Bud Selig is leaving as baseballs commissioner at the end of the season in 2014. Good Riddance!!!! I haved spoke about how Bud Selig destroyed some of my modern day baseball. He helped destroy 2 of my favorite baseball players growing up, Jose Canseco and Ken Griffey Jr. I am not going to go into details surrounding those two players, but I thought it would be fun to give me the job for a day and tell you what I would change in the game if I got the chance. Now I don't know all of the details surrounding luxury taxes, I don't know or understand how TV/Radio deals play in to the overall revenue, or where that revenue goes, and I don't really know where official MLB merchandise goes to specific teams. When I go through some of the changes I would make, I am not going to be able to argue some of those points.

1. Salary Cap in baseball, with a minimum and a maximum. I know that putting the major market teams in the forefront of baseball is always going to produce $'s for the bottom line of baseball. I get that. If I am growing the sport, which this is Americas past time, I want to grow the sport all over the United States. NFL football has fans that provide for the NFL everywhere, no matter who is in the main games, they promote the best teams and have prime time games that aren't always biased, they have rivalry games, they showcase the best teams, best players. Strictly saying, player salaries on the 25 man roster at any given moment when the game starts shouldn't be over a certain $ figure or the team would get fined. Here are the salaries for the 2013 teams at the beginning of the season.
   

• New York Yankees $228,995,945
  
• Los Angeles Dodgers $216,302,909
  
• Philadelphia $159,578,214
  
• Boston $158,967,286
  
• Detroit $149,046,844
  
• San Francisco $142,180,333
  
• Los Angeles Angels $142,165,250
  
• Texas $127,197,575
  
• Chicago White Sox $124,065,277
  
• Toronto $118,244,039
  
• St. Louis $116,702,085
  
• Washington $112,431,770
  
• Cincinnati $110,565,728
  
• Chicago Cubs $104,150,726
  
• Baltimore $91,793,333
  
• Milwaukee $91,003,366
  
• Arizona $90,158,500
  
• Atlanta $89,288,193
  
• New York Mets $88,877,033
  
• Seattle $84,295,952
  
• Cleveland $82,517,300
  
• Kansas City $80,491,725
  
• Minnesota $75,562,500
  
• Colorado $75,449,071
  
• San Diego $71,689,900
  
• Oakland $68,577,000
  
• Pittsburgh $66,289,524
  
• Tampa Bay $57,030,272
  
• Miami $39,621,900
  
• Houston $24,328,53
  

1. From 24 million to 228 million? WTF? How can the league be competitive when you have payrolls that are that defined. Now you have to give credit where credit is due and look at Tampa Bay, Pittsburgh, Oakland, and Cleveland for making the playoffs, while being at such a low payroll. The median payroll is about 100 million, I would have a tough time slimming it right away in 2015, but I would start at the bottom and in 2015 you would have to have a minimum payroll of 40 million, and keep the top at 225 million, and really start making it closer starting in 2016, then closer in 2017. Then I would continue to analyze the following year based on revenues and making the difference from median to the top at 50 million, and the median to the bottom 50 million. This would have a lot of research and buy in from the owners, but I think if you have that many teams in the league you have to have more parity
   
2. I would promote some of the best players playing in high school and college. I would create excitement surrounding what the draft can bring you to sell faith to the draft. I would try and make the draft a different experience for the viewers. I would bring in the International draft and regular draft into 1 draft. I would want to run a dollars for draft auction for the first 6 rounds. Starting in 2016 the bottom team in the league would have the most amount of dollars to draft in the first 6 rounds, those dollars are able to be traded during the year. I would run it just like an Auction draft, each of the 32 teams picks a player, they bid on the player, if, lets say the Twins throw the name out Mark Hamburger, they say a certain dollar figure and nobody over bids, the Twins get Mark Hamburger. This puts the top 6 rounds, and trading money during seasons a pretty big deal, and it is fair for everyone. This would create drama in a draft, and everyone would have the same options getting these players. These players all have a slot of dollars they get paid based on how much they go for in the auction. Most dollars gets this amount as guaranteed, least gets this amount guaranteed. Every team gets an opportunity to draft a player. These drafts could become very big in a salary capped MLB
   
