Major League Baseball has had conversations about what would be radical changes to the schedule. Commissioner Rob Manfred made an appearance on New York’s WFAN with Craig Carton and Chris McMonigle and identified two possibilities that the league has discussed.
“We’ve talked about split seasons. We’ve talked about in-season tournaments,” Manfred said. “We do understand that 162 (games) is a long pull. I think the difficulty to accomplish those sort of in-season events, you almost inevitably start talking about fewer regular season games. It is a much more complicated thing in our sport than it is in other sports. Because of all of our season-long records, you’re playing around with something that people care a lot about.”
To be clear, it doesn’t appear that either idea is under serious consideration right now. Manfred only addressed the topic when asked directly whether the league would have any interest in something modeled after the NBA Cup. He responded by pointing to the challenges of implementing something similar in baseball, even as he acknowledged that they’ve given the concept some thought within the league offices.
The NBA introduced that in-season tournament during the 2023-24 campaign. It runs for roughly six weeks within the first half of the regular season. It involves every team and begins with group play followed by knockout rounds. Most of the games count towards a team’s regular season record. Players receive a cash bonus for winning or advancing deep into the tournament, and the winning team receives a trophy. The tournament has no impact on playoff seeding (aside from the games counting towards the regular season record).
MLB obviously would not need to follow the NBA model to a tee, nor is it likely they’d do so. The NBA Cup’s knockout rounds, comprised of the final eight teams, are single-elimination games. That’s very different than MLB’s series approach both during the regular season and the playoffs. That makes it more challenging from a scheduling perspective.
Even playing three-game series to determine multiple stages of a knockout round would leave a heavily unbalanced schedule for the clubs that advance. Playing them as single-elimination contests would complicate travel. MLB could carve out a couple weeks to run the tournament and determine that the games don’t count towards a team’s record, but that’d leave the teams that don’t advance with fewer overall games on the schedule. That comes with its own issues from a revenue perspective.
A split-season concept would be easier to implement. That’s in use in the minors all the way up to Triple-A. It essentially divides the season into two halves, each of which has its own winners. Those teams then play one another in the postseason, so a team can clinch a playoff berth by July. That theoretically keeps more fanbases engaged, as a team that plays terribly in April and May would have a fresh start in the second half rather than digging a potentially insurmountable hole.
However, this also raises the possibility that a team finishes second in its division in both halves and has the best overall record while still missing the playoffs (if the division winner in each half played poorly in the other). That happened to the 1981 Reds in MLB. There was a split season that year because of a midseason strike. Cincinnati was the best overall team in the National League but narrowly finished in second place in each half and was excluded from the playoff field.
This seems little more than an aside for now. There’s no harm for MLB in kicking around ideas internally. Even if they wanted to pursue them at some point, they’d need the Players Association to get on board.
A significant change which the league is actively pursuing is expansion. Manfred is planning to retire three years from now and has said he wants the ball rolling on moving from 30 to 32 clubs before he steps away. That’d lead to divisional realignment, likely with geographic conferences that each have four divisions with four teams apiece — as is the case in the NFL.
Manfred said his preference in that situation would be to keep the cities that have two teams (New York, Los Angeles and Chicago) in separate leagues. That’s also the arrangement in the NFL. Manfred will no longer be the commissioner once that comes into place — expansion is a multi-year process that won’t begin before the expiration of the CBA in December — but his comments provide a window into the league’s thinking at the moment.
No. Nuh-uh. Not a chance.
I can see the logic that there may be other metros that are better markets than some that currently have franchises. I can also see the logic for contraction.
Heels – Let’s give every team multiple chances to be the winner of “something” every year. Bad teams deserve to play for ‘something ” in July, right?
8 first half division champions, 8 second half division champions.
16 “champions” a year, and throw in the same number of wildcards … just like they have now.
Every team is a “contender”, there are no losers.
Can’t wait to buy my 2029 Northeast Division First Half Champions hat.
MLB is filled with very rich Liberals. You are surprised by the participation trophy?
Knock it off, dp. Nobody wants to hear your cult nonsense here.
They have a lot of problems to fix before they need to talk expansion, let alone more stupid ideas.
Oh, f#ck no!
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The NBA Cup has failed with flying colors
And thats with ESPN and the NBA doing everything they can to draw awareness to it. Absolutely no one cares.
Emirates is sponsoring it. It’s a financial success, Do I watch it? No. Regardless, it doesn’t matter. It’s all about the money.
Bright side, will Emirates or another spend the same or more on the next deal once a ratings history is determined? From a fans perspective, the crazy painted floors and allowing both teams to wear special uniforms are why I didn’t watch even when my team was playing. The floor was irritating to look at and at times I couldn’t even tell my team from the other
dewey – You know what’s really irritating?
