If you were granted three wishes ...
 

If you had the power to make three changes to major league baseball, what would they be? Here's my three, in no particular order ...

1) Get rid of the DH
2) Get rid of Bud Selig
3) Get rid of the broadcasting team of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver

Now that feels better! I needed to rant after McCarver got the Frick award and Bud got his extension. I'm afraid that when Bud dies, they'll freeze his head like Ted Williams' and they'll give him another extension. Amazingly, if that happens, nobody will notice a difference in his job performance ...

That's outstanding! Lmao!

1. Failed steriod/testosterone test=season long ban. and I mean ONE positive, there are zero excuses nowadays.
2. Some type of salary cap.
3. More inner city programs and development.

Chris, I would say your three changes but in reverse order.

1- Get rid of the DH.
2- Eliminate the DH.
3- Do away with the DH.

I would compare the designated hitter to a designated free throw shooter in basketball.

Nice.

I'm in full agreement about the DH, so let me just throw out a few more.

1. Make spring training a Barnstorming Nationwide Secondary City/Capitol Tour

Brewers/Twins in Madison, Marlins/Braves in Tallahassee, etc

2. The first 12 times Zambrano takes the batter's box this year, everybody calls in a closer to put a 4-seamer between his shoulder blades

3. Instead of McCarver and Buck, All ESPN broadcasts are done by Howard Stern and Drunk Rick Sutcliffe

1) tie: no jewelry/beer price cap
2) let the pitchers retaliate (brush-backs ala Gibson,Drysdale)
3) genuine salary cap without the Yankee loophole

1: No jewelry whatsoever on the playing field
2: Less money, more incentives
3: Move game starts an hour earlier(more day games)

shhh i sneaked in four
Dan

Dan, I forgot about that one - it's a biggie for me. I can remember running home from school to catch the start of the '68 World Series games. You played during the day and you slept at night - it made perfect sense.

Yeah, like he said!
 

1) eliminate the DH. Don't you think that doing this would reduce the pressure on position players to perform like DH's (and therefore reduce incentive to use PEDs? just a thought...may not be terribly bright, but it occurred to me and there it is)
2) salary cap would be nice, but I would be in favor of any move that resulted in players moving between teams less,...the resulting increase in actual rivalries might be fun to watch
3) the league that wins the All-Star game no longer gets home field advantage for the World Series, but has the option of sending its actual All-Star team to represent it in the World Series instead of the League champion. Every player in the league that wins the World Series takes home $1 million. The desire to make the All-Star team would be insane!

I really don't see why these things can't happen.

Get rid of the DH
Do away with day/night doubleheaders
Have more day games

1. get rid of the DH
2. Put Pete Rose into the HOF
3. do away with the whole PED suspensions. If these guys are dumb enough to take them and ruin their life for my entertainment, so be it.

Don't imagine my suggestions will go over well with some, but it is all in good fun to dream.

1. Instead of a single DH, go to a 3 DH system where the 1,5 and 9 batters are DH's.
2. Allow DH's to play till 55. Why should they be put out to pasture because they can't play anymore. Corporate America allows it........
3. Only DH's should be allowed to take PED's. AND HGH.



Okay.....seriously.....
1. Ditch the DH (low hanging fruit)
2. Actually re-evaluate 19th and early 20th century guys for the HOF. If Alomar's in, so is Pete Browning and some other guys. And Rose.........
3. Do something about escalating salaries....I like the more incentives and less direct salary route.

Hmmmm
 

1. Any team with a record better than another division's winner is automatically in the playoffs, even if that means playoffs with 4 rounds. No more 90-62 3rd place teams being out of the playoffs yet a division winner at 83-79 gets in.

2. Either both leagues get the DH or neither do. Having only one league with the DH is ridiculous, as is the DH itself; but since it prolongs some stars' careers, to the glee of some of their fans, so
be it. Just all or none, please.

3. Either you throw out the HOFers who were slobs, pigs, racists, rapists, drunks, drug addicts, whore-mongers, gun-runners, unrepentant gamblers, etc., or you let in Shoeless Joe and Pete Rose today.

.

1)2 divisions and 2 wildcards per league. Not this 3 division, 2 WC with a 1 game playoff crap.
2)some sort of salary cap, plus a DH(or no DH, I'm fine either way) in both leagues to level the playing field across the board.
3)less BS from the Dominican Republic. If they can't figure out how to keep their players honest, they we might just have to stop taking 'em..I'd rather pay an American born player, who is who he says he is, than some random guy, who in turn gives a portion of the money to the family he's borrowing the name from.