3. We need to make games go by faster. I think the rules of a batter getting into the batters box, the pitchers getting on the rubber and pitching. A simple "shot clock" and the umpire can see this clock and call a ball or strike, if the batter/or pitcher goes too long. On the flip side of this, in todays technology we need to figure out the correct calls made on the field. This would be a cost, I would use the challenge option, and I would have a place in NY, that have the games on, and can make a call very quickly, 2 challenges per game. HR's if there is any controversy should be challenged, but the challenge should be done quickly. This central hub would cost money, but it would help getting calls right, and try and keep the games in that 3.5 hour mark that they need to stay within.
   
4. MLB incentive based play on the field. Fed Ex has a cup in golf, and NASCAR, MLB should have some incentives on certain accomplishments that really make the races for the HR, Avg, SB, Triple Crown, MVP, Cy Young, Silver Slugger awards. I think these should be incentive based and promoted at a higher level over MLB. This isn't really promoted too much in other sports, I think these should be promoted, promoted and promoted where the players get more than the trophy. I would also put a bigger dollar incentive on winning the World Series, so not only are you a world series champion, you also get paid, this money doesn't come out of the salary cap dollar figure.
   
5. The foolish warnings given out to teams after throwing a ball inside to a player, which then if the next team even tries to pitch inside, the pitcher can get thrown out of the game, this is foolish. I also don't think throwing a hard ball 95 mph at a player isn't the right way to handle problems among teams. I think these should be finable expenses to the team/players. I think teams need to do in house accountability for dirty play, but they also need to be reprimanded in the ways that happens. I am not sure how that is, but if I am going to purposely throw at someone it better be below the neck, if it is not, that is a very severe fine.
   
6. The newest playoff system. I like the top 3 division winners, I like the 2 wild card teams. What I don't like is a 1 game playoff. Nobody has a 1 game playoff system, and I don't like it. I like the fact that the division winners have a much bigger advantage than the wild card teams. What I would do is start the season 3 days earlier and schedule 3 Double Headers per team schedule. Same type of setup as far as days off, but I am adding 3 days off to make up for some of the rain outs, and I would start the playoffs 3 days earlier, and I would make it a 3 game series, just like the regular season, you play a 3 game series more often than not. This would at least put the best pitchers up on each team, and a fluke play doesn't make or break the game itself.
   
7. Very strict illegal substance policy. A very updated list of illegal substances so everyone knows, there should be no reason a player shouldn't take the time to understand what he is taking, first time offense 81 games, 2nd offense 1 year, 3rd offense banned. This should deter everyone from not taking banned substances and keeping the game clean.
   
8. Bring Pete Rose into the hall of fame!!!! Guys like Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens used performance enhancing drugs to get to the stats they put up, and they still have an opportunity to get in. I think Pete Rose exemplified what baseball is supposed to look like as a player and played the game very hard. I get he bet on baseball games, was it ever proven he threw a game based on a bet. No. Pete Rose deserves a chance to be in the HOF.
   
9. All stats of proven PED users should be asterisked. A lot of these stats are very flawed and diminish some of the possibilities of the newer generation, without PED's I am not sure some of those records will be broken, they will stand in the test of times from "cheaters".
   
10. I get one selfish thing I would change. I would want to do a realignment somehow to bring the Brewers back to the AL Central!!!!
    

If I were to get 10 things to change in baseball in my tenure, I think this is a good list, I love baseball, and I want it to thrive. Watching the Pittsburgh/Cinci game last night gave me goosebumps watching that crowd interact in a baseball game. I think you could bring that mystique back to the casual fan if we were to create more parody and excitement through the year, and have every fan base part of sellout crowds and bringing dollars in as you would run a business.