Fixing Baseball's Mid-Summer Classic

I love baseball. At any level, it is a great sport.  It’s actually my favorite professional sport.  That doesn’t mean that there aren’t some flaws in how things are done in the sport.  This week, one of the biggest flaws in Major League Baseball is on display.  The All-Star Game.

The Major League Baseball All-Star Game is by far the best all-star game out there.  The NFL Pro Bowl is glorified flag football and now that it is played before the Super Bowl, players from the two best teams in the league don’t even play in it.  The NHL All-Star game is a joke too.  Part of what makes hockey fun and exciting is the aggressive and physical nature of the game, yet in the all-star game they don’t hit each other.  The NBA All-Star game is no better.  This year there were more 3-point shots taken in the game than 2-point attempts.  There was 321 points scored in this year’s NBA All-Star game, almost double what was scored in an average regular season game.

One of the great things about baseball and their all-star game is that the play on the field is the exact same as in a regular season game.  It is not dominated by the hitters, because you have the best pitchers in the world on the mound and their sole job is to get batters out.  It also is not dominated by those pitchers, because the hitters that are at the plate are also some of the best in the world, and those guys rake even against the best.

The problem with the MLB All-Star game is not what happens on the field, it is what happens leading up to the game and in the clubhouses and dugouts during the game.  The game itself is fantastic, but how it game is put together is the problem.

Major League Baseball has overthought the process and the ideals behind their all-star game.  And like many things wrong with baseball, we have Bud Selig to thank for the errors in the all-star game as well.

Ever since the 2002 tie game in Milwaukee, the MLB All-Star game has had added value and meaning.  Due to the uproar of not playing until there was a winner in that 2002 game, Major League Baseball decided to not only always play the game to completion, but to also reward the winning team by giving that league home field advantage in the World Series.  For over 100 years, home field advantage in the World Series alternated between the two leagues.  Suddenly, because of one bad decision from the former commissioner (calling the game a tie after 11 innings), he over reacted and made another (giving a showcase game that is meant to be an exhibition real importance).

If the all-star game is going to be an important game that has significant meaning, (which it is, that is toothpaste out of the tube at this point, there is no going back) then let’s play it like a real game.

ROSTER SIZE

Yes, that is Kevin Correia on an all-star roster.

From 1969 until 1997 teams had a 28 man roster for the All-Star Game.  That number has been expanded 4 times in 18 years.  In 1998 they expanded to 30.  In 2003, the year following the 7-7 tie debacle, they expanded to 32 players.  In 2009 it moved to 33 per team, and now we have a 34-man roster.  Why do we need 34 players per team to play 1 game of baseball?

During the regular season, there is 25 guys on every team.  For the All-Star Game each team has 34 players.  If this game is going to have as much importance as a regular season game in late September, shouldn’t we be playing by the same rules in both games?  If Game 7 of the World Series has 25 men per team, don’t you think the way we decide who the home team in that game should also be played with 25 men?

Last year 81 players were selected for the game, including 13 that chose not to participate.  In 2011, 84 players were selected due to injuries and/or player unavailability.  In the 3 of the last 5 All-Star Games 80+ players were declared “all-stars”.  That means we are now considering over 10% of the players in baseball to be “all-stars” on a regular basis.  Since when did Major League Baseball become some rec soccer league giving out participation medals?

FAN BALLOTING

Sorry fans, but you are out. 

This game now means something, we don’t need fans from random city stuffing the ballot box to get some schlup that can’t bat his weight into a game that determines who hosts Game 1 of the World Series.

Derek Jeter had a great career and was a great ball player, but last year he had career lows in hits (147), runs (47), RBI (50), doubles (19), home runs (4) and batting average (.256) as well as being a career worst 0.2 Wins Above Replacement.  Last year he was elected the starter to the American League team.  I understand that it was his swan song since he was retiring at the end of the season, but if you are playing for keeps, you can’t be sentimental.

While we are at it, let’s leave the fans out of it too!

TEAM REPRESENTATION

You want to know how we cut the rosters back to 25 from 34, we get rid of the rule that every team must be represented in the All-Star Game.  Guess what, if your team sucks, you may not get a player on the team, it really is that simple.

SELECTING THE ROSTERS

Who knows the players in the league better than the players themselves?  Well, I guess maybe the managers, coaches and GM’s.  So let’s have those groups of people make these important decisions. 

