Hang with me for a little while. What follows involves some incredibly heavy math, and to be honest, you might as well just step away now if you didn’t take (and pass) at least two statistics courses in college.
OK, here we go...
My idea for a better All-Star Game is to make the break four days long and play the game on Wednesday.
I know, it’s revolutionary.
But half of the teams in baseball invariably seem to have a four-day break anyway. There are just seven games today. There were also seven on the Thursday following the break last year. There were eight in 2009.
So, extend the break one extra day and play the game Wednesday. Suddenly, every pitcher who threw on the Sunday before the break is again eligible to pitch. That would have brought Justin Verlander, Felix Hernandez, Cole Hamels, Matt Cain and James Shields back into this year’s game.
Really, it seems like an easy call for baseball and I expect it to happen at some point within the next few years.