagine a pro bowler who misses the pins 9 out of 10 times but occasionally hits the pins so hard they break in two. Is that fun? I don't know. I don't think so. The focus doesn't seem to be on winning or losing, it seems to be on pitch velocity and hit angle.
Imagine a marathon where a guy runs super slow for 25 miles and then the last mile he drives in a car fast and wins. That's how baseball feels. Nothing happens, no one cares, and then all of the sudden a 2-run shot. It's not not clear the guys are actually enjoying baseball at all, or they don't necessarily like to be out there with the boys, in the sun, hanging out playing. They are a hired gun. To throw it twice, to take a few big swings. And then return to the bench.
You watch the game, the announcer tells you the ball was traveling at 103 MPH at 73% angle, with 11% left to right spin. Does anyone know what this means? No. Just act normal, is it a hit or not? The focus on technology is obviously "fun," everyone likes to watch Acuna smash it out of the park and then the next time up, steal two bases. The game is more flashy, which is good. My concern I suppose is the focus on the big flashy play takes away from the sense of stakes that a game needs to have to be interesting across 162 games. Does anyone even know what contributes to winning? A guy can throw it 189 MPH, but his team never wins -- maybe there is more to winning than a computer simulation.
PROBLEM FOUR, BINARY AT BATS WITH HOMER VS STRIKE OUT
This leads to the fourth problem of course with too much emphasis on home runs and strike outs and walks. Optimization will run everything eventually. This is where the technology leads, homers and strike outs. You know how they changed the rules last year to make the sport better? All that did was generate more stolen bases and shorten games. The changes did very little else good. No changes for triples or doubles. No changes for hits and runs scored. Good but not good enough. We need more singles, doubles, triples, walks. Baseball needs to be about collective tension, as the game builds there's more and more tension, pitchers getting tired, hits piling up, the idea that the damn will break soon. Stretching a double to a triple wins the game, scoring from second the same, getting a dirty hit to first, just as good. it's not just the big homer and the big strike out. In those plays the tension ends immediately at the plate, there's no tension in the field or on the basepaths. We need tension in the field. The rundown, the bunt, the sac fly. Moving guys over. Not the binary reality of homer or strike out. Baseball is supposed to be like Jenga, a tower of sticks, about to tip over. The tension builds as the game builds, then it falls over and someone wins. Not Godzilla smashing small things.
Think of a great movie or book. What makes it great. Tension. The characters have their agendas, at odds with other characters. Things keep happening, piling up. So much at stake. Who will get what they want? Who will lose? It takes 500 pages to build up and figure it out. That's how baseball used to be. Pitcher is tired. Single followed by walk. Two men on, no outs. Wild pitch. Now runners at second and third. Now pitcher generates two outs. Another walk. Bases jacked, two outs, a new hitter up. He runs it up to 3-2. Now there's going to be another pitch, with one winner and one loser. It takes time to build up to that. If the first guy up had hit a leadoff homer, you miss the fun. Either way it's only 1 run, but it's more fun to see the 1 run score on the slow build.
SOLUTIONS
FIRST RELEGATION
*THE FIVE CRAPPIEST MLB TEAMS PLAY TOGETHER IN A CRAPPY DIVISION AND ARE NOT ELIGIBLE FOR PLAYOFFS THAT YEAR
*THE FIVE RELEGATION TEAMS PLAY ONLY EACH OTHER DURING THE YEAR!!!
*THE BEST RELEGATION TEAM GETS PROMOTED AWAY FROM THAT DIVISION INTO A REGULAR DIVSION
*THE WORST TEAM IN THE NORMAL DIVISIONS IS FORCED INTO RELEGATION DIVISION
OK, let's talk about the solutions.
