Personally, I've always been partial to the 1960 TV show format, one on one matchup, players take turns based on "innings", three "outs" per inning. This is never going to happen, but what I'd like to see is 64 players at the start of the season meeting in pre-game head to head matchups as the season goes along, narrowing it down to a final four for the All-Star festivities. This wouldn't be a pure bracket, matchups would have to be set up around what the MLB schedule permits, and therefore, with homefield advantages, may not even necessarily be "fair", but it would be an added attraction to early season MLB games and, if done right, would build up hype for the All-Star contest. Time constraints may mean we'd have to have five inning "games" instead of nine, but they did always manage to get the nine inning games into a half-hour TV show. Maybe all games through the two All-Star semifinals could be five innings, then the final could be nine, this would take about an hour for the All-Star show. Alternately, we could use the tournament to narrow it down to two, and automatically invite the top two regular season home run hitters for the four man All-Star show. Fun to think about. Totally agree with you about the clock, but clocks seem to be a Manfred obsession.
I remember watching those reruns as a kid, that format was a ton of fun. Great ideas, fun to think about...but you'd never get buy-in from the players and MLB during the regular season. I would be curious about an idea sort of like this for the offseason though, perhaps that would be a fun attraction during the winter to keep interest alive a bit. A lot of Latin players do winter ball where they participate in their own home run derbies, but perhaps guys would be interested to earn a few extra bucks during their offseason workouts? MLB tried that traveling home run derby in recent years...maybe there's some synergy there.
@@brutusonbaseball You might be right, but to be clear, we wouldn't be asking any player to go anywhere that he wouldn't be going anyway, there are no brackets, if two players who are still alive in the tournament happen to be playing against each other on a given day, we can set up a matchup. All it would amount to is an extra 15-30 minutes of BP. Maybe they'd say no anyway, if they're that slavish to a routine, but we're not setting up extra side trips. While I like your winter idea, that situation would actually be asking players to go somewhere that they wouldn't be going otherwise. So I don't know which would be easier to talk guys into participating in.
Yeah, I like your thinking but it's the routine that would be broken up, and there's been complaints in the past about how the derby can mess with your swing. I doubt they'd want to do that before games. I would enjoy it though, which is what matters. The offseason idea would definitely have to recruit and pay players, but if it's a big draw that might pay dividends in the end. You know anyone at MLB we could approach with our great ideas??
What did you think of the updated 2024 format? Let me know in the comments below!
Personally, I've always been partial to the 1960 TV show format, one on one matchup, players take turns based on "innings", three "outs" per inning. This is never going to happen, but what I'd like to see is 64 players at the start of the season meeting in pre-game head to head matchups as the season goes along, narrowing it down to a final four for the All-Star festivities. This wouldn't be a pure bracket, matchups would have to be set up around what the MLB schedule permits, and therefore, with homefield advantages, may not even necessarily be "fair", but it would be an added attraction to early season MLB games and, if done right, would build up hype for the All-Star contest. Time constraints may mean we'd have to have five inning "games" instead of nine, but they did always manage to get the nine inning games into a half-hour TV show. Maybe all games through the two All-Star semifinals could be five innings, then the final could be nine, this would take about an hour for the All-Star show. Alternately, we could use the tournament to narrow it down to two, and automatically invite the top two regular season home run hitters for the four man All-Star show. Fun to think about.
Totally agree with you about the clock, but clocks seem to be a Manfred obsession.
I remember watching those reruns as a kid, that format was a ton of fun. Great ideas, fun to think about...but you'd never get buy-in from the players and MLB during the regular season. I would be curious about an idea sort of like this for the offseason though, perhaps that would be a fun attraction during the winter to keep interest alive a bit. A lot of Latin players do winter ball where they participate in their own home run derbies, but perhaps guys would be interested to earn a few extra bucks during their offseason workouts? MLB tried that traveling home run derby in recent years...maybe there's some synergy there.
@@brutusonbaseball You might be right, but to be clear, we wouldn't be asking any player to go anywhere that he wouldn't be going anyway, there are no brackets, if two players who are still alive in the tournament happen to be playing against each other on a given day, we can set up a matchup. All it would amount to is an extra 15-30 minutes of BP. Maybe they'd say no anyway, if they're that slavish to a routine, but we're not setting up extra side trips. While I like your winter idea, that situation would actually be asking players to go somewhere that they wouldn't be going otherwise. So I don't know which would be easier to talk guys into participating in.
Yeah, I like your thinking but it's the routine that would be broken up, and there's been complaints in the past about how the derby can mess with your swing. I doubt they'd want to do that before games. I would enjoy it though, which is what matters.
The offseason idea would definitely have to recruit and pay players, but if it's a big draw that might pay dividends in the end. You know anyone at MLB we could approach with our great ideas??