WNBA uniforms that have a sponsor’s name on their jerseys FRONT AND CENTER, rather than the name of the team or city.
At some point the “need” for additional revenue turns them into sellouts ….. the WNBA has crossed that line. Hopefully MLB never will, but the patches on the uniforms sure does seem like they are headed to Nascar uniform sellout territory.
It’s always all about the money, whether it’s sports, politics, cheating taxes, whatever.
To be fair, cheating taxes couldn’t really be about anything else
Reds – Absolutely ….. and major sports have proven that by putting games exclusively on streaming services like Peacock and Apple TV. Fewer fans can watch those games, but MLB/NFL/NBA makes more on TV rights for those select games … and that’s all that matters to them.
Correct
Even the NBA players have said the real NBA season don’t start until Christmas day. An MLB cup oh please don’t follow the NBA idea, this tournament idea is just plain dumb. You have the World tournament already, why add another tournament that don’t mean a damn thing to anyone..
desert – The most simple answer is because they can.
Never in the history of professional US team sports has a fanbase revolted about changes to the game, because there’s no competition and fans would rather accept moronic changes than not watch games at all.
Hell, fans don’t even revolt when the price of concessions skyrockets every year. They will pay whatever, $15 for a can of beer or $12 for a hotdog or $9 for a slice of pizza. I hate to say it, but society has become incredibly passive when it comes to products and services. They don’t give a second thought when asked to pay twice as much for half the size and half the quality.
It’s a good thing the Tea Party happened hundreds of years ago, because it would never happen today.
NO
🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
What
Ugh stahp it
MLB take a look at the trash NBA is current product is, it gone down hill shouldn’t have changed..
MLB would might as well nail the coffin together.. stupid thought by the ownership…
There just mad that big spenders win and Smaller budget teams don’t oh well, it call get better ownership..
“To be clear, it doesn’t appear that either idea is under serious consideration right now. Manfred only addressed the topic when asked directly whether the league would have any interest in something modeled after the NBA Cup. He responded by pointing to the challenges of implementing something similar in baseball…”
It’s not ok to propose changes to baseball, especially not for money, marketing, TV station opinions, or to attract more casual fans. It cannot be under any consideration. If baseball knew for sure that it would generate an extra trillion dollars a year in revenue, baseball should say no without even evaluating it. The NBA right now is literally the most unwatchable sport of my lifetime (unless you are ridiculous enough to consider the WNBA a sport), and the things I’ve listed are the reasons. One and done. Stop trying to add playoff teams, stop trying to make more money. Money is not a top 300 priority for baseball. Even the certainty of it is not an acceptable reason to make change.
🙄
bencole
“Money is not a top 300 priority for baseball. ”
MLB is a business
Can you list, say, 20 of those top 300 priorities
“ridiculous enough to consider the WNBA a sport”
I think you are accidentally correct here
WNBA is not a sport. It’s a business. Women’s basketball is a sport
Manfred is terrible never liked him during his time.
No Manboob, no!
And yet, I still see that you have not even opened my email suggesting trampoline warning tracks to prevent homers, Mr. Manfred.
This is not nearly as silly as in-season tournaments.
Run, why not just have nets to keep most balls in play? Such protects the fans who are on their phones from injuries, saves the league on the cost of replacing the ball as often and would make it interesting if the rules were changed to allow for balls off either the wall or the net to be caught for an out…
If you are going to have trampolines, then you need to balance them out with trap doors. Makes for more inside the park home runs …it’s only fair.
Trap doors with alligators maybe?
Trap doors? Think of player safety! Quicksand pits would be much more forgiving and allow for softer landings. Also, possibly more entertaining.
@feartheclub — Quicksand pits…CC Mr. Crane in HOU — I’d think anyone coming up with Tal’s Hill would love the idea.
“I got it! How ’bout we go from a warning track to all of a sudden a 60-degree hill they’ll never see coming. It takes all of the dangers of a bullpen pitching mound in foul ground from yesteryear and put them in the field of play! Genius!”
Bring it back…! lol
Absolutely brilliant!!
MLB Doesn’t need an idiotic in season Tournament & MLB needs to quit trying to destroy the Traditional Game of Baseball.