1. DO NOT let batters keep stepping out of the batters box all the time. I can't stand that. Unless there is a legitimate reason. This stepping out to tighten your batter's glove and spit (David Ortiz) drives me nuts. If a batter steps out of the box without permission FIRST, then it is an automatic strike. That will end all that goofy crap between every single pitch.

2. Hard salary cap.

3. Start east coast night games at 7:00pm for all regular season games. Can't stay up that late anymore.

I actually prefer the mental aspect of a batter getting out of the box. It magnifies the suspense of the moment. Personally, there's nothing better than a mental battle between a pitcher and a batter.

1.) No interleague play
2.) install the DH in both leagues or if you get rid of it, dont have pitchers hit
3.) instant replay, but not for balls and strikes

#1 - All players, no matter what their position, gets paid at the end of the season according to their performance.

#2 - Mandatory testing for PEDs with zero tolerance! No 3-strike rule. Get caught once...your out!

#3 - Prohibit team owners from having monetary ties or investments in other venues that directly affect their team.


I may come off a bit harsh on #2, but I had to deal with PED users when I was a competitive powerlifter. My coach used to call it "Better lifting through modern chemistry".

Ironically at the same time I was typing this post there was a show on TV called American Underworld. The host started one of the segments saying "when you think of steriods, you think of this guy or this guy". On the screen they showed a bodybuilder and a baseball player. Sad but true.


Jantz

1-Get rid of the DH
2-Let Mark Cuban buy a team
3-For all players who used PED's to come clean with no ramifications... after all they are wishes

1) No DH.

2) Make it more likely that small and mid-market teams can hold on to their home grown talent--players like Fielder and Votto. Don't know how to accomplish this legally or fairly would make the game much better.

3) Give World Series home field advantage to the league that has the best won-loss record in interleague games compiled over the course of the season--not the arbitrary victor of the all star game.

3b) Allow pitchers to throw at batters who gaze wonderously in amazemant at their own home runs and flip their bats at the plate. I guess I don't really believe this but I sure hate it.

1. Alter the stupid rule that says a batter/runner is out who interferes with a thrown ball while on the inside of the firstbase foul line! THAT'S WHERE FIRST BASE IS! (They can fix this by extending first base into foul territory)

2. Charge a sacrifice to a batter who grounds out behind a runner on second with no outs, moving the runner to third, or who allows a runner to tag up from first to second or second to third with a fly ball and no outs.

3. Let Joe Jackson in the Hall, simply because it was a "lifetime" ban, and...ummmm...he's dead.

My three wishes
 

1. Put in an NFL style salary system. No guaranteed contracts, hard salary cap, salary floor, franchise tags, etc. Anybody watch the NFL this year? It's working.
2. Full revenue sharing. Necessary for #1 to work. Also an NFL staple.
3. The DH has got to go. Make managers actually manage a ballgame.

My 3 wishes
 

1- Put an MLB club in Portland, Oregon
2- Let into the HOF the iconic players with short careers, ie Maris, Bo Jackson
3- All PHD players get an aterisk. Don't keep them out of HOF, just put an asterisk

1. Give the home field advantage in the World Series to the team with the best regular season record of the two competitors.
2. Cut that gimmicky beard off of that Wilson character
3. Make the first round of the playoffs a best 4 of 7

A salary minimum and a salary cap.

Batters allowed to step out of the box only one time during an at bat

speed the pitchers up when the bases are empty by enforcing time rule

Along with this rule you could allow batters to charge the mound when pitchers (especially the relievers) overcelebrate their strikeouts...

1. Forbid the utilization of close-up reaction shots in the dugout and stands when filming MLB games;

2. Require at least 75% of all baseball telecast time be devoted to showing the game in a manner that depicts at least 20% of the field in the shot; and

3. Require that any MLB player caught using PEDs, abusing drugs, sending pics of his junk to groupies, wearing bling worth more than the average house in the city where he plays, patronizing ho's, abusing fans, or otherwise behaving like a spoiled brat instead of a man lucky to be getting rich playing baseball be sent to Cleveland for a week where he gets to work as a bathroom attendant at the IX Center during the National.

1. Eliminate all jewelry (both metal and the new-style interwoven corded necklaces, etc.) of any type or kind.

2. No more pajama pants. All pants will extend no lower than mid-calf and all players will be "uniform" in appearance by wearing team issued stirrups and sanitary stockings.