The first one we all know is coming, it's relegation. RELEGATION BABY. The crappy teams are relegated into a lower-level league or division, like what they do in European football. If you do well in the lower league you get to move up. You are always at risk for being moved down, and you always have a chance to move up. You could have in one year, the NYY, Red Sox, Mets, LAD, and the Cardinals all playing in the sh*** relegation division. How beautiful.
This doesn't mean the relegated team is playing against college or amateur teams. Listen up. It just mean that the relegated division cannot compete for the WS in that year. So you have a division pre-marked as crappy. And crappy teams in same division play each other. None can be in the playoffs.
The good news is most teams in baseball are semi-competitive or competitive. We don't need a whole relegation league. We just need a relegation division. That relegation division is the AL Central, which is now Tigers, Twins, Royals, Indians, White Sox. Those teams all get moved around and their division is empty. It's called American League Relegation division. That is the actual name. So we need to start with five teams there, in relegation. Like who are the first teams relegated, for the first year. These teams will only play each other, not the real teams. The winner of relegation division gets to join a real division the next year.
The five relegation teams are:
You know it, I know it, she knows it, he knows it, George Brett knows it. These guys, the Royals, need to be relegated. I don't care that they just gave Witt a huge contract. That doesn't move the needle for me. He'll twist his ankle at some point and go from 60 steals to 3. The Royals are the first team in American League Relegation division. Never again will I have to watch these guys play the Marlins on public TV in a poop fest. Their hats are cool, the colors are cool, I have love for them in my heart. They need to be relegated for their own good. I punish them because I love them.
The way it works is the best team at end of season in the relegation division gets to move into a real division, and take the place of the crappiest non-relegation team, who becomes a member of the Relegation Division. Say the Angels (spoiler alert) stink it up next year and the Royals win Relegation Division, that means the Angels join the Relegation division and the Royals join the AL West. This happens every year at end of season. Even the mighty Yankees and RedSox can wind up in relegation. How beautiful. Like I said, relegation teams only play each other, they don't get to play the real teams, they don't deserve it, and we deserve to not have to watch the crap. Maybe those games are on the Discovery channel.
Of course, the Pirates are in the Relegation Division, along with the Royals. These guys suck so bad, it makes me feel bad. Clemente cries in his grave or tomb every time the Pirates play. Beautiful stadium, beautiful city, horrible team. Beautiful Penguins and Steelers, hideous Pirates. Think how exciting to watch the Pirates playing the Royals to come out of Relegation instead of watching the Pirates get clubbed by the Cardinals 18 times a year. I would watch the relegation games because they would mean something, the chance to come out of the crapper. Think of all the fights as the Pirates played the Royals, knowing the winner could come out of the dump and the loser would stay there. The $18 million payroll vs the $17 million payroll. How exciting!!!
If you needed to, you could have two relegation teams every year (two teams moving up and two coming down), or even three, with same sorts of rules. I like starting with one, to scare the sh** out of all the teams because of the risk of relegation. It would help eliminate tanking. It would give stakes to every game. Imagine the Mets or Dodgers in the crapper, being relegated. Wonderful. Imagine Phillies playing Braves on final day of season, knowing the loser would get relegated!!! How wonderful!!
The relegation games could be played in stadiums like Montreal, Mexico City, Puerto Rico, Salt Lake City, and other places without regular MLB baseball. Think of it. Kids in SLC going to watch Pirates vs Royals with their Deacon's troop, buying up gallons of soft-serve yogurt and dinosaur chicken nuggets. This could expand the fan base.
We need another relegation team. We all knew this was coming. The Marlins dismantle their team every other year like a bad stock portfolio. Half their players have quit or died of old age on the field. Their best player ever drove his boat at 180 MPH into a rocky shore AT NIGHT while high on cocaine and beer, after fighting with his girlfriend. You can't see on the water at night! Oceans don't have freeway lights! Don't drive a boat on coke! Don't do it. Also never beat up your girlfriend or wife. I'm not saying he did.
