You've got the power

[duan]

promotion & relegation.

[Guest AG/DC]

Brilliant.

[Fman99]

I'd like to change my answer.

I'd get rid of the post division series champagne bath. How damn stupid.

You want a champagne bath for making the playoffs? Fine. Winning the pennant or World Series? Sure. But winning the LDS, you haven't won shit. NFL teams don't do champagne baths after the first round.

Put that crap away please.

Thanks,

The Management

[TransMonk]

I agree.

[Guest Vince Coleman Firecracker]

1. I'd refund all public money given to finance new ballparks, plus stop any teams from accepting it in the future.

2. Impose a limit, in square feet, teams are allowed to sell for advertisement in their stadia. Also, any new television contracts signed will have Masters'-type restrictions on what can be displayed on the screen during a game. (Good-bye, yellow AOL man and cast of new FOX comedies)

3. Impose a minimum salary cap of, say, $50 million a year per team. With most teams receiving money from revenue sharing, there is no reason owners can't at least attempt to field a competitive team.

4. The amateur draft is a farce, and the suggested slotting nonsense has to stop. Either do away with suggested slotting, or enforce mandatory draft contracts (the money players would lose in the latter case could be offset by an increase in minor league minimum wages).

5. Get rid of the DH and add a 26th roster spot to all teams.

6. Make the division series best-of-7. There's no reason the first round of the playoffs after a 162 game season should be such a crapshoot. Compensate for the longer schedule by eliminating the All-Star game.

7. Allow each team to start the season with 30 players, cut down to 28 by April 15th, and 26 by May 1st.

8. Voluntarily surrender all anti-trust exemptions.

9. Collect and keep blood samples from all players for every year they are in the pros for present and future PED testing (no testing will be allowed for recreational drugs).

10. Contract the Yankees.

Actually, if I'm only allowed one thing, I'm contracting the Yankees.

[Guest AG/DC]

1. On board. Hard to stop though. They are in business. This might be what I do when I'm King of America.

2. On board, again. Hard to stop, again. You have to be able to show the teams the value added. Very hard to do. Good dream, though.

3. Un-American. There are ways to empower owners of sad-sack teams without price-fixing the players

4. Just do away with the draft

5. Get rid of the DH, full stop, but if a bribe of 26 new jobs is necessary, so be it.

6. Or elimnate the extra round of playoffs. You can add games six and seven by adding some scheduled double-headers during the season. The All-Star game is a cash cow and a promotional leader and isn't going anywehere. It needs to be fixed, not deleted.

7. This is curious and fun, but why specifically do you want it.

8. Word, but I'm going to take this away when I chair the commerce and banking committee anyhow.

9. Will having these samples prevent HGH use or something.

10. No. the Yankees should be destroyed on the field.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

metirish wrote: Less IL play is all I can think of right now , I like IL play but I really have little interest in playing Kansas , Detroit and the like.

I like it -- heck, LOVE IT -- when they play in Detroit. I actually get to see them play in person. And that's the type of thing that makes IL play a good thing.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I think the way it mucks up the schedule outweighs whatever good comes from the Mets going to Detroit once every six years.

[Guest Vince Coleman Firecracker]

AG/DC wrote: 3. Un-American. There are ways to empower owners of sad-sack teams without price-fixing the players

Revenue-sharing can also be considered un-American, but it does benefit the sport. Also, although allowing owners to pocket unreasonable amounts of money that might instead be spent on labor is a thoroughly American exercise, I can't say it's all that great a practice.

AG/DC wrote: 4. Just do away with the draft

That might be for the best, allowing amateurs to earn market value; but it also just about guarantees that the Sox and MFYs will get all the best amateurs every year (if the Yankees are still in the league, that is)

AG/DC wrote: 7. This is curious and fun, but why specifically do you want it.

Most teams, like the Mets this year, have a few roster spots they're unsure of in the beginning of the year. Giving them a few more weeks to decide on final cuts makes more sense to me than expanding rosters in August. It also adds a little more juice to the try-outs if the games count.

AG/DC wrote: 9. Will having these samples prevent HGH use or something.

