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<blockquote data-quote="ChiefGritty" data-source="post: 1451639" data-attributes="member: 746137"><p>So I thought of this and this seemed like a good place to write it down:</p><p></p><p>My Plan To Fix Baseball, in three parts</p><p></p><p>Preamble: There is a lot of talk about the need to alter some of baseball's rules. This often gets framed in terms of the needs of millennials, and their lack of appreciation of the rhythms of the game. That framing is wrong. Baseball's problem is not that it has changed too little, but that it has changed too much. The continual deterioration in the pace of play and amount of action on the field has made the game a less watchable product than it was in the old days. We want to make it MORE like the baseball previous generations enjoyed, not less. Meanwhile, the incentive structure of the game has made cynical fan-insulting tanking a widespread crisis and blight on the sport. Not every team can be a winner every year, but teams need to be incentivized to put the best possible product on the field, and to seek out players on the open market who can help them achieve that, so that every game in MLB is a battle of two organizations who genuinely want to win from top to bottom.</p><p></p><p>With that in mind, here are the ideas.</p><p></p><p><strong>Part 1: Gameplay</strong></p><p></p><p>- The size of the strike zone will be redefined as the armpits to the top of the knees, which is where it was set in 1969 after the mound lowering in that year.</p><p>- The mound will be raised from 10 inches to 12 (it was 15 inches during the pitcher-dominant 60's period)</p><p>- 20 second pitch clock, along with umpires being instructed to strictly enforce the existing rules against batters leaving the batter's box</p><p>- A three-batter minimum per pitcher entering the game, unless the pitcher allows a run</p><p>- Teams may only place 4 players to one side of second base in a defensive alignment (not including the pitcher and catcher), with an exception for situations where the opposing team can potentially produce a walk-off game winning hit.</p><p>- For official scoring purposes, a player will only be recorded as playing the defensive position in which he started the inning (unless he switches to pitcher or catcher). This is for ease of reading box scores and for fantasy baseball purposes, where defensive tomfoolery shouldn't make Anthony Rizzo 2nd base eligible, for example.</p><p></p><p>The broad goal of these changes is to make the game faster, and to encourage balls to be hit in play. Pitchers working quicker, for longer, toward a smaller strike zone, with a more open infield behind them will be throwing a more hittable ball that batters will have a stronger incentive to avoid striking out on. Loading up for a massive low-accuracy uppercut will become less valuable, and there will be more plays in the field.</p><p></p><p><strong>Part 2: Competitive Balance</strong></p><p></p><p>- With the exception of the top 7 most valuable markets (Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Cubs, Mets, Giants, Angels), any team that finished with fewer than 90 losses will receive a compensatory draft pick after the end of the first round, in order from best to worst record. This will replace the existing "competitive balance lottery".</p><p>- The top 5 picks in the draft (as well as the top 5 bonus pools for international prospects) will be assigned in reverse order of the team's draft position the previous year. IE, if you had the #1 pick last year, the highest you can get the next year is #5. The Big 7 teams will be ineligible to move up as a result of this process, but may move down. (So the Yankees can't win the World Series and then mini-tank and get the #1 pick without the actual worst record, but they also will be punished for multi-year tanking).</p><p>- The luxury tax will remain in place, but all "repeater" penalties and all draft pick penalties will be removed. The point of the tax is to have teams pay it, and thus redistribute that money to the smaller market teams, not for the big teams to dodge the tax, keep the small market teams poor, and hoard profits for themselves.</p><p></p><p>The idea here is to make trying to be good the better rebuilding avenue than trying to be bad. If you're intentionally bad for multiple years, your draft and amateur signing resources get worse, not better. If you stay competitive, they get better, not worse.</p><p></p><p><strong>Part 3: Player Compensation</strong></p><p></p><p>- All teams must have a payroll of at least half of the luxury tax threshold, or pay the difference between their payroll and half the luxury tax threshold back to their players (this is what the NBA does).</p><p>- Minimum MLB salary is $1 million. After 1 year of service time it's $1.5M, after two years it's $2M. The extreme cheapness of the youngest players distorts the entire marketplace, and is unfair to excellent young players who no longer have illogical bloated contracts to look forward to in their 30's now that teams are smarter in free agency.</p><p>- Minimum salary for a minor league player on the 40-man roster is $150K, and for any player chosen in the first 10 rounds of the draft, or in at least their second year with an organization, it's 75K. Professional baseball players in a multi-billion dollar industry deserve a healthy wage and will be able to train and develop better with money to eat well, train well, and live well.</p><p>- The first year of service time will be accrued if a player is on the major league roster for more than half the season. If a player is added to the MLB roster for the first time after the trade deadline, that players service time will not count toward their free agency clock if the team elects to instead 1. allow the player to accrue a full year of service time the next season if they spend ANY time in the majors and 2. grant the player automatic eligibility for "super two" arbitration. This ends the nonsense of leaving elite prospects in the minors for a week to steal a whole year of team control from them, and incentivizes teams to call up hot prospects earlier rather than later. They can essentially get that first post-All Star cup of coffee for free.</p><p></p><p>Combine this with the competitive balance stuff and it's very simple, if you want to go young as a route to competing better on the field and having a brighter future, great! Put your best players out there and supplement them with what you need to win games. If you want to "go young" to slash costs while simultaneously cynically manipulating the service time of your actual best players, you gain no advantage from doing so.