All-Star week across all sports serves multiple purposes. The main goal is to take some time away and break up a long and grueling season. That couldn’t be more true for baseball, which has the longest season of any major sport. That’s why you’ve seen a lot of player opt outs in this year’s MLB All-Star game.
After all, when you play 162 games in a season, is it really worth playing in a pointless 163rd game in the middle of the summer? Because of all the opt outs, Rob Manfred, the commissioner of MLB, has put himself in a bind.
Is it worth neglecting the game altogether in favor of more rest time for the players? Or do you experiment with a shorter season, making the All-Star Game a bit more appealing to the league’s most prominent players. All-Star Week has already been criticized for its voting policy, making it more a popularity contest rather than a stage for the league’s top players.
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How should MLB solve All-Star Game issue … rather, can it be fixed?
Will Manfred be able to salvage the Midsummer Classic? That’s the important question as MLB is concerned with as some of the league’s best players are foregoing the All-Star game. Can you blame them? Why play in a pointless game, where even bragging rights isn’t enough to make it worth it? It’s kind of what happened with the Pro Bowl in the NFL and the All-Star Game in the NBA.
At least with the NFL, the Pro Bowl games are after the season, but even then, you get half-hearted effort as playing a full season is already enough as is. MLB is entering the same territory and it’s not likely it will be able to come up with a solution.
MLB and MLBPA need to find a way to fix the All-Star Game
There’s no chance owners and the league agree to shorten the season. That’s less money for teams to collect and it would challenge tradition, something baseball prides itself on. The only solution would be to hear the players’ concerns out and see if there can be a middle ground.
Do you expand the season so there’s a longer break between the first half and the second half of the season? Is there a way to further incentivize players to participate? It’s unfortunate that fans travel from all over to watch the best players in the country play against each other, just for them to sit out.
But if you didn’t have to play in a pointless game, would you? So it makes sense. This is the problem the MLB has to figure out. The product on the field is important and if that means some of the top players decide they want the extra rest, you can’t really blame them for that.