Mr Hand’s Thoughts on the 2021 Season

Aloha, it’s your favorite friend with questionable character with some random musings. As the 2020 season begins to wind down, and the White Sox look like they have a chance to be playing meaningful games in October, one can’t help but keep one eye on 2020 and the other looking towards 2021. This got me thinking, what about the 2020 season, obviously besides the winning, would I like to see brought into 2021. So, I decided to put some thoughts down on paper.

• The 28-man roster – I do enjoy the extra roster spots. I believe that they should keep these but put in place limits on the number of position players vs pitchers. I like the idea of a 14 – 14 split. This gives the manager a little more flexibility. Some might be concerned about more pitching changes but the three-batter rule really helps mitigate that.

• The Universal DH – This is a no-brainer. If anyone, aka NL fans, are still on the fence I say let them see pitchers hit next year. I am sure this will be the end of the pitcher batting.

• The playoff structure – I like the idea of eight teams making the playoffs with the structure they are using this year as the model going forward. This should make the games more competitive and increase the level of competition across the league. Now, the question is how you squeeze in the new playoff structure with a full 162 game schedule. See my next point.

• Saturday Doubleheaders twice a month – I love the idea of using the 7-inning doubleheader as a way to compress the schedule to accommodate the extended playoffs. Part of the issue is solved by the expanded rosters and also allowing for a “29^th man” to be used for both games, not just the second one. If you have one DH a month at home, and one on the road per month you should be able to compress two weeks off of the schedule. I can immediately hear the screams about losing gates due to the doubleheaders. The answer is very simple. They are split doubleheaders so that there are separate gates for each game. Think of it as a noon and 6:00 start. The team gets what they want, separate gates, and the fans can tailgate before, between, and after games. The only day that this really works on is a Saturday. This allows for Sunday to be in place in case of weather issues. Only one DH per month at each home park, if possible. An example would be the Sox play a DH against the Twins on a random Saturday and two weeks later they are in Detroit to play another DH. If possible, focus should be with division foes. This can also setup a steady stream of division competition throughout the season. The interleague games would remain the same, no doubleheaders, and there may be the occasional double header against an AL foe from a different division, since the schedule does contain the random 7 games against non-division same league foes. Selling this to MLB will not really be that hard. Just tell them they can have TWO games of Yankees – Red Sox on some Saturday that they can have telecast on two different networks. That is how it would need to be sold.    

Like I said, just some random musings. Feel free to comment.

-Aloha Mr. Hand