My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you
So over at Fangraphs is some dude called Maury Brown who has written a very odd post about the things he would do if he were the "God of Baseball." We should all be happy that Maury isn’t the Greek god of anything, because his ideas are about as terrible as ideas come. Let’s make fun of them!
I don’t want to be "Commissioner for a day." What’s the fun in that? I mean, after all, if I’m Commissioner then I have to deal with Michael Weiner and the MLBPA. No, I want to do whatever I please without anything getting in the way.
I’d just like to note that when he says "anything," he is including in the set things like logic and reason and empirical evidence. As we shall soon discover!
Abolishing the DH
Let’s get the easy one out of the way: I’m killing the DH. It’s time for the NL and AL to play by the same rules. Yeah, you’re going to get more bunts than before and guys like Thome and Manny have shorter careers, but it’s time to put a fork in it if for no other reason than to keep AL pitchers from looking like fools in the postseason when they come to the plate.
Now, I’m no fan of the DH, but I do think you need some other reason there, Edna. I’d like to get rid of the DH mainly because it represents a step in a direction I don’t want baseball to take, which is toward a football-like specialisation where offense and defense are entirely separate teams. Also, I sort of like watching people look like fools.
Also note that your argument fails to consider that enforcing the DH on both leagues would accomplish your solitary stated goal also, as well as making Hank happy because those fucking cavemen in the NL won’t be endangering his fragile little fairy pitchers.
Expanded Instant Replay
If there are boundary calls for homeruns, let’s go one step more and say that instant replay should be used for foul balls. It’s not going to go as far as some would like, but at the very least the gaffe that Phil Cuzzi made in Game 2 of last year’s ALDS doesn’t happen anymore. When you look at how bad that call was, it’s an easy decision to make. I’m sure Joe Mauer agrees with me.
It’s barely going to go anywhere at all. What’s with the balls-less replay approach? You’re the God of Baseball, jackass. I don’t think you’re allowed to be the Greek God of anything if you’re such a gigantic pussy. Here’s an idea: let’s expand replay to include whatever the fuck gets called wrong, but limit the number of challenges coaches get to make per game. Maybe assign them a penalty if they challenge and fail, to keep people from challenging frivolously. But you’re right — way too radical. Joe Mauer might not like it!
The Luxury Tax in Reverse
I can’t take credit for this one, but in a lengthy discussion with ESPN’s Jayson Stark, I came to really respect his idea of using a scaled tax at the bottom of the revenue scale, much like the Competitive Balance Tax at the top. In this instance, there’s a minimum payroll threshold to which clubs must adhere. You can opt to go below it, but if so, you get taxed for every dollar below. The change would keep clubs such as the Marlins from pulling in such high levels of revenue sharing, while fielding low player payroll year after year. You could do – just as is the case with the Luxury Tax – increased tax rates for those that go below the threshold in consecutive years.
Haven’t I warned you about this? Oh, hey, I sure fucking have. This is the stupidest idea anybody’s ever had in the whole history of people having stupid ideas — which includes, for reference: Parkour, letting the Ramones anywhere near recording equipment, and at least 65% of the things Bill Simmons thinks. Seriously, don’t listen to Jayson Stark. He’s completely off his fucking nut. The best way to keep the Marlins from pulling in a ton of revenue sharing dollars is by eliminating fucking revenue sharing and forcing them to produce a product that people wish to pay to see.
Not that the Marlins are a great example, of course, since they actually do pretty damn well on their tiny budget. Maybe you should have said Pirates?
Teeth in the Luxury Tax
While we’re at it, I’m tired of the Yankees thumbing their nose at the Luxury Tax and busting through the thresholds each and every year. It’s time to make it so painful that they throttle back. If I have my way, the tax rate starts at 50%, escalates to 70% for breaking the threshold a second consecutive time, and 90% for each consecutive time thereafter. I think I just heard Hank Steinbrenner faint… either that or punch a wall.
No, what you heard was the collective sighing of six billion people who are seriously sick to death of you salary cap fucktards and your senseless argument.
Loria, the Nuttings, David Glass, and Frank McCourt
Gentlemen, thanks for playing… you’re all fired. Time to get some owners in position that either want to be competitive instead of getting fat on Luxury Tax dollars, or (as is the case with McCourt) realize that coming into ownership leveraged deep and then going up to your gills in debt isn’t good for the best interests of baseball. Go ask Tom Hicks what I think of him.