Well you’re the commissioner so it’s all in your control
You wouldn’t want me as Commissioner because I would demand the right to make changes that I see fit
Give us some good ones, boss
I Would eliminate the following, 1) Pitch Clock, 2) The Idiot starting on 2b in Extra Innings, 3) The Dumb Hitter in the NL, 5) The limit on how many times the Pitcher can disengage the Rubber, 6) Would permanently ban the ABS System & 7) I would roll back how much is reviewable and last but not least I would also permanently ban the Strike box that they use on the Broadcasts
You know the sad thing is that if the umpires had actually enforced the old rule about time between pitches, a clock would never have been implemented. But they didn’t care enough to stop relievers from throwing less than 2 pitches per minute
I am a Traditional Baseball fan & not a Video Game Style Baseball Fan & Rob Manfred is turning the MLB Game into a Video Game instead of working to keep the Traditional Game
Every other bad idea MLB has had has eventually came to pass, so I suppose this will too. The people running the game fundamentally hate it, hate its beauty, hate its history, hate its role in American culture, and they do all they can to injure it. They are classic killers of the goose that laid the golden egg. I’m glad I won’t be around to see the end of baseball. Most of you will be.
@Alan53
I would disagree. The owners are only interested in new ways to extract profit so if there is some special tournament where more teams are involved, they can earn even more money and have the chance at ‘winning’ the trophy. Ultimately, it’s about increased ad revenue and broadcast rights. Think, Apple or Amazon will want to bid for these special games.
Of course, York, the profit motive–but at the bottom of it all is a kind of hate, a hate for us and all we have ever loved. I’d bet anything Manfred never read Roger Angell, or admired Bill Veeck.
@Alan53
Who reads nowadays? It’s all about 30-second tiktok vids and IG feeds! Our brains are turning into the attention span of a goldfish… Even the youth don’t watch a full game. They wait for the 5 minute highlights video summary.
We are already seeing the end of the Game of Baseball
And here I thought the 7 inning doubleheaders would never be topped (bottomed?) during Manfred’s tenure.
The split season only works as a minor league thing because there are no financial rewards for finishing first. We can all imagine MLB teams that “won” the first half tanking against certain teams so their opponent in the championship series would be a more advantageous matchup for them. After all, it wouldn’t matter if they finished last in the second half, would it?
Expand, but leave the damn game alone (except for getting rid of the zombie baserunner — what a stupid idea that was). Portland, Montreal, Charlotte, Nashville, whatever. Just do one in the east and one in the west and for Pete’s sake, no more teams in the desert Southwest or in the swamps of Florida!
Also return the base to its’ previous size and shorten the allowed size of the running mitt to match a player’s actual hand.
And pitch underhand, and let the hitter tell the pitcher where to pitch. Gloves, not these gigantic mitts that players wear now. Of course. That means if you catch the ball on one bounce it’s an out. Balls that bounce over the fence are a home run. Seven balls for a walk. Spitballs are legal.
Traditional baseball!!
I like the part where if you hit a baserunner with a thrown ball, he’s out. The old game was much better.
There’s nothing wrong with the schedule. No real baseball fan wants less baseball.
I do not want an in-season tournament, but I do wish there were a few more off-days in August. The players are so beat up and tired while in playoff races.
Have a taxi squad of four additional players who could still be in the minors (or not) who do not count against the 26 or 40 but then lengthen the IL length to force a team to choose between the two. Allow for two pitchers and two every day players. This allows for resting players as needed.
150 games would be ideal, IMO.
I could see going back to 154 regular season games, which was in place from 1904-1960, since the playoffs are so extended now. It probably wouldn’t happen because of the loss of revenue, but it appeals to me.
As a fan, I love the long season, but acknowledge it must be brutal for the players. I could live with 154 and still honor the history.
I would like reducing the schedule to 154 games for the same reason.
As for “our season-long records… that people care a lot about,.” the the used car salesman commissioner who preceded Manfred helped gut many of those by turning a blind eye to steroid use.
Going back to a 154-game season would restore a little symmetry between many single-season and career records from before expansion with any new records set in 154-game seasons played moving forward.
With the extended playoffs, I too would be in favor of returning to a 154 game schedule. However, as you stated, that’s 4 less home games per team…owners wouldn’t like losing 5% of their season revenues.
The players wouldn’t accept losing part of their salary either.
The “no real baseball fan” argument is incredibly weak. The person using it is free to say whatever they want, and if you dare to disagree, you’re not a “real baseball fan” because they apparently know exactly what comprises a real fan. Right…
The same thing that happened to the Reds in 1981 also happened to the Cardinals.
I came here to say this.
Not only a horrible idea in concept; but also lacks basic awareness for the rate at which key players are getting injured.
Moreover, they’re on the doorstep of a lockout, and this is just another issue that will be battled to the detriment of both sides over the money it (may) generate.
You said it.
Happy New Year, Clip!
