Taxi Squad

Taxi Squad is an old National Football League (NFL) term:

the scout team, also referred to as a practice team, taxi squad, practice squad or practice roster, is a group of players on a team whose task is to emulate future opponents for the featured (or starting) players. Frequently used in American or Canadian Football, these teams consist of less athletically developed or less skilled players...

Each NFL team may keep up to eight members on its "practice squad" in addition to the 53-member main roster...

Practice squad players practice alongside regular roster players during the week, but they are not allowed to play in actual games. They can be paid considerably less than active squad players
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baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Taxi_squad

The taxi squad was introduced to Major League Baseball in 2012 as part of the 2011 collective bargaining agreement. It allowed teams to add a 26th player to their major league roster when the team was involved in a doubleheader, as a way to give the clubs extra depth. The New York Mets added Jeremy Hefner for an April doubleheader using the new role. The players are only allowed to be on the MLB roster for 24 hours, after which they are returned to the minors.
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Say what?

Who the heck knew that?

The amazing thing is that baseball has a more advanced version than football.  Consider the taxi squad with the recently discovered All Star rule on re-entry mentioned in this post:

Saturday, July 6, 2013
All Star game junk, including who should be considered.

The Major Baseball League (MBL) is slowly slipping down a slope toward common sense.  If you mention either of these items to traditionalists, they will set land speed records in explaining why neither is possible much less good for baseball, even though they already exist.

I have long advocated two improvements, which go far beyond these two timid steps.

1. Increase rosters from 25 to 30 but dress only 25.  In a five man pitching rotation that would enable a team to free the four roster spots occupied by the players least likely to play.

2. Allow free substitution within the batting order, i.e., players are locked into a batting order spot and may only replace players in that same spot.

Combined these changes would provide for some real game strategy, requiring managers to earn some of their money instead of mailing in the same stale maneuvers that have been recycled for decades.

I'm guessing that Dante Girardi, age 11, could easily replace his father Joe in tonight's Yankee game in executing the expected player moves.  If manager Joe reviewed these with his son, I can see the young man roll his eyes and say: "Yeah, Dad, we all know what you would do".  Maybe Joe will jot them down on the back of a napkin, you know, just in case Dante gets a little nervous managing the Yankees for a day.

How about baseball fans stop acting like such babies and demand some real improvements instead of going orgasmic in their satisfaction that baseball is perfect just the way it inadvertently evolved?