But not owners who want to be too competitive, mind, since then they’d run the risk of spending too much on player payroll. Which is a bad thing that we need to discourage.
Also: the Dodgers did just fine under McCourt’s tenure. So it’s great that you think he’s a shitshack, but did he really work against the "best interests of baseball," whatever that means?
Also also: good work leaving Peter Angelos off your list. If you’d put him on there he’d probably vaporise you with his giant space laser.
Giving Mark Cuban a Chance
I’ve written repeatedly that Mark Cuban will never be allowed to be part of the ownership brethren during the Selig tenure and likely with his successor. Since Bud and the owners don’t have any say in this fantasy, I’m letting Cuban buy the Pirates after the Nuttings are removed. I have a stipulation, however… Cuban has to wear a shock collar, and if he gets any closer to the field than lower bowl concourse during a game, he gets hit with high voltage. I figure this will put an end to any notion that Cuban goes all "NBA on the umpires" like he’s done with the refs at Mavericks games. Come to think of it, this in-game entertainment might be more fun than the Sausage Races. I imagine that given time, Cuban couldn’t help himself and would take the volts rather than bite his tongue.
If your joke sucks, rewrite it. Don’t just put irony quotes around it and expect we won’t notice.
And fuck you for ragging on the Sausage Race.
Putting a Limit on Mound Trips
Watching the postseason last year, I think Jorge Posada spent nearly as much time on the pitching mound as some of the relievers. I’m putting a cap on the number of trips a catcher can make to the mound at 4 during a game. The number likely gets you two trips for the starter, and two for the relief staff. That should be plenty.
What? The way Girardi uses his bullpen, I think I spent as much time on the mound as some of them did. The reason we don’t need a new rule for this situation is because it’s already covered by an existing rule — same problem these oafhats had when they tried to solve all of baseball through the magic of armchair social engineering. Neither pitcher nor catcher can call time — only the home plate umpire can. So instead of enacting more pointless rules and arbitrary limits, how about we just tell the umpires not to grant time so often?
Balancing the Divisions
As baseball god, I’m giving this one to the people. But no matter how you realign the league, the AL West has to go from 4 to 5 and the NL Central from 6 to 5. Make the league 6 Divisions of 5. I’m sure you’re creative. Let’s hear your comments.
As the people, I’m giving it right back to you. Why do those things "have" to happen? Because the aesthetics of the current arrangement displease you? Truly, you are a wrathful and completely queer god. Also, perhaps this failed to penetrate the layers of armoured plates encasing your walnut-sized brain, but fifteen teams per league would mean we have interleague play all year long. Not necessarily a bad thing, but a pretty major change in the way the game is played, and one you seem too dense to have spotted.
Postseason Games On Sat. and Sun. Have Daytime Starts
FOX will pitch a fit, but I don’t care. This is about growing the game for the next generation. I’m will to compromise and give you weekdays for prime time, but on the weekends, 3pm ET starts allows the youngest of baseball fans to catch 9 innings, and maybe a couple more if extra frames are needed before hitting the rack. You’ll thank me when kids that have become more in-tune with other sports start getting hooked on MLB again.
Yeah, the youngest of baseball fans… on the east coast. Doesn’t do a lot for the ones on the west coast, Captain Plan. Also kind of fucks over the non-youngest baseball fans who have shit to do during the day, such as the non-trivial quantity of us who work. But there I go again, ignoring the "greater good" — which is to say, what you want. Nice "won’t somebody think of the children" though, asshole.
Using a Clock for Exhibition Games
The game needs to pick up the pace, but I’m not ready for a "pitch clock" for games that count, and that includes Spring Training. But, the SEC added not one, but two play clocks in tournament play this year, and I want to see how big league players would react. It’s a good thing Nomar’s retired.
Spring training games don’t count. They’re exhibition games. That said, I don’t give a flying fuck what happens in exhibition games. Dress A-Rod up as a centaur for all I care. But is it supposed to be impressive that they used two play clocks instead of just a pedestrian one play clock? Is it just the quantity of clocks that matters, like you have some weird clock fetish?
No More Home Field Advantage with the All-Star Game
If the league wants to allow fans to vote up to 25 times for All-Star selections, then I want no more of the winner of the Mid-Summer Classic having home field advantage in the World Series. Pure and simple, the team with the best regular season record gets it. Figure out another way to incentivize the players.