This team has always sucked. Even when they had Leiter and Brown they sucked. It was always a loser NYC law firm crammed together. No cohesion, no history, no stakes, no nothing. Their stadium sucks. Their team sucks. Except for the red City Connect hats, their uniforms suck. They have nothing worth seeing. Of course they are relegated. The loser NYC law firm with no history and no cohesion is, of course, relegated. Farewell losers. Do you want to work for a NYC law firm? Me neither.
So far, Royals, Pirates, Marlins. Imagine all the fist fights as these guys fight their way out of the garbage can of relegation. Beautiful. Baseball needs more fights, like hockey. When you are embarrassed about playing in the Relegation division, you start fights, you finish fights. The games get nasty, you don't want to stay a loser forever.
But I have another surprise for you. Not only at the Marlins relegated, but they have two home cities, Puerto Rico and Miami. That gives them a larger fan base so more money to hopefully acquire more players. 40 games in Miami, the other 41 in Puerto Rico. They can do more unique things with their uniform, etc. They can be the Puerto Rico Marlins or the Puerto Rico Miamians for all I care. Two cities, more money, more fans, more variety, maybe their team becomes more meaningful. You know you love it. Best idea ever.
As a Utah Jazz fan, I have empathy for Rockies' fans. Nothing good will ever happen there. No great player will want to stay there, which is also true of Utah Jazz. The home field is too weird. Just like SLC is a small market for basketball players, the weird air in Denver will never attract the top pitchers. No pitcher wants an ERA of 5.00. Like Utah their colors are mostly purple but also a bit weird. I do like the idea of the Utah Rockies, more natural than Utah Jazz. Maybe we could be the Utah Wasatch instead of Utah Jazz.
The Rockies are relegated. Awesome city, awesome stadium, awesome people, horrible management, horrible team. Everything they do is weird. Signing Kris Bryant to a long-term deal when no one wanted him. No other team would have given him more than a year. The Rockies lock him up forever. Their uniforms are weird except the green City Connect ones are cool. They had like one good year a long time ago with Helton and Big Cat. They are sad to watch. No plan of any kind. No coaching. They are horrible. They should play softball.
I would love to watch them try to win the Relegation Division, as Pirates and Marlins would have to play there at least 10 times a year and ruin all their pitcher ERAs. They don't deserve to play real teams like LAD or Braves. They don't.
We need another team, a fifth team in the new relegation division. Obviously the Las Vegas Athletics are here in relegation zone. They don't have a stadium, they don't have anything but cool colors. Their payroll is like negative three dollars. They were my favorite team for about 5 years from 1988 to 1993 as I jumped on the bandwagon. Their stadium was so bad it wasn't funny. I would love to see them play at Rockies 10 times a year and lose 20-18 or win 30-21. If they improve their payroll and their team, then they can come out of relegation and play for real stakes. Maybe they can even play in muscle t-shirts or play shirts and skins in home games.
Anyway, that's my relegation idea. Athletics, Royals, Marlins, Rockies, Pirates, all relegated immediately to the American League Relegation Division. A lot of teams aren't far off, the Tigers, the Twins, the Nationals, the Angels-those teams have to worry about being next. Every game now has stakes, as a non-relegated team has to avoid relegation, and a relegated team can play its way out of the toilet. Mike Trout will never play in the playoffs, but maybe he can lead his team to avoid relegation? Like I said, it creates stakes and tension, for every game. July 9, Royals v Pirates, I want to watch to see who improves chances of not staying relegated. And if we need to, we can have 2 or 3 teams relegated and promoted each year. August 22nd, Angels vs Mets, loser might get relegated. I want to watch! And finally, to summarize, the Marlins have two home cities, Puerto Rico, and Miami, to add more money and more fans. YOU KNOW THESE ARE GREAT IDEAS. TELL YOUR FRIENDS. tell your kids. tell your cat.
