What Do You Want In the CBA?

I don’t agree on more playoff teams, I feel there are enough now and the playoffs seem to drag on and on due to all the days between games and the like. As a result, I’d also keep the same 162 game regular season. I’d also keep the same home field advantage rule in place as it at least gives some meaning to the all-star game result. Finally, I don’t really agree on larger rosters for the month of April either, I’d rather see slightly expanded rosters for the entire season from April to August, perhaps around 28 players.

I’d like to see a hard salary cap….at say $175 million, and a floor of $50 million.

I doubt the owners will want to expand rosters, and pay more salaries…even if it’s 3 guys making the minimum. I remember some years ago when the owners colluded too set rosters at 24 players unofficially to avoid paying.
Cub managers have a hard enough time using the bench now…let’s not confuse them with more choices…lol.

From a big-picture perspective, I think the game is fine as-is. No more playoff teams. No DH in the NL even though it gives the AL teams an advantage in the regular season. Maybe some minor divisional realignment and a salary floor as minor tweaks. The only significant changes I could get behind are a shortened season and more balanced schedules.
I forgot one thing. Get rid of interleague play. It is an abomination that never should have happened in the first place. It takes away some of the mystery from the World Series because the teams may have played each other before.
A lot of the tinkering I would do in the CBA would be with a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff like Rule 5 drafts, Type A and Type B free agents, arbitration, trading draft picks, and other stuff like that. I am not sure what I wuld do, but those are the areas I would take a look at.

1) Hard salary cap based on league revenue. The players get a percentage of revenue. It works well in the NHL and best of all minimizes these off season bidding wars.
2) Balanced schedules.
3) Elimination of the DH.
4) Less days off during playoffs.

1) I think they should only add one guy to the roster to make it a 26 man active roster, but they should also limit rosters to having a maximum of 12 pitchers.
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2) Get rid of draft compensation for free agents. It hasn’t worked out the way the league intended, and has pretty much only benefitted the rich teams.
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3) Agree on balanced schedules.
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4) When active rosters expand to 40 in September, teams should still only be able to suit up a typical active roster each game. It creates too much of an advantage for teams who don’t have their AAA clubs in the postseason. Teams can change who is active for each game on a daily basis (e.g., I’m facing a team full of power hitting lefties, I can load up my active roster for that series with left handed relievers).

1) lenses that react to conditions by changing in both tint and hue
2) bullpen phones that work

More doubleheaders.

@Jedi Agreed, but not the day / night kind… we want the Bingo Banks “Lets play two” kind.

Good idea, Buddy. The best regular season record should determine home field advantage for the World Series. Also, the All Star game is more hype than anything, forget about giving it any significance.
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And, it looks like the rain delay from Wed is going to be advantageous (is that a word?) to St. Louis because they’re talking about Carpentird starting again tonight on 3 days rest. Maybe it will backfire.
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Swanson – I got a question for you, why do they still use bull pen phones at all? They still have cords on them and are tethered to the wall – do they know how ridiculous that makes them look, picking up the phone and “dialing up” the bull pen? Maybe if they were calling to have Phil Regan get up I could see it, but he retired in about 1970.
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Slinger – Milwaukee already has cheerleaders – the sausages.

1. Agree with Norm’s two league 15 team divisions.
2. No more playoff teams, anyone remember the last day of the season this year??
3. DH in the NL.
4. 27 man rosters, no need to designate an ‘active’ 25 though, the two inactive will always be the previous two starting pitchers—it’d just be an exercise in pencil whipping.
5. World Series homefield advantage decided by which team’s starting first baseman can throw Delino DeShields the farthest.

Forget the bullpen phone, just shoot em a text.

First – Tony would have to change out of his transitions into his bifocals to send a text, then he’d have to skip out to the mound without his glasses falling off his face, while the ump watches carefully to make sure his skip doesn’t turn into a trot,thus forcing the pitcher to remain in the game. This could add a whole new dimension to the game.

I don’t know if this would be part of the CBA or not, but I’d like to see a reply challenge system put into place on plays at the bags. Obviously with some limitations. I don’t have the answers, but I’d like to see something.

Home field advantage in the World Series should be determined by the ex-Cub factor: team with the most ex-Cubs on its roster (including management) either gets or gives up home field advantage.

Or which ever team comps me the best “hotel, airline, luxury box & per diem” package gets home field advantage.

Or else determine home field advantage by a coin toss at the end of the playoffs.

Teams should be able to cut players (and their expensive, multiyear contracts). For instance, if a player gets 5 years at $20 million per year, and if the team determines that, say 2 years into it, he’s just not worth it, the team should be able to cut the player and his contract.
From the fan’s perspective, it seems like some free agents lapse into ‘semi-retirement” mode immediately upon signing the contract of a lifetime (I’m not saying this is deliberate). The possibility of getting cut would provide them with an incentive to stay with the program ie., get paid for current performance, not for past performance.
The CBA could require the team to guarantee the player the league minimum for the duration of the original contract if he gets cut.

I would have thought that my anti-interleague play stance would have generated more comments…
RE Contracts: I don’t mind guaranteed contracts. One of the reasons why I stopped watching NFL is that 2/3 of the team was different from year to year. I never knew who was on the team and that made it hard to root for them. That being said, I think the pendulum has swung back towards guaranteed contracts in the NFL because a lot of players are only signing contracts with large signing bonuses and/or a portion of the contract that is guaranteed.
Guaranteed contracts also makes it more important to get a competent GM. Just like in poker, a good GM has to know when to walk away from a player because of size and length of the contract.
You gotta know when to hold em
Know when to fold em
Know when to walk away
Know when to run…

I’m all for Chris’ “DeShields toss” idea.

I like ending of guaranteed contracts but the union will NEVER allow it. Maybe Randy’s suggestion about capping the guarantee at 3 years max could work. Although at that point signing bonuses would be in vogue and everything would be front loaded, probably still better than a Soriano contract. Now that the WS is over we should have a raffle on who can come closest to the Pujols contract. I say he asks for 10 years $300M and gets 8 years $220M, hopefully not from the Cubs.

Epstein said, “There’s this myth about the 4-A hitter. Guys who perform all the way up the Minor Leagues, dominate Triple-A, get a cup of coffee, they hit [.150] in the big leagues, and everybody labels them a 4-A hitter. The reality is, I’m not so sure there is something called a 4-A hitter. It’s just [a] pretty good Major League hitter who never got an opportunity.” Glad to hear Theo looks like he will give LaHair a shot. I think a few of you were on the
4-A bandwagon, cmon, admit it, raise your hand.

I thought those AAAA guys were just called “future Orioles”

1. AAAA players: A lot of these guys are players that can hit, but can’t actually field a position.
2. Regarding guaranteed contracts and their length, salary caps and floors: seems like many of the commentators on this board who otherwise seem to be free-market libertarian/conservatives are very quick to want to regulate the market for baseball talent. This is very confusing to me; either markets are efficient or they aren’t. The salary structure is already slanted in favor of the teams (potentially a player’s first eleven pro years are under the control of the team with only arbitration in place to help)…those first years are usually the players’ best and usually they are underpaid. I didn’t realize that so many folks on thiis board were closet socialists.