If you want to still have starting in the game mean something you select the teams this way:

PLAYERS - Every players from every team can cast one ballot for their league.  The top vote getters amongst players are the starters in the game.  What better honor than to be selected by your peers to start in an all-star game?

COACHES/MANAGERS - Every Managers and 4 other coaches from each team can cast one ballot for 1 hitter, 1 starting pitcher and 1 relief pitcher.  Again, the top non-starters in each position, make the roster.

TEAM MANAGER - Manager of the all-star team adds 1 player from the 3 positions voted on by the other managers and coaches in the league.

GENERAL MANAGERS - Every General Manager, with the help of the team manager for the game, select the remaining bench players for the game.  This could be done via ballot or conference call type discussion.

If you build the team with 2 players at every position in the field that allows you to have 9 pitchers and still be at 25.  I’d even be willing to expand it to 26 if you are using a DH (which now they use every year anyway).

When you consider what is at stake in the game, these really are some easy fixes.  Let’s make it happen!

Phil Kessel Not The Answer For The Penguins

The Pens think THIS GUY is the answer to all their problems. He's not.

I'm going to make a prediction that Phil Kessel will get his name engraved on the Stanley Cup as a Penguin the exact same amount of times as I will. (sidenote: I can't skate!)

This has nothing to do with Kessel not being a talented player, it has everything to do with me not trusting the Penguins organization to do the right thing.  It is about the Penguins once again trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Management and Ownership of the Penguins seem to think that their team is close to winning another Cup.  They aren’t.

Here are the facts. 

The Penguins needed a win in the final weekend of the regular season to even secure a spot in this year’s playoffs.  They were the worst team in the Eastern Conference point-wise to make the playoffs, and only Calgary in the Western Conference had a lower point total of teams to make the playoffs.  By that math, they were 15th of 30 teams in points last season.  If that isn't average, I don't know what is.  And average teams aren't one guy away from winning a championship.

This team lost in the 1st round of the playoffs in just 5 games.  That is the fewest amount of playoff wins the team has had in a post season since the first year of the Sid-Geno-Fleury Era, when they lost in 5 games to the Senators.

This team had 49 points after 32 games this season, then got just 49 more in the final 50 games, finishing with a losing record in those final 50 games.

How does one player suddenly make a team with so many needs, and so many faults, a serious Cup contender?  The answer, they don't.

The Penguins need a reboot, but management doesn't see that.  Instead they will continue waste away the prime years of two superstars in Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin as they attempt to find quick fixes instead of rebuilding the team for years to come.

The Penguins have put all their eggs in one basket with Kessel, all the while ignoring the fact that he doesn't fit the team in the biggest areas of need.

The Penguins need a gritty goal scorer.  They need someone that will camp in-front of the net and make it his job to screen the goalie every time the play is in the offensive end.  They need a big physical player that will throw their body around.

This is not what Phil Kessel does.

Kessel is a goal scorer, and a damn good one at that.  He has scored 30+ goals in 5 of the last 7 seasons.  He isn't a grinder.  He won't win pucks out of the corner.  He won't sit in front of the net on the power play or get ugly goals by crashing the net.  And he certainly doesn't play both ends of the ice.  He was a -34 this past season in Toronto, which was the 2nd worse in the NHL.

Will Kessel help the Penguins?  Of course, but not in areas they need it the most.

Yet the Penguins ownership and management think that Kessel is the solution.  So much so that they are now on the hook for $47.6M over the next 7 years.  So much so that  instead of getting multiple pieces that fill the needed roles for the team at a much lower cost, they will pay $6.8M a year to a guy that fills none of them.

Then again, this should surprise no one that has followed this organization.  This is the organization that has been putting band-aids over gunshot wounds since they won the Cup in 2009.  The same organization that has traded away more draft picks (32) than have had players drafted make it to the NHL (22) over the past 10 years.  (They traded another 1st round pick away to get Kessel, making it 3 straight years that they will not have a selection in the 1st round of the draft.).  It is the same organization that with Kessel, has now tied up 53% of their salary in 5 players.

If you want to win, you have to make tough choices.  You have to trade guys that fans like.  You have to cut ties with players that have given their all for you.  You have to be willing to part ways with guys that won with you and that the organization has been built on.  You have to be willing to trade anyone on your roster if it will help your team in the long run.  I do mean ANYONE, including Letang, Fleury, Malkin and even Crosby.

The Penguins won’t make these type of moves, and because of that, they won’t be engraving Phil Kessel’s name into the Stanley Cup any time soon.