MLB rule change discussion
- Thread starter LadyStanley
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KevFu
Registered User
I’ve accepted that the DH is going to come to the NL, since the NL is basically the only league left on the planet without it and the MLBPA will never allow it to go away (and the rules need to be the same).
That being said, I’d like the “Universal DH” rule to be changed to something that MAKES SENSE for baseball by accomplishing the goals of each side of the DH argument.
There’s NO REASON the DH rule has to be the EXISTING DH rule.
For example, if MLB adopted this as their DH rule, everyone wins:
DH is offensive courtesy player for the STARTING PITCHER only and can enter in place of the SP on offense at any time.
If DH appears, that player is out of the game when the SP is removed.
If DH doesn’t appear before SP is removed, DH returns to list of available bench players.
This is perfect. Pitchers who CAN HIT are still valuable to their team. It retains the late-game NL strategy discussions and decisions around the pitcher’s spot. And it creates NEW STRATEGY all over the place:
Managers can decide to use DH on an AB by AB basis each time SP comes up to try and get their DH back onto the bench for late in games.
Managers have to decide whom to DH (who won’t be available late in games)
Managers have to decide WHERE to bat the P/DH. If you have a David Ortiz type and bat him third, when your SP comes out, Ortiz is done and your P is in the three-hole.
That being said, I’d like the “Universal DH” rule to be changed to something that MAKES SENSE for baseball by accomplishing the goals of each side of the DH argument.
There’s NO REASON the DH rule has to be the EXISTING DH rule.
For example, if MLB adopted this as their DH rule, everyone wins:
DH is offensive courtesy player for the STARTING PITCHER only and can enter in place of the SP on offense at any time.
If DH appears, that player is out of the game when the SP is removed.
If DH doesn’t appear before SP is removed, DH returns to list of available bench players.
This is perfect. Pitchers who CAN HIT are still valuable to their team. It retains the late-game NL strategy discussions and decisions around the pitcher’s spot. And it creates NEW STRATEGY all over the place:
Managers can decide to use DH on an AB by AB basis each time SP comes up to try and get their DH back onto the bench for late in games.
Managers have to decide whom to DH (who won’t be available late in games)
Managers have to decide WHERE to bat the P/DH. If you have a David Ortiz type and bat him third, when your SP comes out, Ortiz is done and your P is in the three-hole.
awfulwaffle
Registered User
tony d
Registered User
Read up on some of the ideas, some are good- others not so much. Universal DH though is an idea who's time has come. No way should there be 2 different rules for the 2 leagues.
LadyStanley
Registered User
MLB Renaming Disabled List To 'Injured List' But Rules & Procedures Remaining The Same - DodgerBlue.com
Seems just simple semantics. But could have something to do with those pesky medical laws in US.
Seems just simple semantics. But could have something to do with those pesky medical laws in US.
Kimi
Registered User
LadyStanley
Registered User
Harvey Birdman
…Need some law books, with pictures this time…
Until there is some sort of salary cap in MLB soft or not I have a hard time following it due to parity.
Kimi
Registered User
But it's not a medical thing, it's just the name given to a subset of your roster. I don't understand how any medical laws could force a change in it. Especially when disabled is a correct word to describe what it is.
I'm asking because everything I've read has just said it's just modernising the name to fit current use and perceptions, nothing about any laws has been mentioned at all.
KevFu
Registered User
The DL was changed to IL because advocates for persons with disabilities lobbied MLB and said "having people who can't play called 'Disabled' does a disservice to people with disabilities, who are trying to prove they CAN do things every day."
That's a reasonable point, so MLB made the change. Because the name itself doesn't actually matter, so why on earth wouldn't they agree to the change. It's no big deal.
That's a reasonable point, so MLB made the change. Because the name itself doesn't actually matter, so why on earth wouldn't they agree to the change. It's no big deal.
I'm considered a traditionalist when it comes to baseball. I'm of the opinion pitchers should be at the plate because a manager should have to make the decision in a tight game whether to pull the pitcher who is dealing. The strike zone should be called based on the rule book, if you don't like shifts hit the ball the other way, and if you don't want so many pitching changes, reduce the roster for the game(carry 25 guys but can only dress 23-24) and make a manager decide whether he wants 12 pitchers or an extra bench player.
