knoxtom said:

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Here are some things I would consider...

7 innings with 4 outs each inning

start each AB with 1 ball and 1 strike

All pitchers must pitch to three batters min, except for injury. If a pitcher is removed for injury before the three batter rule, then he can't pitch for a week.

electronic calling of balls and strikes

2 infielders must play to one side of 2nd base and 2 on the other. If you pull in an OF as a fifth IF, then he can be anywhere.

pitch clock of 20 seconds, batter can't step out of the box

HBP is 2 bases, not one

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YellAg2004 said:

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Which raises the question, how the hell does a CB Bucknor or Angel Hernandez ever make it to the majors? Were they good at some point in their careers and then just started sucking more and more each season?

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Haha. Yeah, you would have to assume they were considered good at one point, but they also came up when there was less technology and less data so easier to make mistakes in grading umpires. Also, unfortunately, once an umpire has been in the league long enough, it is much more difficult to get rid of him.

rosco511 said:

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YellAg2004 said:

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Which raises the question, how the hell does a CB Bucknor or Angel Hernandez ever make it to the majors? Were they good at some point in their careers and then just started sucking more and more each season?

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Haha. Yeah, you would have to assume they were considered good at one point, but they also came up when there was less technology and less data so easier to make mistakes in grading umpires. Also, unfortunately, once an umpire has been in the league long enough, it is much more difficult to get rid of him.

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That's because he'll sue you for racism.

Skimmed the thread...

Shorten the game to lure the casual fan?

Solution: call strikes per rule book and not the ump's personal preference. With this a high scoring game is 7-6 and take 3.5 hours to conclude. Most games would be a max of five runs total and 3 hour duration.

My favorite games are 3-2, 2-1 affairs with great defense, timely hitting and occasional bomb HR.

A couple of things that I'd like to see happen, but probably won't. But, I can dream a bit.

1. Have each team host a regularly scheduled doubleheader once a year, priced as a single game, or perhaps a little more than a single game ticket. I'd even be OK with a one-day roster expansion to 27 for a bit of extra depth if needed.

2. Play at least one World Series game during the day on the weekend. I know there are other playoff games during the day, but it's been 30 years or so since a WS game started during the day. Young kids in particular usually don't see the end of a WS game. NBA finals are during the summer, and the Super Bowl is usually over by 10 Eastern time (I wish the SB kicked off about 3:00 instead of 5:30, but that's a different discussion).

Quote:

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My favorite games are 3-2, 2-1 affairs with great defense, timely hitting and occasional bomb HR.

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To be fair, 3-2, 2-1 games occur because there's a lack of timely hitting.

I don't know how to change it, but the trend towards the 3 True Outcomes is not so exciting. Zone contact rate is falling, strikeouts are rising, etc.

I do think baseball tickets have gotten too expensive. When I was growing up my parents wouldn't take me to NBA or NFL games b/c they were too expensive. Baseball was cheap... $5-10 nosebleed seats in the Astrodome. Now I don't feel like baseball tickets are any cheaper than NFL / NBA unless you happen to go on a special promotion night..

In a 162 game season you can't charge $30-40 bucks per ticket and expect the stands to be filled every night

Man baseball is astronomically cheaper than NFL and NBA tickets.

You can't step foot in a parking lot for an NFL game for less than $40.

I grew up in Fort Stockton so we were far from live baseball. My dad and I came to Houston for 4 or 5 days each year right after the All Star break and watched baseball. That first weekend back they always played a doubleheader on saturday. It was glorious.

You might can play a WS day game on saturday but the NFL would destroy the WS on a sunday afternoon. The 5 lowest rated WS over the last 40 years have come since 2008. I don't know how it does against college football but I'd assume it comes in second.

aggie1906 said:

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You can buy tickets for Astros games for $6 in the upper decks.

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Not for weekend games.

Maybe if you buy way in advance or on a special promotion night. We usually buy day of and cheapest is about $20/each.

CorpsAg11 said:

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aggie1906 said:

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You can buy tickets for Astros games for $6 in the upper decks.

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Maybe if you buy way in advance or on a special promotion night. We usually buy day of and cheapest is about $20/each.

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It is dynamic pricing so not every game is $6 but here are the following. 18, 21, 14, 7, 7, 9, 6, 6, 7, 7, 15, 20, 11, 7, 7, 11, 15, 9, 10, 12, 12, 8, 9, 9, 13, 14, 13, 9, 10, 9, 6, 7, 7, 9, 9, 9.

diehard03 said:

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Quote:

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My favorite games are 3-2, 2-1 affairs with great defense, timely hitting and occasional bomb HR.

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To be fair, 3-2, 2-1 games occur because there's a lack of timely hitting.

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Okay, wiseacre. Superfluous post is superfluous.

BQ2001 said:

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It needs to be easier to watch the damn games on tv/internet. Getting only the out of market games on MLB TV is just dumb.

Just broadcast the home teams feed with all their commercials that root (or whatever channel) broadcast and be done with it.