That's right, relegation teams play only each other. They learn to hate each other, maybe they do a 10-day series of Pirates at Rockies and the Rockies win 8, humiliating the Pirates. The last game turns into a brawl. Would I watch that? Absolutely I would.
EXPANSION? MLB TEAM IN SALT LAKE? UTAH CANYONS?
THE REAL SOLUTION IS CONTRACTION
This is not a solution but a reality. I already gave you my expansion-as-solution idea, to combine Miami with Puerto Rico.
There is talk of MLB expanding. Well, where would they expand to? Some ideas floated have been Austin, TX; Salt Lake City, Utah; Portland, OR. The Portland Wet Beavers?
Let's assume it's Salt Lake. What would the team be named? We need a real name, not a team name for kids like Buzz, Bees, Stingerzz, please we need a real name. My genius brother has proposed the name Canyons, the Utah Canyons. Could be in English and Spanish at times, to pay heritage to our large Spanish-speaking population. This Canyons name pays tribute both to the ski slopes of Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons but also the big rock formations in Southern Utah. This allows for merchandise and color schemes of white (snow), green (grass), and orange or red (rocks). It covers the whole state geographically and also pays tribute to our history of Native Americans and fur trappers and mountain men and the pioneers.
As noted, the color scheme could be primary white and green, sort of like Milwaukee Bucks, but then with either red or orange trim. The main uniform would be dark green with white and red/orange trim. Then your away jersey is white with green trim. Your third jersey can be a "fun" jersey like bright orange. There are only three jerseys. You don't need a blue lung cancer awareness jersey - I say that as someone with lung cancer. No red/white/blue patriot hats for this team, no pink Mother's day hats, no all-black hats. Just the main three colors, over and over. Sure, once every ten years they sell something funky like a salmon/teal callback to SL Gulls, and you buy and it has actual value because it's impossible to find otherwise.
Team names like Stingers, Bees, Buzz, those are for babies, and they lock us in to the ZZZ sound of the Jazz. Please no, we aren't stupid. Give us a real name team.
Another team name floated has been the Bison. That's OK, I give it a B. There were bison here. But we already have Colorado Buffaloes and Buffalo Bills. Give me Canyons, or nothing at all. OK fine, Utah Pines would be cool, Utah Aspen too. Our mountains are beautiful and glorious.
Utah Pioneers, A- or B+, but then do the players wear pioneer dresses, and I worry that brings focus too much on a certain part of our culture and history while not including some other parts of it. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong.
Utah Saints is clever but let's not compete with New Orleans Saints who already have awesome brand and colors.
Utah Pyramid Schemers or Utah MLM's would be pretty cool, gold and green jerseys. Utah Potholes!!! Utah Soccer Moms. Utah Dads Wearing Cargo Shorts would be funny. Utah Families -- all in white, I like it. Utah Botox. Utah Cutting Edgers paying homage to our research history and Silicone Slopes -- too violent, can't do that. Utah Real Estate Bubble could be nice.
Utah Cherries or Peaches, sounds kind of funny but we grow these fruits here. Pretty unique team names. Better than Buzz. I could live with Utah Cherries if we don't do Canyons. Those could be super bright maroon jerseys, fairly unique.
So it's Utah Canyons, right? But how does expansion help? It doesn't, it just dilutes the talent and creates other teams like Salt Lake and Austin who won't compete at all.
So I already touched on one solution, to combine Miami Marlins with Puerto Rico to double the size of the fan base. We are going to do that again. Tampa Bay Rays now play half their games in Mexico City. Voila, baseball in Mexico and Puerto Rico. Two teams with ties to central America. The people of Central and Latin America love baseball. Many top players are from those places. Now they have MLB teams they are tied to. TEAMS that desperately need more fans and more excitement.
