Every year when the All Star game rolls around, we end up with the same problem. The balance of having a representative of each team and the limitation of 32 players per team means that otherwise deserving players have to stay home. What to do? Changing the 'at least one player' rule would leave many if not most fans out in the cold. Especially small market fan. Having cheered for that one player too many years, I'd hate to see it dropped.
The big problem is that the number of teams has increased too much for this format. The NL has as many teams now as the entire majors did for the majority of their existence. Even the increase in the All Star roster only helps a little. Trying to get 32 players into a single game (as most managers try to do) is often difficult, especially for pitchers.
Another problem is the selection of the All Star site. Teams and cities understandably want to showcase their stadiums. The current rotation means they'd have to wait about 30 years for each turn to come up.
The solution? Expand the games and sites. Picture a four day All Star break, Monday-Thursday. For simplicity, we'll keep the big game in Pittsburgh. On Monday, the AL All-Stars play in Cleveland. On Tuesday, the NL All-Stars play in Cincinnati. Wednesday brings the home run derby in Pittsburgh. The winners of the previous games play the MLB All-Star game in Detroit on Thursday night.
The AL and NL would be split east and west for their games. Whether by geography or old divisions the split should be easy enough. 24 man rosters should be enough for each team. Reasonable limitations on pitcher use would still be in place.
How to pick managers? Don't know but many different methods could be used. The Championship managers from the previous year could be used. Or the managers with the two best records a week before the break could be used (like in the NBA).
Also not sure what to use for encouragement for the players. Not a big fan of using home field advantage, but you could. Maybe just bragging rights. Or how about a million dollars per player? Think that $24 mil. couldn't be dug up from sponsers wanting their names on the 3 games?
Anyway, I'm just kicking some thoughts around on how to improve the thing. What do you guys think?
2 comments:
Hmmmm, you said leave the big game in Pittsburgh but then you said the two winners would play in Detroit?
The first problem I suppose that people would point out is the winners of the two games might not be the All-Stars. Imagine the AL West winning the AL. All of a sudden you lose Manny, Papi, A-Rod, Giambi, Jeter, Rivera, Mussina, Papelbon, Beckett, Schilling and all liklihood of Hafner, Rios, Wells, Glaus, Halladay, Ryan, & Tejada.
Good night. How could you argue the AL would be the All-Stars if the Western team lucked up and won the 1-game pre-game so to speak?
The same would be true in the NL. If the West somehow won, then you'd be looking at no Beltran, Delgado, Wright, Cabrera, Pedro, Glavine, Abreu, Bay, A.Jones, Dunn, Griffey, Utley, and Soriano. Wow.
I think, unfortunately for baseball's sake, that hte players just don't care. Stats guys have hammered everyone about over pitching players and the managers have bought into trying to get everyone into the game. It's just another instance of baseball really losing it's stranglehold on America's conscious. I mean sure we can say baseball is huge, but put baseball against the NFL and see who comes out on top?
Even the moniker "all-star" is absurd. Mark Redman is an All-Star but Travis Hafner and Francisco Liriano aren't? Freddy Sanchez is an All-Star but Nomar Garciaparra and Adam Dunn aren't? It's insane and if baseball at large makes these determinations then it would be hard for me as a player to take the game seriously.
If people were serious then you'd see:
1.Mauer/MIN/C
2.Jeter/NYY/SS
3.Hafner/CLE/1B
4.Ramirez/BOS/LF
5.Dye/CWS/RF
6.Rodriguez/NYY/3B
7.Suzuki/SEA/CF
8.Roberts/BAL/2B
9.Santana/MIN/SP
Keep BJ Ryan, Joe Nathan, and Curt Schilling in the pen and tell the AL to go bring it home. In the NL you'd have:
1.Cabrera/FLA/3B
2.Garciaparra/LAD/SS
3.Pujols/STL/1B
4.Berkman/HOU/RF
5.Beltran/NYM/CF
6.Bay/PIT/LF
7.McCann/ATL/C
8.Uggla/FLA/2B
9.Martinez/NYM/SP
Keep Brian Fuentes, Tom Gordon and Brandon Webb in the pen.
That's 24-players. Keep a lefty and righty bat on the bench. In the NL make it Bonds as the lefty and David Wright as the righty. In the AL, keep Giambi as the lefty and Tejada as the righty. That's 28 players and all of a sudden being an All-STar means something again.
I said Detroit when I meant Pittsburgh because I'd written most of this last year and then adjusted it. My bad! I still think there's some value in having a rep from each team. So you'd have to some kind of expanded roster.
As to the weaker half-league winning the intraleague game, that doesn't bother me. They'd have earned it by beating the star filled team. Winning is it's own legitimacy.
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