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Exactly. Charge more for the commercial spots. Bingo.

Here are my minor ideas... some of this goes against my own personal ideologies involving baseball, but I think it would make it better.

Ideas more on the minor side...

Shorter spring training, Shorter regular season, More Playoffs

• Spring training is outdated and the players hate it... It makes no revenue and most fans give less than a damn about it. Trim it down to 2-3 weeks max.
• Shorten the regular season by at least a week or 6 games, and start it sooner. It should start in mid-march, I don't care about weather related problems... it's worth the risk.
• Now... if you trim a week off and start the regular season a week sooner... the bulk of the playoffs are at the very beginning of football season and not right in the meat of it.
• Here's my plan... and I think it's a good one.... for the playoffs. The 2 wild cards play a best 2 out of 3 game series on Tuesday, Wednesday, and possibly Thursday... They go right into the Divisional series that Friday night. It would be the wild card's #3 or #4 pitcher going against the one or two seed team's ace... but it would be a 7-game series. It would put even more of a premium on winning the division and give you a great story line when the upsets happen... This would put the World Series going from October 3-11 instead of October 24- November 1 this year.

More radical ideas

• Catchers, pitchers, and pitching coaches all get to wear an ear piece and communicate at alloted times instead of having the damn meetings over and over. Limit their actual meetings to 1 per pitcher before changing him.
• Speed up replay decisions. I have no idea why this still takes so long.

Most radical idea...

• Expand the league by 2 teams and make 8, 4-team division ala the NFL. Go to extremely regionalized divisions... for example... NY Yankees, BoSox, NY Mets, and the Phillies. Where the 2 other expansion teams would be would play heavily into this...
• Baseball is a very regional sport and rivalries are great. The Rangers Astros rivalry is quickly becoming of the best. If the Yankees/Mets, Cubs/WhiteSox, Angels/Dodgers, etc were in the same division... it would foster tremendous rivalries and get people invested. Having a team or 2 too absolutely hate it just as fun as having a team to love.

irish pete ag06 said:

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Here are my minor ideas... some of this goes against my own personal ideologies involving baseball, but I think it would make it better.

Ideas more on the minor side...

Shorter spring training, Shorter regular season, More Playoffs

• Spring training is outdated and the players hate it... It makes no revenue and most fans give less than a damn about it. Trim it down to 2-3 weeks max.
• Shorten the regular season by at least a week or 6 games, and start it sooner. It should start in mid-march, I don't care about weather related problems... it's worth the risk.
• Now... if you trim a week off and start the regular season a week sooner... the bulk of the playoffs are at the very beginning of football season and not right in the meat of it.
• Here's my plan... and I think it's a good one.... for the playoffs. The 2 wild cards play a best 2 out of 3 game series on Tuesday, Wednesday, and possibly Thursday... They go right into the Divisional series that Friday night. It would be the wild card's #3 or #4 pitcher going against the one or two seed team's ace... but it would be a 7-game series. It would put even more of a premium on winning the division and give you a great story line when the upsets happen... This would put the World Series going from October 3-11 instead of October 24- November 1 this year.

More radical ideas

• Catchers, pitchers, and pitching coaches all get to wear an ear piece and communicate at alloted times instead of having the damn meetings over and over. Limit their actual meetings to 1 per pitcher before changing him.
• Speed up replay decisions. I have no idea why this still takes so long.

Most radical idea...

• Expand the league by 2 teams and make 8, 4-team division ala the NFL. Go to extremely regionalized divisions... for example... NY Yankees, BoSox, NY Mets, and the Phillies. Where the 2 other expansion teams would be would play heavily into this...
• Baseball is a very regional sport and rivalries are great. The Rangers Astros rivalry is quickly becoming of the best. If the Yankees/Mets, Cubs/WhiteSox, Angels/Dodgers, etc were in the same division... it would foster tremendous rivalries and get people invested. Having a team or 2 too absolutely hate it just as fun as having a team to love.

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having west coast teams start an hour early would help my viewership on weeknights

irish pete ag06 said:

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Expand the league by 2 teams and make 8, 4-team division ala the NFL. Go to extremely regionalized divisions... for example... NY Yankees, BoSox, NY Mets, and the Phillies. Where the 2 other expansion teams would be would play heavily into this...

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There are teams like the Padres and Phillies who are God awful and are torturous to watch. Adding two more teams like them would only make the gave less competitive between divisions.

I would rather eliminate four teams and increase roster size to 28 players.

Tampa, San Diego, Seattle, Miami <--- eliminate and shuffle minor leagues to these places. That is 2 NL and 2 AL teams. Also two teams on West coast and two on East coast. This will shorten the season.

For those wanting to provide the catcher with an earpiece to communicate with the pitcher instead of going out to the mound, how do you propose they do that w/o the batter hearing what the catcher is saying?

Never mind - I figured it out:

You shut your finger typing hatred!!!

979ag said:

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irish pete ag06 said:

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Expand the league by 2 teams and make 8, 4-team division ala the NFL. Go to extremely regionalized divisions... for example... NY Yankees, BoSox, NY Mets, and the Phillies. Where the 2 other expansion teams would be would play heavily into this...