The NBA Cup is cool because the players like it and genuinely want to win, much unlike the NBA All-Star game which is a farce.
It works because one NBA game is actually meaningful, so you can have an IST in just a few games.
But baseball is a game of 5-man rotations. Its a long haul season where you care about winning series, not games. For an MLB IST to be not totally random, it’d have to go for like a month. Its really not compatible with baseball.
Split season could work if there were protections for the best teams.
All the fools in charge hate the game and will only be remembered for hurting it as they make changes. It’s not their game, they are only caretakers who always seem to do more harm than good
They are obviously doing drugs at these meetings….
You better not!! You better not!!
So stupid
This is a bad idea and they should feel bad
No Mickey Mouse cup.
Leave the Game alone. There was no problem with the 100 plus years. They’re tying to appease the casual fan. And they don’t care about us die hard fans who fell in love with MLB.
Haha. Lakers fan here. I could not have cared less when they won the NBA Cup. I can’t imagine a fan of any MLB team caring whether their team won either – well, maybe the Pirates.
Just no. Manfred needs to stop trying to make baseball like other sports. This isn’t the NBA.
They should have a mid-season break, and during that break have a game that features the best players from the American and National Leagues! They can also have a few fan-friendly events such as a derby where top sluggers from all baseball compete to see who can hit the most home runs or something. They can host these summer events in different cities every year to keep the local fans of teams engaged and boost their tourism economies, too! Other than those ideas, no other changes need be made.
I’m also in favor of adding the annual amateur draft and minor league All-Star games during the MLB mid-season break! 🙂
Perhaps MLB would also consider holding its mid-season break at the actual mid-season point of their schedule. Just saying…
Id rather have the golden bat rule where once per game a team can choose to send which ever hitter they want to the plate
Each team gets one
If I had to pick between golden bat rule or in season tournament I’d rather go with golden bat rule every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
Here’s a name for why that’s just an awful idea:
Miguel Rojas.
Baseball is beautiful for the lore it creates. When the moment comes it’s not always Shohei or Judge or another superstar. Sometimes it’s Miguel Rojas, and it’s magical because it’s Miguel Rojas.
You’re assuming the golden bat would be used bottom of the 9th down 1, 2 outs or whatever
When in reality it could be used bases loaded 2 outs bottom 1st or two on 1 out 2nd 3rd top 5th
There’s no guarantee the hitter drives home the runs. Theres also no guarantee those runs are the winning runs since it is baseball and a 3 run lead can disappear in an instance
It doesn’t take away from magical moments cause there’s more scoring opportunities innings 1-7 than there are 8 and 9
Stop it.
They game has moved light years in the last 6 years. (And Robo-umps haven’t started yet).
Take a breath MLB…let it settle. Avoid being the NFL a tweeking a million things every single year.
Absolutely a stupid idea. The NBA in season tournament is a horrific joke
I was against the DH, but I have got over it.
I was against 7 inning games, but I got over it.
I want an NL with two divisions, eight teams per division, and an AL with two divisions with eight teams per division.
NL East
Mets
Phillies
Atlanta
Florida
Washington
Chicago
Pittsburgh
St. Louis
NL West
Los Angeles
San Francisco
San Diego
Arizona
Colorado
Milwaukee
Cincinnati
Expansion
AL East
New York
Boston
Baltimore
Toronto
Tampa
Detroit
Chicago
Expansion
AL West
Las Vegas/Sacramento
Anaheim
Seattle
Texas
Houston
Cleveland
Kansas City
Minnesota
To make more money, half the teams make the playoffs. (It sucks, but it is coming). No early or mid season tournaments.
In each league eight teams make the post season. No byes. The first and second place teams of each division are the home teams for every game in the first round which is a five game series. The wild card teams play every game in the first round on the road. The second round is five games. Then the last two teams play a seven game championship series.
Regular season can be anywhere from 144 to 162 games.
CIN/CLE West? Barf!
The league could have Cleveland in the East and swap with the expansion team. But then both expansion teams are in West.
Cincinnati rejoins its legacy of the Big Red Machine as the Dodgers’ rival on the West. It was either them or St. Louis. Reds past in West was my tie-breaker on that.
Yes they were in the West and it sucked. No city with a team playing in the EST should have the majority of their regular games finishing after midnight.
Great idea, but Ohio is east of Illinois and in the eastern time zone while a Illinois is in the Central time zone, so swap White Sox to the West with Guardians going to the East, and the same swap of the Cubs and the Reds.
Only thing about Salt Lake is the elevation. It’d be a Coors field all over again.