Having said like, I'm a fan of the mound visit limit, and I really like the potential this DH Proposal could have. Added bonus: it would put a stop to the "opening pitcher" stuff.
Centrum Hockey
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- Aug 2, 2018
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A universal DH whould make the Al and NL irrelevant and allow realignment to be easier. the league has wanted to do it for a while Radical Realignment - BR Bullpen
Oh I know what Selig has wanted to do. I don't think it will be as good as people think.
One, *nobody* cares anymore that the Mets and Yankees are playing each other. Or the Cubs and the White Sox. Maybe the fans of those teams, but where once it would have been a big deal to the rest of us, it's no big deal.
Not to mention, one of the things the Mets or White Sox or Angels had going for them was that they had different opponents coming into town. They offered a different product. It won't be a good thing long term if they both play the same opponents.
Centrum Hockey
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It whould be good for Seattle to play the giants regularly the al west is brutal for them Houston and Arlington are no where near the northwest
realignment ended for all practical purposes when you got rid of the 6 team NL Central when Milwaukee traded 'leagues' and remember who was supposed to be the fifth team in the NL West until Houston?
anyone remember the original AL East when Milwaukee was there
BigBadBruins7708
Registered User
it has more parity than the NHL...despite only 10 teams making the playoffs.
In the last 10 years:
- 27 of the 30 teams have made the playoffs at least once.
- 14 teams have made it to the World Series
- 8 different teams have won the World Series
and since the year 2000:
- 12 different teams have won a World Series
- 18 different teams have made it to a World Series
- all 30 teams have made the playoffs at least once
- only 6 teams have an active playoff drought greater than 5 seasons
- 25 of the 30 teams have finished 1st in their division
KevFu
Registered User
I’m also a traditionalist, but a pragmatist and a realist. The DH isn’t going away.
But why settle for apply a rule? Why not try to accomplish all the goals of everyone.
Which would be terrible for business. MLB’s slow, incremental change has put them on the cusp of being able to pull off the ideal situation.
Radical realignment would be bad. But by slowly adding interleague and then adding an NL DH to make the rules the same, they can retain AL/NL separation (which is good), while adding more regional interleague games between teams that should play each other more (PTZ vs PTZ/MTZ; Central vs Central, Northeast vs Northeast, South vs South).
The NHL and MLB need to move slightly more like each other.
AL/NL had an interleague stigma. NHL doesn’t.
But MLB maximizes their inventory far better than the NHL:
1. No one has any interest in Washington vs Seattle, so they visit each for one home and home each every six seasons.
2. HOU & TEX series were sellouts in interleague, but dropped 10,000 fans per game when they became ordinary.
3. The order of importance for the games on the schedule is: Division, Conference, Non-Conference. But local rivals like CHI vs CHI, SF vs OAK, etc have an intense extraordinary significance to fans. By having your high-interest games as “non-conference games” you’re maximizing the amount of interest there would be in everyone’s schedule.
NHL: 32 non-conference games, 20 conference, 30 division games
MLB divided by 2: 10 non-conference (3 vs local rival), 35 conference, 38 division games.
If MLB and NHL went to 16 teams in AL, 16 in NL, and did W-C-E-N in each league, and then did rival divisions in interleague and the schedule was FIVE DIVISIONS all the time and ignored the other three divisions, you could reach max interest in inventory by having the most possible standings impact and rivalry impact and time zone convenience for fans.
That should be the goal, and MLB’s plan to add two teams for 32 is coming soon.
Centrum Hockey
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A lot of match ups are not a big deal anymore i have been to Yankee stadium as a redsox fan and the fans there where no where near as intense towards Boston fans as they where decades ago i doubt mlb is concerned about the mystique of rare interlegue match ups going away
There are a couple of elephants in the room. 1)Interleague play was not ever something that was about "seeing the other league's stars," it was about having the Mets play the Yankees, or the Cubs play the White Sox, with the Dodgers/Angels a minor concern. I'm of half a mind that it was ESPN/Fox that pushed it as much as anyone. 2)Interleague play has really taken something off of the World Series. When the teams have played each other often enough, they are just another set of games. Sure, it's the championship, but....it's not the same as it was.
