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Originally Posted by Anyone
The NCAA would ultra-care. Many, many people play NCAA sports thinking they'll eventually go pro, including some who have no realistic chance and are deceiving themselves. This is strongest in their bigger revenue sports, especially football. It's true in baseball as well, though, if not to the same extent. A lot of players don't graduate, because they don't care about graduating. They're auditioning for the pros. The NCAA would lose so many players if it kept the DH (under my rule that I realize has virtually zero chance of ever actually being adopted, but you're debating what its effect would be) it would be amazing. It would be gone.
And a fair number of international players would skip the Japanese League and similar leagues if, under that rule, they kept the DH, going straight to the American minors instead. Not even most, but enough it would hurt them.
I recognize that the actual adoption of my rule idea is far more a pipe dream than anything that would actually happen. But if it were adopted, I definitely hold it would have the effect I would want, at the very least in the NCAA.
I think in reality there's a stalemate on the DH that will keep the status quo for the foreseeable future. The MLBPA won't agree to take it out of the AL, but the owners don't want to add it to the NL. And though I'd love to see it gone from both leagues, that duality is very likely the most marketable form baseball can have, as well.
Again, though, as "baseball czar" if such a position existed and I were that person (commissioner wouldn't do it, because I'd have to persuade the owners to follow me) I think it would be possible to get the MLBPA to agree to eliminate the DH in the AL by offering not expanded rosters (which wasn't enough in '09 and still wouldn't be), but expansion teams. Two expansion teams, even combined with the end of the DH, lose 15 DH starting spots in the AL, but then create 16 starting spots on the two teams, plus 10 rotation spots and 2 closer spots. And the subs get to be in the majors too, when otherwise they'd be in the minors.
The owners really don't want to expand, so that's pretty much off the table, and I also have to admit that financially, the owners are likely better off with the status quo on the DH than with dumping it in the AL. People have accepted the duality, and to some degree (some limits, because it's costly to get lots of out of market games) get to follow the league whose rules they prefer.
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On the NCAA, your case might be true in football, but NCAA baseball is totally different. Most players do graduate, and in fact a surprisingly large amount of even decent NCAA baseball players will quit baseball to concentrate on academics. NCAA baseball really isn't about trying for the pros, like football and basketball are. The pro focused guys can, and do, sign straight on of HS in baseball which they cannot do in football or basketball, and the few pro type guys that don't do so now wouldn't be a significant enough loss for the NCAA to care imo.
As for int leagues, you're really, really overestimating how much int players want to play in MLB.
95% of the those guys are happy to stay in their home leagues permanently even under the current rules, even if they're good enough for MLB. Even in Cuba, where the pay is negligible, a great deal of the great Cuban players have never even considered defecting. That's exponentially more true in Japan and Korea, where the pay is very good, significantly better than it is in MiLB in fact.
If they were forced to choose between their home leagues and MiLB at an earlier age, where they stood even less chance at ever making MLB and a long slog through the minors in a foreign country, making far, far less than they would in their home leagues, you'd see that number go up to 99%+.