Manfred’s Hot Ticket Items for 2016

Earlier this week we praised Rob Manfred’s first season as the Commissioner of Major League Baseball and donned the season a success. You know us here at The Greedy Pinstripes by now, we take the time to celebrate what needs to be celebrated and we move on to the next one. Manfred can celebrate his successes in 2015 for now but soon he will have to begin focusing on the 2016 season. I wanted to make this a little easier for him, because I know deep in my heart he’s reading this either directly or having him read it for him indirectly, by laying out the hot ticket items that will be discussed, implemented or changed before the 2016 season.

The New CBA

The current collective bargaining agreement expires at the conclusion of the 2016 season and World Series, well like a month and a half later but who is counting, and it’s never too early to start discussing it now. The players will want this, the owners will want that and the sooner they begin to meet in the middle on the things the better in my opinion. Also this is going to be a huge factor in the decision making on a lot of the key note items below.

Minority Hiring in MLB

We touched on this once in its own post so we won’t spend much time here. MLB’s plan seems to be a long-term plan that begins at the bottom and works itself up. Major League Baseball has begun infiltrating the inner city’s youth and putting baseball academies, the RBI program etc. in trying to lure minorities to the game at a young age. That interest at a young age will turn many of those children, hopefully, into baseball players and then eventual managers, GM’s and owners. It’s a very long-term plan but it’s been in the works since the Bud Selig era so Manfred may end up getting the bulk of the credit for it.

Fan Safety

MLB will continue to talk about potentially adding nets down the first base and third base side of the fields much like they have behind home plate. This is already planning to be discussed at an owners meeting on November 18^th and 19^th. This seems to me to be a relatively small change and improvement to keep the fans safe. No fans, no revenue and no Major League Baseball.

Parity

Parity seems to be showing its ugly face in Major League Baseball and Manfred hopes it continues. The Top 9 teams in terms of payroll did not make the League Championship Series and the 13^th highest payroll, Kansas City at $128.1 million, and the 19^th highest payroll, the New York Mets at $109.6 million, made it to the 2015 World Series.

The Chase Utley Slide Rule

According to Manfred the whole “takeout the second baseman with a slide to break up the double play” or what am I referring to as the Chase Utley Rule was being talked about before the postseason. Preliminary discussions with the MLB Players Association have already taken place so this one is getting done one way or another.

Shortening or Changing the Schedule

There have been talks of going back to a 154-game schedule instead of the current 162-game schedule and there has also been talks of opening the season earlier to avoid November World Series games. Personally, being born on November 2, I like having World Series games being played on my birthday. I can remember AJ Burnett, my favorite pitcher (there is something about throwing a no-hitter with nine walks that intrigues me) pitching on my birthday with the Yankees on the cusp of clinching the 2009 World Series. That didn’t happen but it was still cool.

That’s just a few of the things Manfred will presumably talk about this winter, if I missed any please leave them in the comments section below or shoot me a tweet by following @GreedyStripes. 

Shifting in Baseball Still Prevalent in 2015

Major League Baseball has seen teams shift more and more over the past few seasons and the 2015 season was no exception to that. When all the shifts were tallied and all the games were played MLB teams combined for a whopping 17,733 defensive shifts on balls in play this season. That whopping number is a 33% increase from the 2014 total of 13.298.

In 2011 Major League Baseball saw just 2,357 shifts while the numbers jumped to 4,577 in 2012 and 8,180 in 2013. The stats don’t lie on the effectiveness of shifts. Sure they giveth and they taketh away from game to game and situation to situation but over the course of a 162 game schedule the shift giveth much more than it could ever think of taking away.

Colorado has the biggest increase in shifting this season as they finally adopted the strategy shifting 897 more times in 2015, up from just 114 times in 2014. Tampa Bay, the team that likely began the shifting strategy we see in the game today, led Major League Baseball in shifting this season with 1,462 shifts, a rise of 638 shifts from 2014, while the Houston Astros were second with 1,416.

The Atlanta Braves (211) and the Washington Nationals (216) have still yet to adopt the shifting strategy yet and were the two teams with the fewest shifts in 2015. The New York Yankees are known for their shifting and continued to showcase it often in 2015 taking some of the pressure off their starting pitchers and when the Yankees are doing it you know it’s time to change. They still won’t allow beards for crying out loud!

Quick Hit: It's Time to Sprint

The 162 game schedule for Major League Baseball is one of the most grueling, demanding and hardest schedules in all of professional sports. While the NFL plays once a week and the NBA plays three or four games a week tops the 30 MLB franchises play seven days a week and sometimes for up to three weeks straight without a day off. The Major League season is definitely a marathon where you're only as good as your next day's starting pitcher, well until the clock is about to turn to September.

The marathon begins a sprint tonight as the New York Yankees head down to Atlanta to face off with the Atlanta Braes. The Yankees are in second place in the American League East Division trailing the Toronto Blue Jays and would host a one-game playoff game in the Wild Card Round if the season were to end today. New York has a tough schedule going forward, probably much tougher than Toronto's, making every single game and every winnable game that much more important.

The Yankees have 32 games left this season barring a one-game playoff to decide a division winner or Wild Card winner including many games head-to-head with the Blue Jays, Baltimore Orioles and the Boston Red Sox. No more days off for general soreness, no more days off just because you need some rest and no more days off unless absolutely necessary.