It probably won't prevent too much, but it will at least allow cheaters to be identified when better testing technologies are available.

[Frayed Knot]

="metsguyinmichigan"] ="metirish"]Less IL play is all I can think of right now , I like IL play but I really have little interest in playing Kansas , Detroit and the like. I like it -- heck, LOVE IT -- when they play in Detroit. I actually get to see them play in person. And that's the type of thing that makes IL play a good thing.

Sure, but they play Detroit, what, once every 3 or 4 years? And even then it's only 50/50 that they do so in Detroit. What's it been, two series in Motown over the last dozen years?

And that's the whole fallacy about the idea that IL allows more fans to see their team. If you were 'MetsguyinEastMissouri' (or LA, or SF, or EastTexas, etc.) you went from 3 visits/year down to 1 partly on account of IL play.
IL games are played instead of other games, not in addion to them.

[Guest AG/DC]

Vince Coleman Firecracker wrote: ="AG/DC"]3. Un-American. There are ways to empower owners of sad-sack teams without price-fixing the players Revenue-sharing can also be considered un-American, but it does benefit the sport. Also, although allowing owners to pocket unreasonable amounts of money that might instead be spent on labor is a thoroughly American exercise, I can't say it's all that great a practice.

Two teams play. Two teams get money. You can give the visiting team a percentage of the gate and a percentage of broadcast revenue, and stop dividing up merchandise revs, but let the teams get to keep the moneys from sales of their own hats. Nothing un-American about that. You can even fluctuate the percentage of the gate and broadcast share based on who wins. A purse.

Vince Coleman Firecracker wrote: ="AG/DC"]4. Just do away with the draft That might be for the best, allowing amateurs to earn market value; but it also just about guarantees that the Sox and MFYs will get all the best amateurs every year (if the Yankees are still in the league, that is)

I'm going to guess that more fairly dividing the gate and the broadcast money, as well as jettisoning the anti-trust exemption would gut the Yankee/Met/Sox/Dodger/Angel competitive signing advantages.

It would be traumatic as hell for my team, but maybe the best thing that ocould happen to baseball is four more teams in the New York area and two more in New England.

[duan]

wouldn't getting rid of the anti-trust measures probably mean that all bets are off in relation to
player contracts, minimum/maximum salaries, revenue sharing etc.

The way to punish owners who don't spend money is to stop their team eating at the top table. The way to do that is to have promotion and relegation in a pyramid system.

[Benjamin Grimm]

AG/DC wrote: It would be traumatic as hell for my team, but maybe the best thing that ocould happen to baseball is four more teams in the New York area and two more in New England.

I pretty much agree with that. I don't like the idea of expansion (I prefer contraction, though I didn't think the Twins should have been targeted) but if the big leagues ever does expand again, places like northern New Jersey and Connecticut ought to be considered.

[Guest Vince Coleman Firecracker]

AG/DC wrote: Two teams play. Two teams get money. You can give the visiting team a percentage of the gate and a percentage of broadcast revenue, and stop dividing up merchandise revs, but let the teams get to keep the moneys from sales of their own hats. Nothing un-American about that. You can even fluctuate the percentage of the gate and broadcast share based on who wins. A purse.

I gotcha (although I think season ticket sales should be considered only for the home team), but my problem is that some owners are not reinvesting any money in their team, despite receiving more than their payroll in revenue sharing. Perhaps a team could choose to spend less than a minimum cap if they were willing to forfeit any revenue sharing bucks.

AG/DC wrote: I'm going to guess that more fairly dividing the gate and the broadcast money, as well as jettisoning the anti-trust exemption would gut the Yankee/Met/Sox/Dodger/Angel competitive signing advantages. It would be traumatic as hell for my team, but maybe the best thing that could happen to baseball is four more teams in the New York area and two more in New England.

Yes. The Marlins need to move to Brooklyn and some other team (the Rays?) needs to move to Cambridge. I know a lot of people won't like the Newark Royals at first, but if the teams move to where the fans are, a lot of the fiscal problems baseball faces would disappear.

