The worst innovation in baseball?

[hairmetalfreek]

What do you think is the worst innovation in baseball? What has hurt the game more than any other?

[Baseball Guru]

I cant decide between the DH, which I despise or expansion which I think overall has hurt the game as a whole because of the watered down talent..

I guess looking at the big picture I'd say expansion...

[Dodgerfan1]

Free agency, free agency, free agency!

DH is a fairly close second.

[whoisonit]

My #1 Choice for Worst Innovation isn't listed.
The 'quality start'. Maybe better to just refer to the highly specialised role of pitchers. Ugh.
The game has been harmed with this nonsense of pitchers going 5 or 6 and being followed by a parade of, at best, mediocre throwers, with the big 'closer' only comming in at the start of the ninth in a 'save' situation.
A starter should set out to go nine every time out. A 'save' is when you have 2 guys on, 1 out in the 7th in a 1 run game. NOT starting the 9th with your team in the lead.
Don't even get me started on the 'situational' roles of pitchers. Pansy ass pitcher x can only pitch well to righthanders when the bases are empty with 2 outs in the sixth when there are more than 27,000 fans in attendence on Tuesdays against Central Division clubs. Exageration ? Not by much, not by much.
Derth of good pitchers ? No way ! Just too many contrived 'jobs'.
Oh bring back the days when the 'long man' was some washed up old hurler whose hanging on by the skin of his teeth, burried in somebody's pen !

[Chadwick]

As a Reds fan, I have to say "Gapper" but since it wasn't an option, I went with the five-man rotation. None of the other choices lowered the quality of play on the field nearly as much as reducing the number of starts by the best pitchers on the team and replacing them with guys who have little business pitching at the major league level.

[heavesrock]

I cant decide between the DH, which I despise or expansion which I think overall has hurt the game as a whole because of the watered down talent..

I guess looking at the big picture I'd say expansion...

Has expansion really watered down talent? I say no. The population has grown enough that it is harder to make it into the major leagues today than before. Add in all the latin and Asian talent coming in now, and it's that much harder, and the talent is that much better. The reason, IMO, that there hasn't been a .400 hitter in so long is because the pitching keeps getting better and better.

[ChiSox1917]

Lol @ people saying FA...that's one of the best things to happen to baseball.
Choice for me is easy, 5-man rotation.

[YankeeFanUK]

close call between expansion & wild card....the league needs to trim a few teams, cut it down to an east & west...and get rid of the WC..if your not good enough to win your division you shouldnt be in the p/offs..its gonna be as bad as the NBA/NHL soon...love the DH

[SamtheBravesFan]

(I didn't read any of the posts, so this is just what I have to say, I guess.)

I've never been upset about interleague play and I'm still not upset about it, even if it is inheriently unfair.

The wild card is needed due to the amount of teams in baseball now. You'd still have the "how can this team have even made the playoffs with this kind of record" argument with poor divison winners (i. e. the 1973 Mets and 2005 Padres) anyway.

Expansion is linked into this as well. I don't think that the talent pool is particularly diluted. There are always going to be players in baseball that have no business being on a major league squad, and that isn't necessarily the fault of expansion.

Free agency is fine with me. It is just part of the system. Charlie O'Finley's "everyone becomes a free agent at the end of the year" system might have been better, but we'll never know.

The five-man rotation is good for some teams, as some pitchers need more rest than others. I'd say it's actually a good thing.

I don't hate the DH at all. In fact, it's fine just the way it is right now. However, if we're talking about something that we can do without in the future, that would the the first thing to go. That or the insipid "All-Star Game decides the World Series advantage" thing.

[Wade8813]

I don't have a problem with any of the listed things.

Interleague play is just more games. I have no problem with that.

I love the DH.

I also like the Wild Card. Although sometimes I wonder if we shouldn't get rid of Division winners entirely, and just have the teams with the top 4 records make the playoffs. The Wild Card team often has a better record than one of the 3 Division champions.

Expansion makes sense - population grows.

Free agency - it's not ideal, but it's better than the horrible way things were run before

5 man rotation - There's no hard and fast rule saying you have to have a 5 man rotation. Thus anyone who uses it does so of their own volition. I may wish they didn't use it, but it's up to them.

[Calif_Eagle]

I dont like inter-league play. It IS unfair for one team to constantly face the Yankees and another to face the Royals each season. Also, with TV you can see all the teams and as cable and satellite grow even more in the future this will even be more possible & widespread.

I dont like the DH. Pitchers are part of the team, they play the field, they should bat and have to face the opposition.

I dont like the wild card. I want 4 major leagues of 8 teams each, champions to face each other in semi-finals, then the World Series. No Inter-League play except in this playoff. (If you wanted to divide each league into 4 team divisions and play an unbalanced schedule to get an "LCS" and playoffs for TV, I wouldnt personally like it, but I would understand it from an economic and exposure view. One thing about that last idea, it WOULD leave you with 1 team of every four making the playoffs and winning a division title. That should help keep interest high.)

