Rob Manfred has made some dramatic changes to Major League Baseball during his watch as commissioner, and more might still be ahead. At the very least, he said on Thursday that some big ideas have at least been talked about.
Rob Manfred says in-season tournament, split-season have been discussed
Manfred appeared on WFAN with Craig Carton and Chris McGonigle on Thursday and discussed some potentially dramatic changes to the Major League Baseball regular season that the league has at least talked about.
While acknowledging that a 162-game season is “a long pull,” for players and teams, he said the league has discussed the idea of “split seasons” and even an in-season tournament similar to the NBA’s in-season tournament.
Both ideas would need to get approved by the MLBPA if they were ever seriously considered.
The split season is not a totally foreign concept to baseball and has been used regularly in the minor leagues. The way it works is the regular season is split into two parts, with the winners of each half earning playoff spots. It has been used in the minor leagues and was also used during strike shortened seasons in the major leagues in 1892 and 1981.
The in-season tournament would probably be by far the more controversial of the ideas because it would be such a huge change for baseball. If there is one thing old school baseball fans hate, it is change. Especially dramatic changes.
In discussing the possibility of an in-season tournament, Manfred acknowledged they might have to cut back on the number of regular-season games to make it possible.
“We’ve talked about split seasons. We’ve talked about in-season tournaments,” Manfred said Thursday in a radio interview with WFAN’s Craig Carton and Chris McMonigle. “We do understand that 162 (games) is a long pull. I think the difficulty to accomplish those sort of in-season events, you almost inevitably start talking about fewer regular-season games.”
Manfred has not been afraid to implement big changes to the game, with the universal designated hitter, pitch clock, extra innings ghost runner and now the ABS challenge system for balls and strikes all coming in under his watch.
Those changes certainly have their fans and critics. Changes to the regular-season format would be no different.