I… agree. Dammit, start being an idiot again. This is no fun.
Here’s something novel… The winning team gets a hefty bonus. Make the "purse" a selling point. Start with $1 million and escalate the amount each year to the winners. That should redefine, "This time it counts."
Ah, that’s more like it. Let’s make a list of reasons why this is stupid!
1) Money comes from where?
2) Assuming the purse is split among just the players, and the coaches and shit don’t get a dime, that works out to $40k each. Not clear to me that $40k is supposed to motivate people who get paid many millions of money dollars every year — and players on the All-Star Team generally are near the top of the salary curve, yes?
3) Why does the All-Star Game need to "count" at all? Can’t it just be a silly exhibition game where players goof off a bit and do wacky things? Like, for example, obliterating Ray Fosse?
4) Paying the winning team a cash bonus counts as a "novel" idea these days?
Adding 2 More Teams Into the Postseason
MLB has the fewest percentage of their clubs advancing to the postseason of any of the other Big-4 sports. I say, add in two more Wild Card teams. To keep owners that have teams missing the playoffs from pitching a fit about lost games, the regular season will be compressed on the calendar by adding a novel suggestion: Bring back more day-night double-headers.
I say: learn to use colons properly. Should be easy for you, since I’m getting the impression you have a lot of experience with colons. Here are some other things I say:
1) Who cares if baseball advances a smaller percentage of teams than any other sport? Does that matter? Do you win a prize for advancing a huge percentage of teams? If so, give the fucking NBA the lifetime achievement award, since the NBA playoff structure has like all but two teams advancing, and then the playoffs themselves run for about four years. I think baseball’s just fine not moving in that direction.
2) Your first sentence is a mess.
3) The reason day-night doubleheaders fell out of favour is because they’re really rough on the players, who work a lot harder than, like, professional bloggers. I know what you’re thinking: man, if I really had to, I could write two stupid articles in one day, no problem! Hell, I personally have written two stupid articles on the same day several times. Baseball’s not like that.
4) Single-elimination tournaments work really really well with five participants. So well, in fact, that somebody would get a bye all the way to the LCS! That’s what I call competitive balance. So we’ll be restructuring the entire postseason to accommodate this purely aesthetic change, yes? Excelsior.
Death to Blackouts
There’s certainly more that could be monkeyed with here. I’m sure I’ve missed something (I never addressed Tim McCarver or Joe Morgan). But of all the things I’d change, I end with the most important of the lot: I’m killing off MLB’s television blackout policy with the exception of the postseason. There are so many regular season games played in MLB that the idea that blackouts will drive fans to the ballpark is bordering on lunacy at this stage. When you throw in the arcane and often times expansive broadcast territories, there’s nothing beneficial for the fans with the blackout policy. And if the league would catch a clue, you grow your product by making it readily available to the masses, not by restricting consumers, which should made dissolving the blackout policy a win for the owners, as well. Oh, and FOX and ESPN… Sorry, your days of national exclusivity deals are history. To baseball fans, I am releasing you from bondage.
Yeah, fuck you, FOX and ESPN. You have no say. I speak for all the fans and all the baseballings and also the fucking trees and don’t you forget it. You get no more exclusivity deals. What’s that? You won’t carry our games, then? And then nobody will be able to watch them? Well, that’s good for the fans, too. Because… ah… I have freed them, you know, from the bondage. You can’t exploit them any longer by allowing them to watch programming they want to watch!
Finally… What would you change?
First of all, I’d fire you from writing. Then I’d change all of your changes, because they’re terrible. Except for the All-Star Game home field advantage one, and the Morgan/MacArver getting hanged by the neck until they are dead one.
After that… probably I’d make a rule that the Fatinals have to play all their home games inside an active volcano, and all their road games at the bottom of the ocean, and that other teams can not show up and still win. I’d make a rule that says the Cubs are no longer allowed to give out any contracts longer than three years, because they fucking suck at it. And then I’d make a rule that the Mets all have to wear those tricorn jester hats with the little bells on, because the Mets are here for my amusement and they better not forget it. Then I’d see all that I had made, and it would be very good.
In other news, K-Rod is in trouble for sending his girlfriend — you know, whose father he punched? — 56 voice mails when he’s not supposed to be communicating with her at all. I’d be on his side if it were like one "I’m sorry" message or whatever, but fifty-six?
The Mets are funny.