The other thing to remember is that when interleague was just 15 games or so, they were limited to June/July, and mostly weekends. Everyone pimped the "attendance bump" from interleague play, but let's see what you would get if Arizona had to play in Detroit in mid April.
I'm a capitalist, and I don't begrudge someone making a buck, but I think far too many people in those positions are not willing to consider longer term ramifications. Baseball had something special with the separate leagues. And for a few years, there may have been some revenue realized by throwing that away, but when the novelty wears off and the casual people move on, you no longer have that revenue, nor do you have what made it special. Long term pain for short term gain IMHO.
I thinking radical realignment died with Selig's retirement. That seemed to be his personal desire that no one else really supported.
Any other (non-radical) realignment is likely to wait until the increasingly likely not-too-distant expansion, as any alignment would need to account for that pair of teams. A 4x4 alignment in each league, as in the NFL seems likely. Probably even plays into a scheduling formula I've seen floated that actually sees every team play every other team in a year (like the NBA and NHL), while still being unbalanced enough that divisions mean something. Having the Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox, Cubs or other teams with a national following Coke to town every year would likely be a boost to attendance. (It would address the complaints that teams like the Mets play the Yankees as their "interleague rival" while the weaker Florida teams get to play each other.)
There's also the discussion ongoing about possibly cutting the season to the pre-expansion 154 games. I could see loosing a couple to add off days, but I'm not so sure owners would agree to losing four home dates to make money (remembering that MLB is still somewhat gate driven, though RSN rights fees are their biggest source of cash).
Also consider that, unlike the other major leagues, MLB games are always played in series of 2 to 4 games (and the 2 game series is a relatively recent phenomenon). So a team would have to play 4 games each against interleague opponents, a two-game series at home, and a two-game series on the road. With 16 teams in each league, that's 64 interleague games for each team. Within the league, if there's 4 divisions of 4, then 6 games (2 three-game series, one at home, one on the road) against teams in the other divisions in the league yields 72 games. Then there's the teams in the division, with 8 total games each (either as 2 four-game series or 4 two-game series, or a combination that makes sense for travel, or to spread the games out so the major rivals aren't only in town once a year), yielding 24 games. Total: 160 games. Each team only looses one home game. And each team in a division plays the same opponents the same number of times, making it a fair schedule.
That said, probably too balanced, giving not enough intra-division games. Could reduce the interdivision, intraleague games to four each, but then there's no difference between those and interleague games.
Any other (non-radical) realignment is likely to wait until the increasingly likely not-too-distant expansion, as any alignment would need to account for that pair of teams. A 4x4 alignment in each league, as in the NFL seems likely. Probably even plays into a scheduling formula I've seen floated that actually sees every team play every other team in a year (like the NBA and NHL), while still being unbalanced enough that divisions mean something. Having the Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox, Cubs or other teams with a national following Coke to town every year would likely be a boost to attendance. (It would address the complaints that teams like the Mets play the Yankees as their "interleague rival" while the weaker Florida teams get to play each other.)
There's also the discussion ongoing about possibly cutting the season to the pre-expansion 154 games. I could see loosing a couple to add off days, but I'm not so sure owners would agree to losing four home dates to make money (remembering that MLB is still somewhat gate driven, though RSN rights fees are their biggest source of cash).
Also consider that, unlike the other major leagues, MLB games are always played in series of 2 to 4 games (and the 2 game series is a relatively recent phenomenon). So a team would have to play 4 games each against interleague opponents, a two-game series at home, and a two-game series on the road. With 16 teams in each league, that's 64 interleague games for each team. Within the league, if there's 4 divisions of 4, then 6 games (2 three-game series, one at home, one on the road) against teams in the other divisions in the league yields 72 games. Then there's the teams in the division, with 8 total games each (either as 2 four-game series or 4 two-game series, or a combination that makes sense for travel, or to spread the games out so the major rivals aren't only in town once a year), yielding 24 games. Total: 160 games. Each team only looses one home game. And each team in a division plays the same opponents the same number of times, making it a fair schedule.