3. Eliminate the DH completely

1.) Salary cap and salary floor.
2.) Eliminate interleague play.
3.) Balanced schedule in divisions.

1) Pitcher must throw ball within 14 seconds
2) Batter must not leave batters box to walk around and play with his glove
3) Use a camera behind home plate instead of in centerfield most of the time to show the game on tv.

The current rule is 12 seconds with no runners on base, I think it is in rule 8.1

Rawn

Jaywalking is illegal.


Here's my three

1. Get rid of revenue sharing, luxury tax, etc.- it just allows teams like the A's or Royals to put up horrible teams every year and make money. The owners of teams such as the Yankees or Red Sox don't have more money than everybody else. They just spend more while a lot of the other owners just keep it in their pockets while racking in dough from the teams that are actually trying to win.

2. Get rid of instant replay for homeruns. Don't ever consider using it for homeruns or any other purpose.

3. Have the National League use the DH and stop building such big ballparks. Playing in big ballparks saves money as a result of the hitters' numbers not being as good. The difference is not replaced by the improved pitching stats. As far as the DH, too many pitchers get hurt hitting and too little runs are scored in the NL. I can understand pitchers hitting when they were getting paid $5,000 a year, but in modern day baseball when an injury to a pitcher can mean multi-million dollar losses it just doesn't make sense for pitchers to hit.

NL adopt the DH.
All new stadiums have a retractable roof ( and put one on the old ones too).
Get rid of Bucky McCarver.

I like that, but they dont enforce it. Thats why i say make it 14 seconds and enforce it.

i would normally agree with you but that bathroom duty is just cruel and inhumane. They didn't kill anybody.

1) Louisville Cardinals to win ten straight NCAA championships.
2) Chicago Cubs to finally win a World Series.
3) Chicago Bulls to win five straight NBA championships.

1) Speed up game between pitches - use Mark Buehrle as a standard
2) All World Series / Playoff games start no later than 7:05 ET
3) All-Star game to be played with equipment from a different era - select a different time frame each year and outfit players in uni's and equipment.

ball blows up in pitchers hand if he takes too long.

I'm trying to imagine just how they'd put one on Fenway. Short of building a retractable roof around the stadium I'm not seeing it. And the supports would take up everything for some distance, at least across Lansdown and all the surrounding streets. I don't see us ever going for that.

Just hire ballplayers that aren't too wussy to play on cool overcast days. That's usually much cheaper.

My 3?
1) All games on real grass outdoors.
2) Less whining about pitchers throwing inside especially if the batter has been showboating. And even if the pitch hits them.
3) Some incentive for players to stay with a team. AND for teams to keep players. I totally understand when a guy leaves because the current team will only pay 2 million a year but someone else will pay 10. But I also don't like it when good players are simply cut and have to sign a minor league deal because they're up for arbitration.

Steve B

DH - I like the NL in theory (more of a "pure" game), but am drawn to the excitement (better hitting?) of the AL. So its good having two different leagues w/slightly different rules.

my three wishes:

1)I like the idea of a hard "pitch clock", similar to the nba having a "shot clock". Make it 20 seconds total. It starts on the umps signal. The batter has 10 seconds to stand in the box. The pitcher must release the ball between seconds 10 and 20. If the ball is not released by the 20th second (ball out of hand) its automatically a ball is awarded to the batter.

2) Do SOMETHING about ticket prices. Sure, I understand the Yankees and Sox having high prices, but they sell out every game. But look at some of the other games on tv. Stadiums are EMPTY. They charge $25 to sit in the freakin bleachers! How about they charge $10 so the average family can afford to go to a dozen games a year? Attendance would be up, would sell more jerseys & food at stadiums, etc. I don't think MLB would lose money.

3) Yankee Stadium and Camden Yards (Orioles) allow patrons to bring in food & drinks. Every stadium should allow this!

4) More day games!!!!!

Many more requests, but these are the first three (okay, 4) that come to mind :)

#1 wish - Pirates with a winning record at year-end. This will require an ownership change.
#2 wish - stop the DH. Worst rule change ever.
#3 wish - improve the consistency of ball & strike calling. Make the umpires call the rules as written, and removing the discretion-ability of calling a strike a ball (and vice versa) would be the thing that levels the playing field more than anything. Likely will require some additional improvements over what pitchfx does today, but its likely not too far away. Maybe if the umps know their livelihood is on the line, they would stick to the rules.

1) Both leagues 8-10 teams each

2) World Series only

3) MLB monopolizes the market on PM15 pinbacks and offers them each capped at $10 resale (so I could afford a few)