Arizona is also in the same boat with elevation at 1100 ft. I do see Salt Lake and Nashville being the next two MLB franchises.
Salt Lake has an average elevation of over 4200 feet above sea-level.
Arizona, while at 1000ish feet, doesn’t have the affects that 4000 feet has.
29 teams play baseball bellow 1200 feet. The differences are negligible.
One team plays at 3 times the highest elevation of the other 29. 3 times the highest.
The Coors Field affect is well known science, and MLB has been trying since day 1 of the franchise to make adjustments to make the game/park so it’s more like the other 29 teams.
MLB hasn’t fixed the physics of altitude. Yet??…
(Yes all parks have environmental/seasonal affects during the season too. But thin air is has no solution.)
What’s magic about geography? Group the teams by market size, larger & smaller so smaller markets are competing on a more even basis
Old Buc Fan
Should we group Rays with AAA?
Have you ever looked at a map? Chicago and St Louis are much further West than Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Cincinnati. Hell, Cincinnati and Cleveland are in the Eastern Time Zone. So you are basically saying to the fans watching in that area that almost all of their road games will not start until about 10PM local time. People do not want to stay up until 1AM to see the end of games every night.
Fair points all.
As I mentioned, Cincinnati had the history of being in the NL West, while Chicago Cubs and St. Louis have a storied history of being in the NL East. The time zones mean less if you play an equal number of games against teams in your league rather than far more against your own division.
Cleveland could swap with the expansion team or White Sox I suppose.
People often make that claim about Cincinnati, but fail to remember that Atlanta was also in the West. I never see anyone wanting to put Atlanta back in the West because they had great pennant races in 1982 with the Dodgers and in 1993 with the Giants.
If you want to keep St Louis and Chicago together, send them both West and keep Cincy and Milwaukee in the East. The only reason they were in the East to begin with was because their owners wielded a lot of power in the late 60s and forced Atlanta and Cincy out west. Plus, the Brewers have a long history of being in the East as well. They were in the same division with the Yankees and Red Sox for just about their entire AL run.
Another question. If you play equal games against the entire league, what is the point of divisions at all?
You convinced me to swap Milwaukee with Atlanta. Brewers to East and Atlanta to West.
My main point was that I like two leagues with only two divisions, and division first and second place teams get automatic playoff slots.
I wanted to favor tradition slightly more than geography. I made it 16 out of 32 in playoffs, but the format would work with 8, 10, 12 or 14 as well.
I get that and part of me wants to agree with you. I just think ML should be showing more concern for their fans. The only reason MLB exists is because fans pay to watch the games. They should be doing everything they possibly can to ensure that as many people as possible can watch the games.
Yes, the Reds were great rivals of the Dodgers in the 70s and 80s, but it has been over 30 years since the two shared a division. Most fans under the age of 40 have never thought of the two as anything more than 2 National League teams, no different than the Marlins and Giants. Casual fans in Ohio are not going to stay up late to watch the Reds play in Dodger Stadium. Casual fans in California are not going to tune into a Dodgers game in GABP that started an hour and a half before they got home from work.
But if you do not play many extra games against your own division, the impact is lessened.
With 32 teams, let’s say we keep 162 regular season games.
You could play 10 games against your division foes. 10 x 7 = 70
You could play games against each team in the league other division: 8 x 8 = 64
You would then play 28 interleague games just like now.
Having an extra team in each league does reduce the number of games against each team if you still play everyone in your own league.
Anybody who thinks this is a good idea is an absolute idiot.
Again, we must bring up the topic of assassination.
No. NO. nO! No! !
Commissioner Gimmick has some ideas.
Stop the gimmicky BS! This is baseball. We’re not like the basic sports who fans seem to need a circus & new rules to stay interested. Stop screwing with a game that’s been great for over 150 years.
AL West: ANA, SEA, LV, Portland
North: MIN, CWS, CLE, DET
South: HOU, TEX, KC, TBR
East: NYY, BOS, BAL, TOR
NL West: LA, SF, SD, ARI
North: MIL, CHC, COL, STL
South: ATL, MIA, CIN, Nashville
East: NYM, PHI, WAS, PIT
This would be better for travel and still keeps most geographical and long standing rivals in the same divisions
That had been my opinion as well. The West is sorely lacking representation and it is one of the reason travel is so much more of a burden on West division teams
SLC and Portland expansion wouldn’t be as ideal for traveling vs adding a team to the southeast. It might require teams switching leagues to make it work.
Adding Portland to ANA, LV and SEA solves that by keeping them all within a few hours flight from each other.
SLC is bad because of its elevation. If they fix the physics of baseball in COL, than I can see SLC. There cannot be another Coors issue in baseball. It’s ruined enough professional careers in COL.
