MLB commisioner Rob Manfred has announced that he will retire in 2029. How do you think he has done so far? And what can he do the next five years to further the game of baseball?

Positives:

• Shorten game times and eliminated dead time
• Expanded wild card games
• Humidors everywhere? The sanctity of the statistics must be preserved
• Freely available data and stats! You can do super cool queries on some data and even find archival clips on the MLB Film Room site

Negatives:

• Astros sign stealing scandal, both the investigation (news orgs had to bring it to light) and the punishment were really poorly handled
• Fucking with the baseballs both juicing (possibly tainting a single season HR record?) and deadening them. You gotta be consistent in-season for the sanctity of the statistics
• Humidors everywhere? Isn't it kind of fun that the ball plays differently in different stadiums because ya know, some places are dry and others are wet. Kind of like how each stadium is a little different
• Extra innings ghost runner. This has been said enough times but I'll just add my voice in here too: it's awful and must go
• Inter-league play
• Blackout restrictions

Neutrals

• Humidors everywhere
• Bigger bases
• Universal DH

All in all...I'm torn. I appreciate some rule changes that shorten game time without affecting the all holy numbers. But I don't really like the standardization he's brought to the game. Some of my favorite things about baseball are the unique characteristics of each team, city, and stadium. Baseball is a local game, not a national one like the other major sports. I'm intensely invested in my team's division and, to a lesser extent, those in my league.