[Frayed Knot]

duan wrote: wouldn't getting rid of the anti-trust measures probably mean that all bets are off in relation to player contracts, minimum/maximum salaries, revenue sharing etc.

No. Those things are all collectively bargained and would stand up even if such stuff were struck down.
The anti-trust exemption has been gredually whittled down over the years (esp in relation to stuff like salaries) and really only exists now to let the leagues regulate the number and placement of franchises - and even then the sports that don't have the blanket exemption are still able to control movement to a large degree.

I have no problem with getting rid of the A-T exemption but I don't think it's the sword over the owners' heads that it's frequently portrayed to be.

[Guest AG/DC]

I think teams not outlaying their income is overstated based on one report years ago about the Twins using a modest revenue sharing payout to give bonuses to non-uniform personnel. At any rate, the answer to that is to fix the system so more wins means more money for everybody.

[Guest Vince Coleman Firecracker]

duan wrote: wouldn't getting rid of the anti-trust measures probably mean that all bets are off in relation to player contracts, minimum/maximum salaries, revenue sharing etc. The way to punish owners who don't spend money is to stop their team eating at the top table. The way to do that is to have promotion and relegation in a pyramid system.

Most salary-related rules are decided between MLB and the union, so I don't think they would change all that much, if at all.

I don't think relegation would work, since most minor league teams consist of players that have contracts with major league teams. Unless you're referring to the various independent league teams that regularly feature John Rocker on his fourth comeback or Jose Canseco pitching. Or maybe you're suggesting reducing the number of teams in the major league and forcing the remaining ones into some sort of AAAA. One problem I would have with that is if the AAAA league had a different salary structure, it would ultimately be the journeyman-type player that would be hurt the most by having his team demoted; which, to me, is the wrong direction.

Actually, I don't know much about the promotion/relegation system (or soccer in general- why is offsides illegal again?), so I may not be realizing something important about it.

[Guest AG/DC]

Obviously, a system of promotion and relegatoin would have to include dissolving the system of affiliation. Players under contract's with big-league teams who aren't on the team's roster would have be loaned for a fee to another bidding team rather than assigned to an affillated team.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Promotion/relegation is obviously unrealistic in pro batball*, but one way that would make it work would be to immediately relegate the two worst teams now and balance the number of teams between the AL and NL.

All yous guys get on my case for saying that having 2 xtra teams in the NL makes our league worse than theirs, but I think there's something to it. We kicked their asses when they had 2 extras too.

*- Lunchpail Jr.'s word for baseball

[Benjamin Grimm]

If the worst teams in each league were to be dropped to Triple A, and the two Triple A champions promoted, then here's what this year's results would be:

The Washington Nationals would be demoted to the International League, and replaced with Scranton-Wilkes Barre.

The Seattle Mariners would be demoted to the Pacific Coast League, and replaced by Sacramento.

That would work out well geographically, with Scranton sliding into the NL East and Sacramento going into the AL West. But if the Nationals had finished better than the Padres (and they very well could have) then you'd have to do some divisional realignment, unless you wanted to let Scranton play in the NL West.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

I would make them bring back bullpen cars with the cool caps. They rocked.

[Guest AG/DC]

I still haven't seen the Shea Goodbye ceremonies, but, in my head, they drove the old relievers out in a fleet of cap-cars.

[batmagadanleadoff]

AG/DC wrote: 3. Un-American. There are ways to empower owners of sad-sack teams without price-fixing the players.

You're certainly right. But on the other hand, MLB isn't your ordinary business either, even without Antitrust exemptions. Regulations that might be unusual, if not illegal in business, might be needed in MLB. Otherwise, an owner would, as one example, be allowed to up and move his franchise wherever he wants to go, whenever he wants to move, as often as he desires.

In an unregulated free for all, If I were the last owner of the Montreal Expos, I would've moved my team to NYC in a heartbeat and see for myself if the region could support three teams. (Personally, I think it could) I wouldn't stay in a city where my local TV revenues are one fifteenth, or one twentieth of what the Mets and Yankees get, because I would be at a huge competitive disadvantage. The Yankees and the Mets don't like my move? Tough on them, I'd say. It's business, not personal.

