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 18th and 19th. 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 13th highest
payroll, Kansas City at $128.1 million, and the 19th 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.
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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)