TenneSox

2 ways, IMHO. 1. International draft. Pool all the players into a draft where every franchise has a shot at them. Yes, agents would freak out. But, maybe if you offered the MLBPA a carrot - like DH in the NL and the resulting 30+ more jobs that would come of it. 2. The biggest one - trade draft picks. The way it is now, maybe you can add 1 top 100 player, maybe 2 really good prospects per year if you end up with a comp pick or something like that. If teams were able to stack up draft picks, say 3 or 4 in the first round in a particular year, then instead of one or at most two guys coming up and making a difference, you essentially would have a wave of young players coming up together. You can't do anything about minor league development time, but you can bunch the talent together so that you can turn over a roster quicker.

Looking at 1985, the top 5 guys in complete games were Bert Blylevn (22 year career in MLB), Doc Gooden (16 years), John Tudor (11 years), Charlie Hough (knuckleballer so you can throw him out, 24 years), Mike Moore (19 years), Fernando Mania (17 years). Looking at 1990, Ramon Martinez (13 year career), Jack Morris (18 years), Dave Stewart (16 years), Bruce Hurst (15 years), Doug Drabek (16 years). As far as memory serves, none of those guys above had their career end due to injury. They just got old. At least back then, there doesn't appear to be a correlation between # if innings pitched and injury. One thing I'm not sure how to account for is today's reliance on velocity. I'm not sure other than Doc and Jack Morris and maybe Dave Stewart, any of those guys would compare to todays upper-90's max effort guys. It does seem like every pitcher today has a upper 90's fastball and a 90's hard slider. I don't think there's any doubt that today's harder throwers are more susceptible to injury. But that goes back to having them learn to use multiple pitches through 6-7 innings, rather than just throw 99 for 4-5. The way we develop pitchers these days is almost like their disposable. Throw hard until your arm blows out, and we find another one. Guys like Aaron Nola, Kershaw, Verlander who have a well developed arsenal of pitches don't have to throw 99 to be effective. But the guys who develop like that seem to take a backseat to guys who's only asset is velocity. I'd love to see a graph of injury vs velocity - how many guys are more likely to get hurt living at 91 mph, 95mph, 99mph? We all love Kopech right, but who didn't see that coming?

Would it shorten the life on their arms though? Take the top 10 guys in innings pitched in 1985, and it's 270 average. Take the top 10 in 1990 and it's 240. Looking at the leaderboard from 1990 has guys like Frank Viola, Dave Stewart, Bob Welch in the top 10. I'm not sure these guys are "freaks of the generation". Take the top 10 in 2018 and they average 209. No one in 2018 threw more than 2 complete games. In 1990, 2 CG would have ranked you 84th in baseball. And I don't know if I buy that guys back then, in the era of booze in the clubhouse, cocaine, and greenies, were better and more durable athletes than the guys today who are trained by sports science from the time they can walk to throw a baseball. Granted, we are seeing an era where velocity trumps all, but that in itself may be one of the biggest problems. Guys are max effort guys for 4-5 innings. Why develop a second, third or even fourth plus pitch when all you have to do to make the big leagues is throw 101mph to 15 batters and your day is done.

This is the killer for me. Starting pitchers used to be main attractions - guys like Ryan, Doc Gooden, Randy Johnson, Maddux - their starts were appointment viewing. Now, outside of Sale, DeGrom, Scherzer, maybe Verlander - who are you tuning in to watch? Baseball's devolved into 5 innings of starting pitching, and then an endless parade of anonymous flamethrowing relievers who blow their arms out and are replaced by the another carbon copy - and this leads to excess strikeouts, 45 minute innings with 3 and 4 pitching changes, etc, etc - just as the drama of the game should be building in the late innings. Fix this, bring back the attraction of the starting pitcher, and you fix baseball, IMHO. Tanking is a problem, but IMHO, the problem is that it takes 4-5 years to really rebuild. Tweak the draft/acquisition process so that teams can turn around much more quickly, and that will fix itself.

NY, Philly, Chicago, fit this, fit that - does anyone doubt for a second that Machado is just going to pick the biggest $$$? He'll sign in Japan if they decide to pay him more than anyone else.