"Make the strike zone more wide and less tall" - Alex Rodriguez as a commissioner: bust or brilliant?
Alex Rodriguez recently envisioned what he would do if he was granted one day of being the commissioner of baseball, and his ideas to grow the game have promise. The New York Yankees and Seattle Mariners legend spent 22 years in the MLB and picked up some good ideas.
The growth of the game has been on the minds of many in the baseball world, as viewership has been stagnant the last few years and games struggle in viewership against other major sports. The ideas proposed by Alex Rodriguez should certainly be looked at and even considered for implementation.
The ideas from the 14-time All-Star were posted by Jomboy Media on Twitter, seen below.
If A-Rod were commissioner for a day: https://t.co/Opc9Dysojt
"If A-Rod were commissioner for a day" - @ Jomboy Media
These six ideas put forth by the three-time MVP provide insight into changes that he would implement.
Would Alex Rodriguez make a good Commissioner of Baseball?
Let's breakdown some of these ideas and see how realistic they are. In terms of changing the strike zone and making certain defenses illegal, these changes have been much discussed for years now, but it seems unlikely that many of them will be implemented. The game itself isn't the issue with its popularity. In fact, the consistency of the rules and ease of stat tracking make the sport more accessible to new fans.
The best idea that Alex Rodriguez had was to allow access to games from the phones of their fans and provide more content. Every MLB game should be streaming capable, so regardless of where fans are around the world, they can watch their team regardless of where they are playing.
Current television contracts make ideas like this challenging to implement, but the future of viewership is not on television. It's online. Television has more money they are willing to give sports leagues right now, but continuing to use this format will turn off the younger fans.
Reactions to these proposed changes have been split between love and hate, but Mac Engel summarizes the most popular opinion on this matter.
@JomboyMedia I don’t hate some of these
"I don’t hate some of these" - @ Mac Engel
Frankly, doing better than Rob Manfred isn't really a challenge. He seems content with baseball being relegated to a second tier sport in North America, and I believe Alex Rodriguez would do a better job. Some of these ideas might not work, but at least a clear effort is being shown. Someone who has played in the league and for multiple teams like Alex Rodriguez did would do the most right by the players as Commissioner of Baseball.