Creating a southeast team gives them a regional division that shortens travel time. Miami, Atlanta, Cincinnati. I think Sacramento is a more likely option than SLC. Sacramento SD, LA,SF would allow all teams to play without leaving their state. Sacramento is a preferable market because it would replace the A’s as the whole north California market. That’s a big tv audience
“ I can see 2 teams out west being the best overall for travel.”
Not true. Adding 1 team to the northwest in Portland creates less travel for Seattle and keeps the whole Al west on pacific time zone. Those tv markets matter and switching time zones shifts games to less favorable hours on away games. Maximizing viewership is important to the league
if Portland and Nashville are the adds – I fixed it for you…move COL to the ALSouth, TBR to the NLSouth, and CIN to the NLNorth.
Truth…but you can’t force investors from a city like Vancouver or San Antonio, etc… to come up with the 1.5B$ cost it’ll take to buy an expansion club (I estimate it’ll cost 100M$ per to each of the current 30 to allow 2 new teams). Not to mention another 1B$ to buy land and build a stadium.
Mrkinsm that requires two teams switching leagues entirely. I’m not sure either ownership group would be willing to do that. I focused on Portland and Nashville only because they’re the most often mentioned and shrink travel for north/southeastern teams in the current east divisions and Seattle who I think does the most traveling. Col to al south would be good for travel but turns longtime rivals into interleague play. I do like your alignment better for travel if the rays and Rockies fans didn’t object. Your proposal makes more perfect regional divisions geographically.
Why wouldn’t they DRS? For one thing, they are two of the youngest teams in the majors – so not as much history to mess with. Secondly, if you look at the proposed plans Manfred has thrown out there it could involve a dozen or more teams switching leagues completely pooping on history. Portland and Nashville are mentioned. But they’ll be among a dozen plus…Vancouver, Montreal, Charlotte, San Antonio, Oakland, Sacramento, Salt Lake, etc…
Couldn’t agree more on the list of candidates for expansion mrkinsm. I think the league should focus on continuity of rivalries in divisions and leagues while minimizing travel. Portland Nashville, Vancouver Charlotte, Orlando Salt Lake City, etc, all make sense to me. No guarantee MLB owners feel the same way as I do. Owners will dictate how this goes but what’s good for them, the league and players align to preserve rivalries and reduce travel. They may value more regional divisions like you suggest. I’m excited to see what cities get major league franchises, the league needs fresh blood in my opinion.
Oh god. They need to stop the nonsense. Look, baseball’s never gonna be the national pass time again. But if they really wanna make more money in the long run the answer is to do things that’ll attract more casual fans, not just invent new TV revenue streams. Here are some basic ideas.
-Do a better job marketing individual players. The sport has no real “faces” and hasn’t since Derek Jeter retired. Yes, Ohtani is all time great. But is he a household name in America? Nope. Judge isn’t either. Ditto Trout. Truth is Jeter’s more famous than any of them and he hasn’t played an inning in 11 seasons. Every other major pro sport does a better job at this than MLB. It’s pathetic.
-Reduce the focus on advanced stats. Baseball has always been about numbers, but it’s got to be numbers people can relate to. When you tell causal fans that ERA and BA don’t really matter that much and pitcher’s wins don’t matter at all and you shove garbled nonsense like WAR at them you’re going to bore the daylights out of them. Baseball is a box score sport. Causal fans want to hear about stats that illustrate the game in real time. They don’t want stats that can only be analyzed in retrospect. Advanced stats are great for scouts and GMs, but for casual fans baseball is mostly just a TV show, they don’t care how you build a team. It’d be wise for everyone to remember that people watch sports to see talented people entertain them. As such, they relate to sports psychologically the same way they relate to music, movies and TV shows. Baseball may be a science to the folks in the front office, but the fans see it as an art. When you remove the art, and leave them with nothing but obscure equations, the fans vamoose by the bunch.
-Less media focus on fantasy and betting. I don’t care how much cash Draft Kings and Fanduel are dumping into the sport, the vast majority of fans don’t bet or play daily fantasy and a lot of them find all of it cynical and off-putting. Betting stats only illustrate the game effectively for those who bet. Nobody else is interested.
-Find a way to legislate “three true outcomes” philosophy out of the sport. Walks are boring. Home runs and power fastballs are entertaining, but not when they’re all you’re seeing. Stolen bases, and triples and double plays and webgem throws and catches are entertaining. Entertainment is the point. Launch angle and exit velocity are lousy fodder for water cooler conversations.
