I've been thinking about pitching changes. Frankly, there are too many of them. It may be good strategy to change pitchers so often, but it's not good entertainment, and that's what baseball is in the end. Having numerous commercial breaks in the tense late innings ruins the flow of the game and could reasonably be imagined to annoy people who might otherwise be fans. And baseball needs fans.

So, while I know that MLB will never make any major rule changes regarding the way pitchers are used, I thought it'd be fun to spitball an idea intended to improve the game. That's what a baseball talk site is for, right?

The strong form of the proposed change: No voluntary mid-inning pitching changes. None. The only exception would be for injury, and in that case the removed pitcher would be required to go on the DL.

The medium-strength version: Managers get one mid-inning pitching change per game. They have to choose wisely when to use it.

The weak version: Mid-inning pitching changes get no warm-up pitches, no commercial break, no major interruption to the flow of the game. When the manager takes the ball from his pitcher's hand, the reliever has (say) 75 seconds to get on the mound and throw a pitch.

Again, I know that MLB is realistically not going to make any major changes to its rules here. But do you think these would be improvements? Deteriorations? Do you have other propositions?