Steve Davis: Bud Selig's Successor To Be Picked In Baltimore
Who knew? The owners will be voting on his replacement August 14, next week, in Baltimore. The candidates are already in the baseball inner circle. Rob Manfred, the current COO, Tim Brosnan, the current EVP of Business, and Red Sox Chairman Tom Werner.
Basically, the owners want "one of their own." No surprises, no major changes. They're rolling in the dough, so why shake things up? That said, the new commissioner will certainly put his stamp on things.
Here are a few suggestions:
Get rid of the All-Star game dictating home field advantage in the World Series. It is too important to be decided by an exhibition game. Speed up the pace of play.
Games are too long. Young people are turned off by 3 1/2 hour games. Enforce the rules on time between pitches, and invoke some new rules as far as stepping out of the box, off the mound, catchers' visits to the mound, etc. If for no other reason than I wake up at 4am and staying up til 10:45 pm is killing me.
Also, work harder to see if you can convince the union to go for a salary cap if you guarantee a salary floor. Come up with a formula to ensure that teams will spend the same % on salaries as they do now, but that it will be spread out more among the teams. Instead of having a couple teams that spend over $200 million, and some that spend $45 million, make it so that teams can't go over something like $150, but can't go under $80 or so.
That's just a guess, but you get my idea.