This leads to an obvious third expansion/contraction opportunity among existing teams. You know it's coming. Washington Nationals play half their games in Montreal. The colors are already there. The history is already there. The Nationals have no payroll no fans. Montreal wants a team but they can't fill it up year-round. How glorious, the Washington Expos, but they play in both DC and Montreal. Another international team, this time with French ties? Amazing. Did you know French is the third most spoken language in the world? Broadcasts in French would appeal to large parts of Africa plus Canada plus France plus Belgium plus the four people in Luxemburg who love baseball. Genius. so now the NL East has taken its two crappiest teams and made them interesting by combining Miami with Puerto Rico, and Washington with Montreal. And the AL East Rays with no fans now are tied to Mexico City. How glorious.
Basically we don't need expansion, we need contraction.
ANOTHER SOLUTION, CREATE THE CALIFORNIA DIVISION TO INCREASE FIGHTING
This is my other genius idea. You make all the California teams play in the same division. So Dodgers, Giants, Padres, Angels, and A's, except A's are in Relegation division so the AL California division starts with just four teams LAD, SFG, SDP, and LAA. This would create more regional tension and more fistfights as these teams play each other at least 18 times per year. They ride the public bus to the game. They have more time with family. Mike Trout is going to love this. This creates a unique competitive advantage for these teams to play near home so much. The Republicans love it because they can make fun of "California" teams. The liberals love it because they can enjoy California politics all in one division. The division has fun marketing opportunities now.
ANOTHER SOLUTION, MODIFY DIVISIONS
MIX UP AL EAST AND NL EAST
PUT BIG MONEY TEAMS INCLUDING METS AND PHILLIES IN AL EAST
PUT INTERNATIONAL EMPHASIS ON NL EAST
Along with that, we create the big money, big city division. The AL East becomes the Yankees, Mets, Phillies, RedSox, and Orioles. All these teams but Orioles historically have big money and they all hate each other. Tons of fights! They can ride the subway or train to games. You know what creates tension in college football? Local rivalries like Utah-BYU, Utah-Utah State. These are not good teams usually, but they hate each other and the games have stakes for that reason. With these big city, big dollar teams playing each other all the time, familiarity breeds contempt, more fights, like hockey.
The NL East becomes Atlanta, Miami/Puerto Rico, Tampa/Mexico City, Toronto, and Washington/Montreal. See what I did there, All the international teams plus Atlanta all together. These teams are big teams but don't have the money of the NY teams. New international rivalries. Miami/Puerto Rico vs Tampa/Mexico City. Toronto vs Washington/Montreal. Finally people in Canada and Mexico care about the games. New fans. More money! And the AL East and NL East are both still geographically correct, along the eastern sea border mostly. Don't forget Miami is relegated for now.
NEW NL WEST FOR CALIFORNIA TEAMS
So remember all the California teams are together now. And some teams like A's are in relegation, along with Rockies. So now we have a bunch of weird team left like Rangers, Astros, Diamondbacks, Mariners. They become the NL West, with Rockies and A's in relegation for now.
NEW NL CENTRAL
So this holds all the remaining teams like Cubs, Reds, Brewers, Twins, White Sox, Indians, and Tigers. And also Cardinals. Teams like Royals and Pirates in relegation. This is a huge division, eight teams! That's the beauty of it. We have some big divisions and some small. That creates intrigue, easer to win a small division than big one. But more meaningful to win big one. This creates unique features of each team and division, features that are important to making the game nationally interesting. Plus the NL Central and AL Central have been historically pretty weak, so it makes sense they have to play together in giant division
NEW DIVISIONS OVERALL
in sum, NL East is Atlanta, Wash/Montreal, Tampa/Mexico, Miami/Puerto Rico (relegated), Toronto
AL East, NYY, NYM, Phillies, Orioles, BoSox
AL Relegation: Rockies, Royals, Marlins, Pirates, A's
AL California: Padres, Giants, Dodgers, LAA, A's (relegated)
NL West: Astros, Rangers, DBacks, Mariners, Rockies (relegated)
NL Central: Cardinals, Reds, Cubs, ChiSox, Pirates (relegated), Royals (relegated), Tigers, Brewers, Twins, Indians
Each division in addition to its home team colors plays with a special patch to show the division. The Relegation Division patch is super embarrassing to wear. It looks like vomit or soup stain. The California Division is naturally silhouette of state of California. The NL East is a map of Western Hemisphere. The AL East is a dollar bill. And so on.
