The All Star Game winner shouldn’t decide the World Series home team. That should be based solely on who has the best record. The rule that each team has to have a representative should be eliminated. All participants should be based on fan/player voting or merit.
Voting should stay with the fans for the 8 starters on each side. Next let the players vote on 4 pitchers, and 4 position players, and then let the writers and Hall of Fame veteran’s committee vote on the other 4 pitchers and other 4 position players. Continue to let each manager pick 8 players to help fill out the roster but ideally they would be players that were 2nd or 3rd in voting from one of the above lists. That takes the manger out of the prisoner’s dilemma of having to pick their own players. They can say, “But I had to pick those players over you.” That way they don’t pick 7 players from their team like they tend to. I think keeping the final player as a fan internet vote makes sense and builds some excitement for the game.
To prevent the tie issue and or not having enough players there should be one position player and pitcher designated as the 11th inningers and one pitcher and one position player designated as the 15th inningers. What I mean is these players can’t come in the game unless the game makes it that far. As stated the mangers try to get everyone in and then they run out of players at the end of the game because it is so often close or tied. So this way it is predetermined and the manger doesn’t feel forced to play everyone to keep everyone happy. The managers are actually prevented from playing these players unless the game goes deep into extra innings (or maybe in case of injury). On the pitching side determining this is easier as you could just designate the starters who have most recently pitched as the 11th and 15th inningers. Not sure how to determine the position players but maybe someone who is not 100% will opt for it.
Finally, I really think they should move the game to a weekend. I know this most likely will never happen because God forbid you loose a weekend gate, but I think having the homerun derby on Friday night, and the Game on Saturday evening/night would leave a better chance for kids and well me to stay up and watch it.