-Find ways for the sport to draw off the Bananaball craze. I know, I know, a lot of the diehards sneer at Bananaball. But guess what… it’s popular and fun and entertaining. Bananaball has warmth and personality and it’s not about obscure numbers. Bananaball is about fun in its most pure sense, and that’s something baseball needs.
Look, it may be that everything I’ve said is nonsense and nothing at all will help the sport but there are a few things I’m sure of:
1) Efficiency isn’t the answer.
2) Quick cash grabs aren’t the answer, and will hurt in the long run.
3) Austerity and stoicism aren’t the answer. Ever. The sport needs to be warmer, more fun and more personal, or else it’s going to keep going the way it’s been.
I feel like these wouldn’t be changes to solve an issue, they would be changes to say that you were the guy that made changes
Didn’t even read this post. Just wanted to comment no, no and no some more.
I’ve never met someone who cared about the NBA Cup. And half-seasons are a terrible idea, it was proved in 1981.
Hard pass.
“No” is a complete sentence.
Manfred keeps screwing up the game. Forget about shortening the season. Zero interest in mid-season tournament. Stop whining about the long season and the grind. Paid millions to perform as professional athletes.
Hard pass. I don’t want teams screwing up their starting rotation schedules for this. Baseball is not basketball.
The Kinkcks didn’t even care enough about winning theirs to raise a banner. As a basketball fan of 40 years, I have no interest in it. Don’t watch it and don’t really pay any attention to it. As a baseball fan of 45 years I absolutely hate the idea. It will bring nothing to the game whatsoever.
No as in F no!
No
That’s it. Continue to try and ruin baseball. Are they going to implement the golden at-bat in the tournament, too?
Just more reasons to watch banana ball for free.
Other than the WBC and Olympics, there is no reason to do anything like this.
I don’t really care. They could do tournaments and host them regionally to a degree. “Southeast regional tournament”. East coast and west coast. I mean, the main thing is once ur eliminated u still need to play games and I think the tournaments need to mean something. Like playoff credits or something. But if I had anything to do with it, I wouldn’t change it. Keep it as is. I would just dub a regular season champions because having the best record after 162 is one of the most impressive things in all of sports
bf
“I would just dub a regular season champions because having the best record after 162 is one of the most impressive things in all of sports”
This
I’d like to see something that made the regular season more important.
How lame.
I have been more receptive to some of the changes Manfred has made in the game. I like the pitch clock. It has livened the pace of play. I have seen the extra inning ghost runner at second work for years in the minors before it came to the majors. But this? NO!
NO!
NOOOOOOO!!!!!
and oh, by the way…
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!
The MLB is only interested in the money aspect of this whole thing.. Stadiums used to be beautiful places. Now they are nothing more than a giant billboard. Its gotten out of hand. They are so against gambling yet every broadcast has some kind of sports betting linked to it, Every little thing they do has a price tag to it. Why ? Its greed by the players and the owners / league. Here is an idea MLB try making the games affordable to the common person/family. If you make watching the game affordable to people they will come and eventually not only spend money on your products but also become life long fans.
But Im guessing the greed of today wins over the long time investments,
Eventually baseball will be eliminated as will all sports….
I agree with your point. To be accurate, the early stadiums had huge whiskey, and other billboards. After a while they blended into the background. Now, of course, they are dazzling, pointless laser shows to point out that Joe Blow is 3rd in OBP against LH relievers in the 7th inning. And also, the ever informative “MAKE SOME NOISE!”.
I’d prefer “SHUT THE F UP!. I’M TRYING TO CONCENTRATE!”
I listened to the interview. He also said it would be very hard to do and it didn’t seem like something that was important to him.
Expos say no to split season.
It was the 1981 Cardinals. Not the 1981 Reds.
It was the precursor to the 1982 World Series team.
Finally – something that can unite both traditionalist and modern baseball fans. Something literally no one wants.
Wow, just because the NBA did it doesn’t mean MLB should do it. The only sport that has really good in season tournaments is soccer because they play teams from around the world.
Want to improve the game??? Salary cap, salary floor, stop getting rid of minor league teams and, most importantly, get rid of blackouts.
Can this guy not do anything crazy stupid silly before his final years are up as commish? Seriously when is enough enough for this clown?
We’re gonna play a game called, Being Manfred. Basically, come up with an idea to ruin the game. I’ll start.
Since we have cut time off the games, let’s expand every game to 19 innings.
Make the standings based on runs scored for the season, so 2/3 of the teams are out of it by August.