RULE CHANGES
MANDATORY 6-INNING STARTERS
ALL STARTERS MUST PITCH MINIMUM SIX INNINGS!
I don't want anyone to get hurt, but I want the sport to get better. We need the starters to go six innings, at least. It has to be that way. No one wants to watch the one-inning starter. This is what builds the tension, the hitter getting used to the pitcher, and vice versa. The starting pitcher getting tired, fighting through it. Can he get to the seventh inning, the eighth inning? Greg Maddux getting guys out easily during 2AB and 3AB, and then guys getting a chance against him during AB 4. I don't know how you do this, maybe in a 3-game series, the starters have to go six innings at least twice. You get to use a starter injury exception only one during a 3-game series. I don't know. Maybe a financial penalty to the team who doesn't have starters going six innings more than 7 out of 10 times.
NO HAT PUNISHMENT
LOSER OF PRIOR GAME NOT ALLOWED TO WEAR HAT!
Here's a funny one. During a 2-game or 3-game or 4-game series, the team that won the prior game or the team winning the series gets to wear hats and the other team not. So Braves-Mets play a 3-game series. Braves win game 1. They get to wear hats game 2. The Mets no. So anyone turning on the game can see the Mets lost game 1. Plus we get to see how many guys are bald without the hats to hide them.
4-game series Phils vs Dodgers. Dodgers win games 1 and 2 and Phils win game 3. When game 4 starts, Phils have no hats, because Dodgers ahead in the series 2-1. So the Phillies players without hats -- we can see their gross greasy hair. Alec Bohm has wet Vaseline hair for no reason. Schwarber, going bald, is all greased up. Harper looks like he got out of a car wash. Marsh, don't get me started, but at least the whole world can see his weird hair and maybe an intervention can be staged finally.
MORE HITS INCENTIVES
MORE POINTS FOR SCORING A RUN WITH A BUNCH OF SINGLES
The recent changes re: throws to first, pitcher has to get an out, etc., bigger bases, very good. Let's make the bases even bigger, to encourage more hits, doubles, triples. Here's another one, a HR is worth only .5 point. Man on base, I homer, guy on base gets a point I only get 1/2 point for homering. It's worth more to score the old-fashioned way. Bases loaded, you homer, only 3 1/2 points, but if you hit inside-the-park homer, you get 4 points. You triple, you get three points, plus man on third who can score and get full point next AB.
And how about this to take it the other way? Every home team designates ten feet of wall as a 2-point zone. So if you homer to opposite field 480 ft or whatever, you get two points (instead of only .5 points for normal homer). This creates unique shape/nature to each home field and gives weird incentives to batters.
Or how about this, every run scored on a triple counts twice. Bases jacked, I triple, that scores six points. If I homer, it's only 3.5 points, as outlined above. If I double, that scores two points and there are still two or three men on. These schemes start to create weird incentives for hitters, different strategies on the base paths, more intrigue, more mystery, etc.
We have this in NBA already, 3 pointer vs 2 pointer vs 1 pointer (free throw). Baseball needs to try this.
HOME TEAM FINAL INNING
HOME TEAM CAN CHANGE ITS BATTING ORDER HOWEVER IT WANTS IN NINTH INNING
How about this. The home team batting in bottom of ninth can use any hitter lineup they want. Atlanta, bottom of ninth, they can go Olson, Acuna, Ozuna, even if those guys were up in 8th inning. Makes the end of every game interesting and challenging -- more stakes. Similarly home team pitching in top of ninth can use any pitchers they want, even guys who already pitched that game, even guys who come in for only one pitch.