Expansion was a necessity, to not expand was to invite competition. The NFL once had a "We will never expand!" posture and that cost them a lot of money in 1946-1949 with the advent of the AAFC, then once *again*! just a decade later in 1960-1966 (I guess they just never learn) with the AFL, & again 1974-75 WFL & 1983-85 USFL. Branch Rickey was going to challenge baseball in about 1960 with the Continental League, baseball wisely expanded instead of going through all the problems the NFL subjected itself to. (Mainly rising costs for players.)

Free Agency was a necessary thing for the players, the Reserve Clause was unconstitutional and should have been illegal. Where the owners screwed this up was with arbitration and by not listening to Charlie Finley. Finley wanted 1 year contracts, non guaranteed, everyone free at the end of every season. I feel that had this gone through, the average salary today would be lower, and the amount of money teams have flushed down the toilet on guaranteed contracts for players who were busts would be far less. If thats not a good idea, then the owners & union should have been flexible and created some sort of limited player movement system that would made everyone happy. But... those "trees" that dont bend in the breeze, (the owners) snap in the storm... the present system is Great for the players but bad for the fans. As for the owners... well its bad for them, but thats primarily their own damn fault. I have no sympathy for them.

Five-man rotations arent bad. Why overuse men and blow out arms? See Dwight Gooden, see the Orioles of the early 1960's and how much pitching talent they ruined. Whats bad is the way relievers are used. Specialists, hold men, closers. I think the most overrated position in baseball is the ninth inning closer. Might as well put pinch hitters like Dusty Rhodes & Smokey Burgess in the HOF too. I agree 100% with "whoisonit" in post #4 re: "the quality start". Almost the only time anyone gets a CG anymore is when they have a no-hitter or at least a shutout going.

[Iron Jaw]

I think you should have also added "divisional" play to the list.

[Iron Jaw]

I despise the DH.

Interleague play that counts in the standings is ridiculous - games against the other league should be played as exhibitions as they were in the past.
The ONLY good thing about interleague play is the American League pitchers have to swing the bat when they play in NL parks.

The current free agency setup makes a player think more about his worth the market versus what he can do to contribute to the pennant effort of his current team. I don't mind a semi-open market, but the current, to me, is not very good. In essence, I preferred the reserve clause system.

I think the wildcard is not a good thing. But then, I don't like divisional play anyway. I believe the best team, the team that wins the most games in a balanced schedule against ONLY league opponents, the team that wins the real and by far, the most difficult playoff - the 162-game season, is the team that should get rewarded with a trip to the World Series. The way baseball was from 1903-1968 (1904 an exception).

Expansion is no big deal. The population has grown, though in reality, I think kids of previous generations actually played more baseball as youths than do the kids of today. Which is probably why many of the best players of today are not coming from the U.S. But under the system I would prefer, an expansion city must understand they may finish in 16th place.

The five-man rotation is an on-field decision by the manager. That is his choice, his preference and style of play. A modern manager is not bound by the five-man rotation. He can go to a four or a six if he thinks it will benefit the team. Heck, he can go to a three if he wants. He can also have his starters throw as many completes as he wants, if that's the mode he chooses. Even during the heyday of the four-man rotation, some teams utilized the five if they had five decent starters. The others items are rules of the game (except the DH - a manager doesn't really have to use the DH if he doesn't want to). The five-man rotation is a managerial option.

[Iron Jaw]

see the Orioles of the early 1960's and how much pitching talent they ruined.

The Orioles of the early 60's used, primarily, a five-man rotation (in 1960, they really used six starters).

1960 - Barber, Pappas, Estrada, Brown, Fisher, Walker.
1961 - Barber, Estrada, Fisher, Pappas, Brown
1962 - Estrada, Pappas, Fisher, Roberts, Barber
1963 - Barber, Roberts, Pappas, McCormick, McNally
1964 - Pappas, Roberts, Bunker, Barber, McNally
1965 - Pappas, Barber, McNally, Bunker, Roberts (traded) and Miller.


None of the Oriole pitchers would have been considered overworked (not one 300 inning type in the entire bunch).

Whitey Ford used to say that a lot of young pitchers blew out their arms from overruse of the slider, which is tough on the arm (Whitey said he never threw one). The origin of the slider dates as far back a Chief Bender, though it was called the nickel change in the early part of the 20th Century.

[Sultan_1895-1948]

Has expansion really watered down talent? I say no. The population has grown enough that it is harder to make it into the major leagues today than before. Add in all the latin and Asian talent coming in now, and it's that much harder, and the talent is that much better. The reason, IMO, that there hasn't been a .400 hitter in so long is because the pitching keeps getting better and better.

If everything else was equal, then I would agree that the population increase has a direct impact on the majors being better. However too many other things exist. Look at it this way. You go crabbing. You are the only person within eyesight in the hottest known spot. You drop in your pots, wait, and you get huge results. Well, what we have today, are dozens upon dozens of other people out there with you crabbing, so your final pull is much lower in quantity and in quality. Baseball being the game back in the day more than makes up for the population being lower imo. And there hasn't been a .400 hitter imo, because the fences have been brought so far in to aid in the homer-fest. That changes the approach of hitters and .400 is no longer within range.