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="ChiefGritty, post: 1451639, member: 746137"] So I thought of this and this seemed like a good place to write it down: My Plan To Fix Baseball, in three parts Preamble: There is a lot of talk about the need to alter some of baseball's rules. This often gets framed in terms of the needs of millennials, and their lack of appreciation of the rhythms of the game. That framing is wrong. Baseball's problem is not that it has changed too little, but that it has changed too much. The continual deterioration in the pace of play and amount of action on the field has made the game a less watchable product than it was in the old days. We want to make it MORE like the baseball previous generations enjoyed, not less. Meanwhile, the incentive structure of the game has made cynical fan-insulting tanking a widespread crisis and blight on the sport. Not every team can be a winner every year, but teams need to be incentivized to put the best possible product on the field, and to seek out players on the open market who can help them achieve that, so that every game in MLB is a battle of two organizations who genuinely want to win from top to bottom. With that in mind, here are the ideas. [B]Part 1: Gameplay[/B] - The size of the strike zone will be redefined as the armpits to the top of the knees, which is where it was set in 1969 after the mound lowering in that year. - The mound will be raised from 10 inches to 12 (it was 15 inches during the pitcher-dominant 60's period) - 20 second pitch clock, along with umpires being instructed to strictly enforce the existing rules against batters leaving the batter's box - A three-batter minimum per pitcher entering the game, unless the pitcher allows a run - Teams may only place 4 players to one side of second base in a defensive alignment (not including the pitcher and catcher), with an exception for situations where the opposing team can potentially produce a walk-off game winning hit. - For official scoring purposes, a player will only be recorded as playing the defensive position in which he started the inning (unless he switches to pitcher or catcher). This is for ease of reading box scores and for fantasy baseball purposes, where defensive tomfoolery shouldn't make Anthony Rizzo 2nd base eligible, for example. The broad goal of these changes is to make the game faster, and to encourage balls to be hit in play. Pitchers working quicker, for longer, toward a smaller strike zone, with a more open infield behind them will be throwing a more hittable ball that batters will have a stronger incentive to avoid striking out on. Loading up for a massive low-accuracy uppercut will become less valuable, and there will be more plays in the field. [B]Part 2: Competitive Balance[/B] - With the exception of the top 7 most valuable markets (Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Cubs, Mets, Giants, Angels), any team that finished with fewer than 90 losses will receive a compensatory draft pick after the end of the first round, in order from best to worst record. This will replace the existing "competitive balance lottery". - The top 5 picks in the draft (as well as the top 5 bonus pools for international prospects) will be assigned in reverse order of the team's draft position the previous year. IE, if you had the #1 pick last year, the highest you can get the next year is #5. The Big 7 teams will be ineligible to move up as a result of this process, but may move down. (So the Yankees can't win the World Series and then mini-tank and get the #1 pick without the actual worst record, but they also will be punished for multi-year tanking). - The luxury tax will remain in place, but all "repeater" penalties and all draft pick penalties will be removed. The point of the tax is to have teams pay it, and thus redistribute that money to the smaller market teams, not for the big teams to dodge the tax, keep the small market teams poor, and hoard profits for themselves. The idea here is to make trying to be good the better rebuilding avenue than trying to be bad. If you're intentionally bad for multiple years, your draft and amateur signing resources get worse, not better. If you stay competitive, they get better, not worse. [B]Part 3: Player Compensation[/B] - All teams must have a payroll of at least half of the luxury tax threshold, or pay the difference between their payroll and half the luxury tax threshold back to their players (this is what the NBA does). - Minimum MLB salary is $1 million. After 1 year of service time it's $1.5M, after two years it's $2M. The extreme cheapness of the youngest players distorts the entire marketplace, and is unfair to excellent young players who no longer have illogical bloated contracts to look forward to in their 30's now that teams are smarter in free agency. - Minimum salary for a minor league player on the 40-man roster is $150K, and for any player chosen in the first 10 rounds of the draft, or in at least their second year with an organization, it's 75K. Professional baseball players in a multi-billion dollar industry deserve a healthy wage and will be able to train and develop better with money to eat well, train well, and live well. - The first year of service time will be accrued if a player is on the major league roster for more than half the season. If a player is added to the MLB roster for the first time after the trade deadline, that players service time will not count toward their free agency clock if the team elects to instead 1. allow the player to accrue a full year of service time the next season if they spend ANY time in the majors and 2. grant the player automatic eligibility for "super two" arbitration. This ends the nonsense of leaving elite prospects in the minors for a week to steal a whole year of team control from them, and incentivizes teams to call up hot prospects earlier rather than later. They can essentially get that first post-All Star cup of coffee for free. Combine this with the competitive balance stuff and it's very simple, if you want to go young as a route to competing better on the field and having a brighter future, great! Put your best players out there and supplement them with what you need to win games. If you want to "go young" to slash costs while simultaneously cynically manipulating the service time of your actual best players, you gain no advantage from doing so. [/QUOTE]
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