FIX THE UNIFORMS TO ELIMINATE GREY/WHITE/RED/BLUE TREND
At some point in the last five years, the MLB uniforms started sucking bad. Every team added a bright red jersey (Braves, Twins, Indians, Redsox, Rangers) in addition to those already playing in red (Reds). Where orange was once reserved for Orioles and Astros, other teams like NYM and SFG started pushing their bright orange agendas. Meanwhile many teams fell into temptation with black specialty jerseys (Marlins, NYM). A few teams like NYY and A's remained unique. Some like Cards and LAD maintained classic dignity. Some teams have no idea where they are going (D-Backs?).
Have you watched European football? You can have horizontal or vertical stripes. You can play in pink or yellow. You can have a collar or not. You can have color blocks. Have you watched the NHL? They have crazy color schemes. You can do so much more than red/white/blue in MLB!!!!!!! Maybe the Rockies could play in shorts and tanktops.
So you get the picture. Some teams like Pirates and A's have cool uniforms. Most teams like Indians, Braves, Twins, RedSox, Rangers, do not. Nearly every team focuses on either blue or white or red or grey. Why? We don't know. To trick us into thinking we are watching an American flag?
Mix it up! Shorts, stirrups, baggy, straight, belts, collars, stiff hats, soft hats, short-sleeve, long-sleeve, color rainbow, stripes, dots, mix it up! What do you notice about the crappy jerseys? Made by Nike often. The best jerseys often come from Adidas or Puma. More competition needed!
Well, that's it for now. The idea is to sell baseball games, not baseball moments. Create tension so a fan will watch a whole game. Make starters go six innings or more, so there is drama in whether a starter can finish his duties or not, building natural tension as he gets tired. Create incentives for triples and lower incentives for homers, get players to focus on going up to bat and getting on base with single/trouble/triple, let the fun ensue.
Mix up the divisions to create more rivalries and more pain in the rivalries so the games matter more and hopefully more fighting. Improve the jerseys. The relegation concept provides extra incentive and punishment for each game, meaning more stakes.
When you watch, it's not just to see Ohtani AB, you want to see if the Pirates can come out of relegation, which means every game counts.
Bonus, I have another idea, the first-base coach and third-base coach can't touch a player on the other team, but they can touch their own player, meaning they can run out there and shove him towards home if he's running too slow. Here comes slow fatso rounding third, the third-base coach runs out there, puts his left hand on the player's back, and pushes him towards home. Incentive to have young/strong/healthy/fast third-base coach.
REDUCE INJURIES
SHORTEN SEASON TO 144 GAMES
My favorite team is the Atlanta Braves. What has happened this year? Strider goes out with injury. Now Acuna. A lot of that is just going to happen, of course. But it sucks. There are 162 baseball games in a season. Change to 144, that's 18 fewer games. Maybe Acuna still get injured, but maybe he doesn't. That means there are higher stakes as well for the existing games. That means you can get to the playoffs before Christmas, before it's snowing.
IN SUM
In sum, starters have to go six innings. This leads to more familiarity with the starting pitcher, less reliance on specialist. All the California teams play in a California division. This increases hatred among those teams, more fights. New Relegation Division where five teams play each year - those teams cannot compete in the playoffs. That creates stigma and financial consequence so the owner has reason to pay more. It also makes those games more interesting because the relegated team is playing often against another relegated team, meaning those games have more consequences, and the relegated team can have a shot at winning, because it is always playing another crappy team.
Also, relocate all the rich teams to the AL West. NL East is where the international teams play, you know Nationals playing in Canada, and the Miami teams playing in Mexico City and/or Puerto Rico. So you have more interest because the international teams play each other. Figure out a way to give more points to a run generated from four singles than a run generated from one homer. Home team final inning can use whatever lineup it wants.
You're welcome.