That said, probably too balanced, giving not enough intra-division games. Could reduce the interdivision, intraleague games to four each, but then there's no difference between those and interleague games.
KevFu
Registered User
What's interesting is how the MLB schedule is 2x the NHL schedule (162 vs 82), but it's really more like "54 games" because of series.
And that's why that one MLB proposal for 32-teams with radical realignment to "reduce travel" was total BS nonsense.
The ultimate way to reduce travel for MLB would be to simply play 4-game series.
If you had 32 teams, and did W-C-E-E in each league, and set the schedule as:
16 vs division (48), 8 vs league (84) , 8 vs rival division (32) that adds up to 156.
That's 39 series instead of 54 series. That's 15 fewer flights for teams. And it's also only 12 road series outside your time zone.
awfulwaffle
Registered User
4 game series are nice, but that won't work with weekend games. Let's say you have 1 off for travel. That's 9 days. Th-su, mon travel, tu-fi, sat travel. Already fails. Mlb won't give up weekend games.
The twofold issue with that formula is that there's likely to be four divisions in a league after expansion, and always playing the same corresponding division would result in a competitive imbalance.
Another formula I saw in an article went:
-Fourteen games versus each divisional opponent – one three-game series and one four-game series at each site – for a total of 42 games.
-Six games versus each interdivisional opponent from the same league – a three-game series at each site – for a total of 72 games.
-A single three-game series versus each interleague opponent, with the site alternating annually – for a total of 48 games.
While it wouldn't have the every-team-visits-every-other-team aspect, it is definitely weighted towards divisional play, yet is competitively balanced.
Plus, if the push for reducing the number of games slightly does gain steam, there's an easy solution: turn those four game intra-division series to three game series. Makes the schedule 156 games with the breakdown 12 divisional, 6 inter-divisional, 3 interleague each, which has a certain symmetry about it, and allows for all series to be three games, a level of consistency that makes the jobs of the schedule makers and the teams' travel departments much easier and more predictable.
KevFu
Registered User
The PCL has been four games series for a long time. It's fine.
You simply do 8 games, off-day when that the off-day would fall on Mon-Thurs, and 12 games, off-day when it doesn't and then it will.
KevFu
Registered User
Even if there weren't 4-team divisions, you'd want four-team "Schedule pools" for interleague anyway, so PTZ vs PTZ, and MTZ vs MTZ.
Look, I'm a Mets fan. The Mets went 1997-2012 playing the Yankees (aka, best team in that span by record) 3 or 6 times every year, while St. Louis played 3 or 6 against Kansas City (one of the worst teams in the league in that span).
Then it would be Wildcard standings time and we're two games away from them, when they're 4-2 vs KC and we're 2-4 vs NYY.
Is that fair? No. But NOTHING ABOUT THE WILDCARD IS FAIR AT ALL. Or divisions.
Back in those days, St. Louis (Central) and the Mets (East) each played 7 games vs the 15 other teams in the NL (105) and 57 different games. (35% different)
My 32-team AL/NL schedule model actually has LESS imbalance (but I royally screwed up my math.
14 vs division (42)
8 vs league (96)
6 vs rival league (24)
That adds up correctly. Each team would be playing 42 different games than the other teams in the league, 26% different games.
MLB in general has a silly low number of similar games. The only way to make it totally fair is to back to what we had until 1959 and the Mets got a team to replace the Dodgers/Giants in New York.
Baseball was 8 teams per league, 22 vs seven opponents for 154 games.
162 is only some magic number because when they went to 10, it was 8 opponents times 18 = 162; then they added two more and split into divisions and went 5 x 18 = 96, 6 x 11 = 66, 162. Then the AL added two more and 13 x 6 = 78, 12 x 7 = 84, 162. The math worked three times in a row. So 162 became the magic number.
But 32 teams is just double back then. So go FOUR LEAGUES of 8.
Of course, then your problem is:
1. Dividing into groups of 8 that makes sense financially
2. Do you have interleague?
3. How do you determine playoff semifinals?
And I have a plan for that which is kind of crazy, but also makes a ton of sense. I've shared it before.
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