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There are teams like the Padres and Phillies who are God awful and are torturous to watch. Adding two more teams like them would only make the gave less competitive between divisions.

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There will always be really bad teams. Adding 2 teams doesn't guarantee there are 2 more bad teams... it would create 2 more division races... plus whatever type of wild card situation you add to that.

dvldog said:

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For those wanting to provide the catcher with an earpiece to communicate with the pitcher instead of going out to the mound, how do you propose they do that w/o the batter hearing what the catcher is saying?

Never mind - I figured it out:

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Cover his mouth with his glove, duh.

jja79 said:

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I grew up in Fort Stockton so we were far from live baseball. My dad and I came to Houston for 4 or 5 days each year right after the All Star break and watched baseball. That first weekend back they always played a doubleheader on saturday. It was glorious.

You might can play a WS day game on saturday but the NFL would destroy the WS on a sunday afternoon. The 5 lowest rated WS over the last 40 years have come since 2008. I don't know how it does against college football but I'd assume it comes in second.

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You're probably right on both counts re: NFL and college football, but both of those also have high profile matchups in the evening. Maybe a Saturday day game could get some promotion behind it...I dunno. I remember loving those WS day games as a kid because I could watch the whole thing, and that might be a small thing to help get younger fans on board.

I didn't grow up with an opportunity to go to MLB games, but I always liked the Aggie DHs when I was in school.

irish pete ag06 said:

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979ag said:

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irish pete ag06 said:

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Expand the league by 2 teams and make 8, 4-team division ala the NFL. Go to extremely regionalized divisions... for example... NY Yankees, BoSox, NY Mets, and the Phillies. Where the 2 other expansion teams would be would play heavily into this...

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There are teams like the Padres and Phillies who are God awful and are torturous to watch. Adding two more teams like them would only make the gave less competitive between divisions.

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There will always be really bad teams. Adding 2 teams doesn't guarantee there are 2 more bad teams... it would create 2 more division races... plus whatever type of wild card situation you add to that.

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Respectable. I just think the more teams you start adding to the playoff picture who think they have a chance, the more teams who start loading up on ace pitchers and superstars to form a GSW type baseball team. I feel like adding the extra playoff games and giving more teams a chance would start the creation of baseball "superteams." I could be totally wrong though.

Form charity select programs that focus on baseball and strength training instead of show case tournaments all over the country. Offer spring baseball for HS age kids.

Baseball should be for everyone, not just the kids who's parents can afford the coaching. Baseball needs to be separated from football. Let the HS football coaches keep putting their football kids on their baseball fields. The serious players with baseball skills shouldn't have to throw away four Springs of important developmental years because there are no other options.

MaroonStain said:

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I would rather eliminate four teams and increase roster size to 28 players.

Tampa, San Diego, Seattle, Miami <--- eliminate and shuffle minor leagues to these places. That is 2 NL and 2 AL teams. Also two teams on West coast and two on East coast. This will shorten the season.

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Ignoring the fact that baseball (or someone) would have to buyout the value of these teams (an estimated $4.3b by Forbes): you propose that MLB should remove all major league teams from Florida?

Put all the games on network TV....CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX....

1. Drop the season to 120-125 games. 154+ scheduling was done in an era without playoffs. Expand the playoffs if you want, but the playoffs should start no later than Labor Day. There is nothing intrinsically valuable about a long regular season unless you want to use that to determine your league champion. Who, other than the biggest baseball fans watch teams not in a pennant or WC race play in September? OK, a few. Who watches this baseball over football? Almost nobody.

2. We have a play clock in football, a shot clock in basketball, so why not a pitch clock in baseball while introducing time outs -- a set number for each team, offense or defense. The clock hasn't ruined either football or basketball (yes, I know they are different from baseball, but not THAT different) and fouls/violations for excessive time don't happen often. 2-3 times a game at most. Pitchers pitch and batters stay in the box. What is wrong with that?

3. I don't know exactly what to suggest but there needs to be a deterrent to replacing a pitcher during an inning. Sending out a new pitcher every inning is fine but interrupting innings takes a lot of time.

I think the answer has to be a pitch clock. There are pitchers that spend 18 seconds between pitches and others that spend 28-30 seconds. Make everyone shorten this to 18 seconds. You cut 30 minutes out of an average game and more importantly cut out the slowest, dullest part of the game. Overall, this doesn't really change the way the game is played at all.

russ05 said:

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I think the answer has to be a pitch clock. There are pitchers that spend 18 seconds between pitches and others that spend 28-30 seconds. Make everyone shorten this to 18 seconds. You cut 30 minutes out of an average game and more importantly cut out the slowest, dullest part of the game. Overall, this doesn't really change the way the game is played at all.

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Minor leagues have a 20 second pitch clock and it seems to work just fine. There is also a 30 second clock for the next batter to get in the box after the first and second out. I'd be OK with MLB adopting both of these.