That is unquestionably part of the general historical trend, but does not explain the huge increase in home runs that specifically happened in 2019.
How about just not having the pitcher hit? No DH, no pitcher at bats. Position players would get a few extra at bats as the 27 outs would be distributed over 8 players versus 9. I also wonder why MLB doesn’t just expand the Wildcard series to a best of 3 games with each team getting a home game. That might be a better first step on the ladder of playoff tinkering than the current proposal.
Seems sensible to me.
One could argue – and I shall now do so – that the proposed playoff tweaks actually return the value to the regular season that the first two versions of the Wild Card Era eliminated.
Consider:
[ul]
[li]In each league, only the team with the best record gets a bye for the initial 3-game series.[/li][li]The division winner with the 2nd-best record gets a 3-game home series against their choice of the three lower Wild Card opponents.[/li][li]The division winner with the worst record of the three gets a 3-game home series against their choice of the two remaining lower Wild Card opponents.[/li][li]The winner of the top Wild Card slot gets a 3-game home series and no choice of opponent.[/li][li]The three not-top Wild Cards have to travel to a 3-game series and have no choice of opponent.[/li][/ul]
So every playoff seed from #1-#4 carries additional benefit, which helps make the end of the regular season more meaningful. Even teams “locked in” as division winners will have incentive to keep winning, in order to improve their seeding. And with additional WC slots, more teams will remain “in the hunt” longer, so we could expect to see fewer of the late-season games where a team is already eliminated and so has no incentive to win.
But I concur, unless we put retractable roofs on all the ballparks, complete with HVAC, then there aren’t enough baseball-weather weeks in the year for a 162-game regular season plus expanded playoffs. If MLB made every ballpark weather-proof, though, a bunch of fans would get cranky about “doing away with rainouts.” :rolleyes:
That would dramatically alter seasonal standards for hitting records.
Having a DH is much preferable to that.
Agreed. This is WWF bullshit. So a team chooses its opponent, then we get to hear days of “Oh, they wanted to play US because they thought we were the easier team? Well, we’ll show them what a mistake they made” chest thumping for each three game series each and every year.
I know these extra games mean extra revenue for MLB, and there was nothing wrong with the playoffs pre-1994, so let’s not pretend that this is something good, but simply acknowledge that once again money wins out.
But, hey, at least after this goes into effect, ticket prices will be cheaper and beers will no longer be $11…right?
Why would ticket prices be cheaper? I know you’re being sarcastic but I don’t even understand the moral point.
MLB has problems but “too many teams in the playoffs” is not one of them.
Presumably, any additional money made would go to the teams, which, in turn, would go to the fans in the form of reduced ticket prices. No, wait, it would be spent in not demanding ridiculous amounts of money from cable companies to carry the team’s games on the team’s new regional sports network (I didn’t mention any names, COUGHcomcastHACKmarqueeWHEEZE), wouldn’t it?
But, again, you don’t seriously think that even makes sense on any level, right? I mean, I realize it’s fun to joke about the league being greedy, but that wouldn’t be not-greedy, it would be stupid. It’s as if I won $500 in poker and so I said “I should tell my employer to pay me less.”
OTHER revenue streams have nothing to do with what tickets should cost.
Yes, business doesn’t work that way. You don’t just lower prices when you start making more money.
I think there’s some confusion here. There are times when a business might lower prices. For example, if there was a beer shortage forcing a stadium to charge $11 because their own costs to get the beer are high, they may lower the price of beer once the shortage ends. A business hates to be forced to raise prices; once you are required to charge more than a customer is comfortable paying to make a profit, your sales go down and you’re not making as much money. If your own costs are reduced enough that you can sell it at a price that will increase sales, and you will profit, you drop prices and enjoy the increased revenue.
You don’t lower the price of a product just because your overall income increases. There is zero reason to do that. A business’s reason to exist is to make money, that’s what defines a business, and you don’t do things counter to that. That’s just basic microeconomics, as well as common sense.
Yes, I agree. I’m just frustrated in general with baseball, in no small part because I am a Pirates fan. It irritates me that I drive two hours each way, take the whole family and have to spend a fortunate on tickets, parking, and concessions and the Pirates don’t invest in any talent to put a quality product on the field. And haven’t for years.
The players are all basically spoiled brats with no connection to the fans. Why should my kid run out a ground ball when MLB players trot down to first and make a turn to the dugout 45 feet from the base? When I was a kid you could stand outside of Three Rivers Stadium and get the players’ autographs as they walked in. And back then they were mostly regular guys; some made a good salary, but most were paid upper middle class wages. Now, at PNC, there is an underground parking facility so the players don’t have to interact with mere fans.
And this year they are putting up netting from foul pole to foul pole which (not to get into that debate) puts fans another step away from the players, and takes away from your chances to get a foul ball.
Pitchers don’t pitch nine innings; guys get a “rest day” every so often, no more arguments with umpires because of replay which has now changed the game entirely with this “in extra slow-mo his foot came off of the base 0.3cm for .01 seconds so he is out” plays; no more intentional walks; and players don’t play for the same team for any length of time, and the regular season doesn’t matter because everyone, except the Pirates, makes the playoffs.
Get off my lawn and give me back real baseball.
I would be frustrated too. The Pirates’ payroll for this season is projected at $43 million, far below any reasonable budget limit even in a small market.
Coincidentally, just a few hours ago I read an argument on Twitter than MLB should have a salary floor, and the Bucs were an example. I cannot disagree.
This I simply cannot agree with. I have been watching baseball for forty years, and my honest perception is that they work much, much harder at their craft than they used to. Baseball players are vastly more committed to excellence than used to be the case, at least on average; there were always guys who were real pros, but there are far fewer slackers now. The level of hustle looks the same to me. There’s always been the odd guy who loafed.
I do see your point about this cutting down on fan interaction. I think it has to happen; safety is important, and the sheer strength of hitters now is such that people are getting hurt, and no, it’s not because of cell phones. I’d love it if they came up with a system to allow for interaction and then draw the netting up for game time.
Because there would be too long of a layoff for the divisional winners. Yes they can get their pitching in order but most teams manage to do that in the regular season anyway.
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