They should have a tournament that takes place during the playoffs for the teams that didnt make it, and since MLB teams cant trade draft picks, the tournament should be for draft seeding. Win the tournament, get the 1st overall pick, runner up gets 2nd, etc. It would encourage all teams to be competitive while punishing teams that are intentionally bad.
C’mon with the gimmicky tournament. The NBA is doing this because their ratings are tanking. The season is long enough. Don’t need the World Series conflicting with bowl games and NFL playoffs.
I do want and have agreed with geographic conferences to limit travel. Interleague, universal DH, availability of games have all diminished the so-called “traditional rivalry” aspect and I’d be fine with a western and eastern conference with no divisions to make sure the best teams qualify for the playoffs and matchups done by seeding on record.
For God’s sake MLB do not follow the NBA map. They have a poor received All-Star weekend. Now they also have a tournament that the fans really don’t care about, even the players have said in interviews that they really don’t see their real season starting until Christmas Day. MLB, please leave well enough alone, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Instead work on expansion the real aliment of the league, maybe fine tune the playoffs, but there is no need on adding an MLB tournament during the season.
The NBA is such a bad product now i don’t think Michael Jordan in his prime could save it. Trying to emulate anything they do shows both a lack of originality and understanding about just how much the fans of that sport do not care about their tournament.
What would be the purpose of such a thing anyway? The NBA uses it for the bottom playoff seeds. Is MLB going to use it for non-contending teams to sneak a playoff spot? Do we need a 120 loss Rockies team in the playoffs? No, no we don’t
Good, cancel the dumb All Star Game and give the team that wins home field in the World Series if they get there, otherwise home field is determined by the usual tiebreakers.
I would love an in season tournament, but unfortunately, our sport just makes it too difficult for scheduling. If you watch English football, you can understand what they’re trying to implement in America. In season tournaments are great fun. It gives inspiration to teams that don’t have much of a chance to win the World Series every year to go for something special. They gives fan bases something to cheer for that they normally would not have. One out of 30 teams soon to be 32 teams have a chance to win the World Series every year. The in season tournament gives another benchmark and another goal for those 32 teams.
Most of you don’t seem to want one. Well, I can tell you from watching English football that most of you also fit in with their a lot. A bunch of negative whiny fans.
Another silly idea that should be DOA. The season is already too long.
How about just moving the WBC to the fall?
MLB does not need more tournaments and gimmicks to manufacture interest. MLB needs true revenue sharing and leveling the playing field between big and small market teams. How about working on that, Manfred?
Jesus f’ing christ
All the rule changes, postseason changes, robo umps
Now an in season tournament?
Leave the game alone alredy . Stop defiling this great sport
Stop screwing with the game please…and while you’re at it, please remove the ghost runner at 2nd in
extra innings. It completely negates everything done on the field during the entire game.
Manfred is a clown who has no appreciation of this sport’s history
Why would you have an in-season tournament when the players already play 162 games and play the postseason and spring training (to a lesser extent)? The only exception I would make to a change in the baseball schedule is the ‘28 Olympics, since you want MLB players to play in the games
It just seems to me that anytime almost anything flies out of Rob Manfred’s mouth it seems insane and it’s very much of not seeing the forest for the trees.
Considering the lack of foresight with the RSN collapsing — much of which was well seen by at least people in the media business — and the upcoming lockout it just strikes me that Rob Manfred isn’t very good at his job.
Sure, you can blame owners as well. But I’d argue the next lockout is going to be the most significant one most have seen, and probably largest since the early 80s.
And odds of it helping baseball in the aggregate is slim to none.
Just, no. Manfred is a disgrace to the game as commissioner. Everything he does is trying to copy what another league does. I’m waiting for him to propose every team play one game per week, primarily on Sundays…
Those NBA tournaments mean absolutely nothing. Only Manfred would try copying a dying league.
Ha ha. Popular concept !
It’s like cricket in the early 80’s. Slow game, needed a long haul time investment, acquired taste. Big bad Aussie billionaire Kerry Packer shook it up with a faster, concurrently run version. The oldies hated the concept and got all bitter. The youngsters loved it. So much so the game doubled down a few decades later and gave us an even faster version.Now everybody has a competition version they can get into. Those decisions rocketed the game forward in too many ways to list.
Just saying.
manfred retiring is great news for baseball.
Sure have a tournament in the middle of the season with pitchers injuries pulling up daily…Pure genius.
The idiot Manfred virtually ensures a strike with this and especially the free agent signing deadline.
For the record, if Manfred is leaving in 2029 then he should have no say in future realignment – that should fall to the next guy in charge. I’d even go so far as to say Manfred should have no say on the 2 expansion teams either, if we are waiting for the Rays and A’s to move into new parks beforehand.