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Jim Bowden, ESPN Baseball Analyst 8y

#MLBFrontOffice: Examining hot topics from the GM's lens

The best part of baseball is that everyone has their own opinions. Most of us who have those opinions are influenced based on our background. It doesn’t matter if you’re a present or former player, manager, coach, scout, front office exec, media member, relative or a fan. We all see the game differently.

I spent more than a quarter of a century working in major league front offices, with 15 of those years as a general manager of the Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals. Therefore, my lens on the game is positioned at a different angle than most because of that work history. The best part of baseball is that all opinions are important and relevant no matter the category you fall into. Baseball is also great because there is always so much to analyze, debate, and discuss when it comes to our individual lenses.

Here are some hot topics in baseball right now and my personal take on each:

Banning defensive shifts

New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi said earlier this week that if he were commissioner of baseball he would ban defensive shifts. Girardi tried to compare it to the NBA claiming that in the NBA you guard your man, you guard your spot or it’s an illegal defense and that in baseball there should be two fielders on each side of the infield because that’s why the field was originally designed.

I couldn’t disagree more. I think baseball’s new tendency to shift, over-shift and the exaggerated shifts have made the game better for everyone involved. Now understand, the reason it came up was because Girardi’s pitcher Nathan Eovaldi lost a no-hitter on Monday when he gave up what looked like a routine ground ball to shortstop that became a base hit because Girardi had put an overshift on.

Maybe Girardi should have just taken responsibility for having made a mistake by either deciding to put the shift on or not doing a better job of coordinating the shift with the pitch Eovaldi was throwing. Girardi has the flexibility to position players anywhere he wants on the field on any pitch which should have enhanced Eovaldi’s chances of throwing a no-hitter, not hinder it. He should have just taken the blame for his staff’s defensive positioning on that pitch and not put it on the rule that gives him -- the manager -- the flexibility to put his players basically anywhere he wants in fair territory.

Baseball is trying to do a better job in attracting young people to the game -- and is succeeding. Most of it has to do with the emergence of many young stars with personality like Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Carlos Correa and Chris Archer and the mainstays like Clayton Kershaw, Madison Bumgarner and Andrew McCutchen.

However, another reason so many new fans are starting to embrace the sport is how progressive the game is becoming. The advancement of defensive shifts is an element introduced over the last several years on which everyone has an opinion. It’s also caused players and staff to make adjustments on a pitch-by-pitch basis. Whether it’s the hitter trying to find the holes, a staff member putting the players in the right spot or pitchers needing to execute a pitch based on how the defense has been aligned.

The shifts have added another dimension of baseball to debate, discuss and analyze. That’s always good for the sports. Shifts are only going to get more complicated and better coordinated on a pitch-by-pitch basis. Eliminating it and calling it an illegal defense, as suggested by Girardi, would be a huge mistake, in my opinion, for a new generation of fans.

Super 2’s and free agent restrictions have to be fixed in next CBA

Major League Baseball has been blessed with several April call-ups over the last 10 days from top pitching prospects such as the Rays' Blake Snell to the Twins' Jose Berrios to Sean Manaea by the Athletics.

However, it’s also unfortunate that, in some of those cases, the pitchers would have made their team out of spring training, but they didn’t because their front offices need to keep them in the minor leagues for an extra year of arbitration protection. There will be several other promotions that will have to wait until mid- to late-June as teams like the Nationals with Lucas Giolito or Trea Turner or the Pirates with a top prospect like Tyler Glasnow. Those teams decided to wait because they can delay arbitration eligibility for a year on those players -- and that can save the teams millions of dollars.

The fans and teams deserve to see the best possible players at all times. Decisions should be made on talent, not on free agency or salary arbitration issues. Hopefully, both sides can find a better way to compensate players with zero to three years of service time and adjust free agency eligibility to eradicate clubs making personnel decisions not based on dollars or control years but rather making decisions based on development or putting the best possible product on the field.

Trading draft picks and putting in a lottery system

It's not a great year to be picking in the top 5 in the June draft. It could be the worst in the last 15-20 years. Those teams that were “tanking” to get a top-five pick could find that it backfired.

In addition, teams presently don’t have the flexibility to trade down and teams that are tanking for next year’s draft are prohibited from trading proven major leaguers to try to get multiple first-round picks in the draft.

This lack of flexibility is archaic thinking. In the last CBA, teams were given the ability to trade some picks but it’s so limited it’s almost useless. It’s time that baseball has more aggressive rules to allow teams to trade for draft picks. It would bring more excitement to the draft.

In addition, to prevent teams from tanking, the game should also adopt some type of lottery system at the top of the draft. Tanking shouldn't be rewarded. Preventing this would be even more important if there's a talent such as Bryce Harper sitting on the board.

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