We're going to battle and we need all hands on deck. Let's go to war and let's win this thing!

The Yankees, the AL East & Strength of Schedule

The Major League Baseball season is a grind. It's a 162 game marathon where even the best teams have their ups and they have their downs. Even the best teams can lose to the worst teams and you're only as good as your next day's starting pitcher. There comes a point in the season, and we're fast approaching this, where the year stops being a marathon and starts becoming a sprint towards the playoffs. The Yankees, the Toronto Blue Jays and Baltimore Orioles are in a fight for not only the American League East Division but for one of the two available Wild Card playoff spots in the American League as well. The winner of these divisions and races when they are this close usually comes down to who is the hottest, the Blue Jays right now, and who has the most help by their strength of schedule, is that the Yankees?

As you can see the easiest schedule of the three goes to the Blue Jays while the Orioles have the toughest schedule. New York and Toronto have 10 more head-to-head match-ups while the Yankees and the Orioles face off just three more times. Toronto and Baltimore go at it six more times meaning this division is going to come down to those games head-to-head.

Starting the Rally Cry Against the Toronto Blue Jays

The New York Yankees and the Toronto Blue Jays make the trip north tonight to the Rogers Centre to start a big three game series over the weekend. Including tonight's contest these two teams have 10 games remaining head-to-head in a division race that is looking likely to go down to the wire. We all know the Yankees offense has struggled over the past week or so and we all watched as the Toronto Blue Jays swept away the Yankees inside Yankee Stadium last week, but who cares? That was then, this is now. This is why you play a game every single day in the Major League Baseball schedule and this is why you play 162 games over the course of a season. Those games don't mean nothing, but they are less and less important if the Yankees sweep them back over this weekend or get a much needed series win against their new foes in the AL East.

So here is my rally cry for the Yankees, my plea to shut up all the haters, to quiet the fans that are ready to jump off the bandwagon and attend games in Queens at a moment's notice and let's here's to quelling the thought that the mighty Yankees will miss the postseason altogether for a third straight season. The Yankees can right the ship and they will, talent wins out more times than not, but they need you to do your part so that they can do their part. Stop being negative, stop the booing, stop digging the grave for the 2015 Yankees on just August 14th and start the rally cry for the Yankees season in your area.

We'll be on Twitter all series long, and all season long, so head on over to the app and give @GreedyStripes a follow. Tag us in your rally cry, because the rally party starts here. #SWEEPTHEJAYS

Reducing MLB Schedule Back to 154 Games?

We all know the story of Roger Maris’ assault on Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record when he hit 61 home runs in 1961 and we all know about the asterisk that was originally placed on the milestone. The asterisk was placed next to the historic number because up until the 1961 season the Major League Baseball schedule only contained 154 games. Before the 1961 season the schedule was lengthened to 162 games but MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred and the director of the MLB Players Association Tony Clark are at least discussing the possibility of moving the schedule back to 154 games.

What would it mean for the game? Would Barry Bonds single-season record for home runs, 73 home runs, become one of those records that will never be broken? Will Ichiro’s 262 hits in a single season join Bond’s record along with the Seattle Mariners epic 116 win season? In a word, probably.

I understand the players are tired, the schedule is the most demanding in all of professional sports and the grind is showing up in the lack of offense in the league and in time spent on the disabled list but I personally find it hard to feel sorry for these players. There are more big money contracts being shelled out in Major League Baseball then there are in any other sport and that’s a fact so you tend to get what you pay for. And when you and I purchase tickets, MLB Network subscriptions, YES Network subscriptions, MLB TV subscriptions, Yankees hats and memorabilia or clothing etc. we are getting what WE paid for. Sure the players may want the same salary or more for less games but what do the fans want, did they ever consider that?

The excuses are already filling in about seeing your favorite players more often and all that but generally your ticket is purchased long before the lineups for that particular day are posted. I don’t buy it and frankly I don’t like it, maybe I’m moving from progressive to the old man that doesn’t like change, who knows? One thing is for certain though, this would be the most drastic change to Major League Baseball in my lifetime in my opinion and I’m not quite sure how I feel about it. I consider myself to be very progressive and I’m all for change but this seems to be a step back both from the fans perspective and the business side of Major League Baseball. I’m not sure I like it so I hope it doesn’t come down to this.

Manfred At Least Entertaining Idea of Shortening the MLB Season

Rob Manfred has come into the Commissioner of Major League Baseball’s job and has made many changes and improvement to the game of baseball in less than six months on the job but he’s not done yet. While Manfred is still working on getting exhibition games and possibly a team in Cuba and in other areas outside the continental United States there are many other agendas he is working on including, but not limited to, pace of play, Pete Rose, domestic violence in MLB, the designated hitter for the National League and even potentially shortening the MLB season from 162 games.

Manfred states that shortening the season has become a popular topic among players and owners as they prepare to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement and labor deal after the 2016 season. Manfred has made it his mission in the early part of the season to meet with players from all 30 franchises about many of the issues stated above and the idea of giving players more days off has been garnering the most attention. Manfred recognizes the financial ramifications that would come with a shorter season and compares it to when the American League transitioned from a 154 game schedule to 162 games in 1961 with the National League following suit in 1962. Whether this happens or not remains to be seen but it looks like Manfred is at least entertaining the idea and that may count for something with a new labor deal potentially hinging on the idea.