Baseball Pet Peeves

Now that the season is officially upon us (I don't care what the schedule says, the first Monday in April is Opening Day), it's comforting to know that there will be a baseball game or related event on television every day for the next seven months.  Now's also the perfect time for me to air some of my favorite grievances with the grand old game.  If I were to become Baseball Czar (I need a job that has more authority than "Commissioner"), these are the stupid little rules and quirky little situations that would be changed or eliminated.

1. Opening Day is the first Monday in April-I might as well piggyback on my original premise.  Opening Day should be the first Monday in April, not some random Thursday.  It's always been the first Monday in April.  That's what people are used to and have become comfortable with.  It's a lot easier for people to either leave work early or call in sick to go to Opening Day on a Monday than on random days during the middle of the week.

2. Get rid of random off days in the playoffs-The early start this season is a direct result of the World Series going into November in each of the last two years.  But the only reason that happened is because Bud decided that the World Series was going to start on a Wednesday, so he needed to adjust the postseason schedule to make that happen.  And his solution was to insert random unnecessary non-travel off days into the middle of series.  They play every day for six months!  They don't need or want random days off in October, when the games matter the most.  (The lone exception to this rule is if a team clinches early and has to wait for the other series to end.)

3. Pitchers must wear double-digit numbers-This is just awkward to see.  Kyle Drabek of the Blue Jays is No. 4.  It looks weird.  When I become Baseball Czar, I'm establishing a rule that all pitchers can only wear uniform numbers 10 or higher (football has a rule like this for every position and nobody seems to have a problem with it).  I'm not crazy about these guys with numbers in the 60s, either, (I'm talking to you Joba) but one thing at a time.

4. On Jackie Robinson Day, teams designate one player to wear No. 42-Nothing against Jackie Robinson.  He's one of the most influential and important people in the game's history.  But the whole everybody wears No. 42 on Jackie Robinson Day thing is stupid.  The whole point of numbers is to tell the players apart.  You can't do that if they're all wearing the same number!  Every team designates one player to wear No. 42 (it can be a team vote, manager's decision, whatever), but only he gets to wear it on that day.  Everybody else wears their regular number.

5. Get rid of the hideous patriotic hats that they wear on Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day and 9/11-It's a marketing thing.  I get it.  But it looks dumb.  The stars and stripes inside the logos looks stupid (and makes no sense for the Blue Jays, seeing as only Labour Day is a holiday in Canada), and the hats don't match the uniforms for about 27 of the 30 teams, which looks even worse.  The Baltimore Orioles' colors are black and orange, not red, white or blue.  And white hats look disgusting when the team wearing white uniforms also has white hats.  Not to mention the fact that white hats and gray uniforms make absolutely no sense.

Now on to the rules changes involving the actual playing of the game:

6. A runner doesn't need to score for the batter to get a sacrifice fly-I've never understood this quirk of the sacrifice fly rule.  A batter only gets a sac fly if a runner scores.  Why?  How is a fly ball 395 feet to center field that moves a runner from second to third any less effective than a bunt that accomplishes the same thing?  No he isn't trying to do it (he's likely trying to hit a two-run homer), but the out was still productive so he shouldn't get charged an at-bat.

7. If a pitcher commits an error, any runs that score are earned-The whole idea behind unearned runs is to not penalize the pitcher for a fielder's mistake.  I'm fine with that.  But what if the pitcher IS the fielder that commits the error?  Then it's the pitcher's fault that the runner is on base (just like a base hit or walk), so that theory no longer applies.  If he pitches himself out of it, great.  But if three runs score because of a pitcher's error, they're as much his fault as a three-run homer after a pair of walks.  (If there's a subsequent error by another fielder, then any runs that score may or may not be unearned.)

8. Get rid of OPS-OPS is the stupidest stat created by fantasy sports.  It's so annoying to listen to all the analysts on MLB Network and Baseball Tonight use OPS and the even dumber OPS+ to say how good a guy is.  The stat is meaningless, and it's not even figured out correctly.  You can't just add the two numbers.  An on-base percentage of .420 and a slugging percentage of .575 does NOT equal an OPS of .995.  You're counting every hit twice!  In order to figure out the actual number, you need to add walks, hit by pitches and total bases, then divide by walks, hit by pitches and at-bats.  That's the hitter's actual OPS.  That stat is slightly less meaningless.

9. National League pitchers must bat ninth-Tony La Russa is the only manager who violates this rule, so I don't even really know why I'm including it.  Pitchers can't hit, and they shouldn't have to.  Don't try to be sneaky and put your pitcher eighth so you can do the American League double-leadoff thing.  Pitchers can still be moved out of the nine-hole in double switches, since not allowing that would affect strategy.

10. Make holds and blown saves official statistics-Holds are really the only tangible way to tell how successful relievers are in close games.  Likewise, blown saves are sometimes a more important way to figure out if a closer's getting the job done (as great as Mariano Rivera is, it tells you nothing if he has more saves than the Royals' Joakim Soria, other than that the Yankees win more games than Kansas City).  MLB.com box scores include these stats already, so just make them official.  If a reliever comes into what would normally be considered a save situation and comes out having maintained that lead, he gets a hold.  If he blows that lead, he gets a blown save.

So, that's my list.  Some are legitimate pet peeves, others are just suggestions.  Some annoy me more than others, some are just ideas.  But I think you can agree that they'd all make the game better.