________

All of the good ideas seem to have been taken. One idea I always liked, but have absolutely no reasonable expectation that it would ever come to pass, is the elimination of divisions. Two big leagues. No playoffs. First place teams win the pennant. Like pre-'69.

[Guest Vince Coleman Firecracker]

AG/DC wrote: Obviously, a system of promotion and relegatoin would have to include dissolving the system of affiliation. Players under contract's with big-league teams who aren't on the team's roster would have be loaned for a fee to another bidding team rather than assigned to an affillated team.

But then, wouldn't the promoted teams likely have succeeded with the help of players on loan from a team already in the majors? And if that's the case, what's the point in promoting a team if the players aren't also promoted?

[Guest AG/DC]

*But then, wouldn't the promoted teams likely have succeeded with the help of players on loan from a team already in the majors?

Presumably, first-divison clubs would tend to rent players to teams further down the totem poll.

* And if that's the case, what's the point in promoting a team if the players aren't also promoted?

Well, I'm guessing a team that played it's way from the second-divison into the premiership would hold most of their players" contracts, and if they had two or three players whose contracts are held by other premier teams, they'd either return the players or buy out their contracts.

In such a system, ML teams would hold 50 or 60 players instead of the 200 or so they control now.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

I would make a rule that a certain percentage of tickets be made available only on the day of game and at the gate, and set a limit on the amount sold per person. They'd sell out anyway, and it would make it more difficult for brokers to snatch them all up. Even a small percentage.

Teams will never do it, of course, since they want the money up front. But it seems like it would give more people to get seats at a reasonable price. My fear is that they're pricing people out of the market.

We used to go to a couple Red Wings games a year and even an occasional Lions Thanksgiving game. But $60 a ticket plus ruined that. Considering we'd root against the Lions means they probably don't want us back...

[duan]

fwiw

here's how I'd have it.

16 team top division
play each other a number of games home and away (same)

top team WINS

bottom 2 get relegated to Major League Division 2

Major League Division 2 is 16 teams

and so on down.

in England there are 92 clubs in the main "football league" pyramid structure. Then as you start getting to what would most often be called "non league" it becomes a slightly more convoluted pyramid, with it being regionally broken up at what could be called the 6th or 7th divisions away from the top flight.

Two good examples of how this all works

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/eng_conf/default.stm
20 years ago Oxford Utd were in the top division of English Football.
They're now in the bottom half of "The Conference" - essentially the 5th Division.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/eng_prem/table/default.stm
Whereas here, you can see Hull City - who 5 years ago were in the 4th division of English Football are now sitting in 3rd place in the top division.

How did those two things happen?
Good quality scouting, good quality player development and investment by owners in Hulls case.

Chronic mismanagement - in particular financially but player wise too - in Oxford's case.

When the Pittsburgh Pirates are so BAD at being a baseball team, why doesn't somebody else get a chance?

[duan]

and before you go "but the playoffs ... etc etc etc"

isn't the goal to decide *the best* team?

[Benjamin Grimm]

As was said above, you'd have to get rid of the whole farm system concept.

If the Scranton-Wilkes Barre team were to ascend to the majors next year on account of their IL Championship in 2008, then the Yankees would lose whatever prospects they had in AAA.

I guess you could make the players from the Nationals (who would be dropped) go to Scranton and Washington would become the Yankees' AAA franchise. And then Scranton would have the task of taking the Nationals players and trying to make them a better team, one that will play well enough to retain their place in the National League.

[duan]

No - Nationals players go down with the Nationals , Scranton players come up with Scranton.

You're right that the whole way that Major League Organisations get to control players rights for about 10 years would be junked. A contract is a contract so to speak. The way football deals with development is this, if a player is under the age of 24 and turns down an offer of a contract from his current club to sign for another club the other club have to compensate the club who 'developed him'. Mostly they'll actually agree a Transfer Fee, but sometimes it goes to a tribunal.
Players move between clubs either at the end of a contract or during a contract (when the clubs again must agree a fee).