Innovation: basketball yes, baseball no.

Two development leagues: one in which a team experiments with radical forms of play. the other only trying overdue rule changes.

Prolific Shooter Aims Higher

Brady Heslip's 78 Points in 2 D-League Games Give Him Hope of Reaching N.B.A.
By SCOTT CACCIOLANOV. 18, 2014  The New York Times

N.B.A. Development League ...

Attention comes neither swiftly nor easily to the D-League and its collection of basketball outposts. All those eyeballs are hard won.

full-court pressure for 48 minutes and five-man substitutions every two minutes. ... treat the shot clock as if it were only 12 seconds instead of 24... layups and 3-pointers. Midrange jumpers are to be avoided at all costs...

Whenever a D-League team does something strange — in this case, operate at a rapid tempo — players who thrive in the system run the risk of being cast as products of the system...

It is not a glamorous life. D-League salaries are not particularly lucrative...

The N.B.A. has been trending toward smaller lineups in recent seasons, with more coaches emphasizing quickness and perimeter scoring.
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Arizona Fall League's six experimental rules. Two are dumb, the rest ineffective.  Monday, November 3, 2014

You should read the Arizona Fall League (AFL) stuff yourself and not rely on someone's interpretation.  Here is the link.
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The National Basketball Association (NBA) stuff is being done by only one team: Sacramento Kings.  But the Major Baseball League (MBL) is just jerking around with stuff that common sense would have caused to have already been done many years ago: shorten games and increase the pace.  No teams are trying any tactical stuff comparable to what the Sacramento Kings are doing.

In 2014 the old extreme Ted Williams shift, which was started around 1947, re-emerged and became orthodox, at least on defense.  On offense, teams that bragged about their defensive use of the shift sat there sucking their thumb and letting their batters banged away directly into the teeth of the opposing team's shift.  Baseball people, professionals and fans alike, can't deal with the consequences of both sides of the ball as happens in basketball and football.

Experimental League  Saturday, March 23, 2013

No, not a developmental league.  There's too much developing, not enough experimenting.  Baseball people, fans included, think there's nothing new.  In fact, they think it's best to go backward, into the abyss of past orthodoxy even worse than the current.  Argh.

Would it kill them to simply try something different?  Anything.  OK, preferably something radical, preferably my radical ideas but SOMETHING.  ANYTHING.
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When somebody actually tries something a little different the reaction is as if the sky were falling:

Nothing Was Wrong With Your TV; There Were Actually Five Infielders
By JOSHUA ROBINSON  OCTOBER 26, 2008 3:55 PM  The New York Times

People do funny things at 1:30 a.m., and if it had worked, it would have seemed brilliant...

The Rays and Phillies were tied in the bottom of the ninth in Saturday’s Game 3 (of the finals) ...

Bases loaded, no outs...

(Rays) Manager Joe Maddon ...switching to a five-man infield and a two-man outfield to defend the plate, a strategy that Maddon said he first toyed with in the minors...

“You do everything in the minor leagues,” Maddon said ...

“When you’re hitting right there and you’re seeing all these guys in your face,” he said, “It can alter your swing or have you to try to do something differently.”

There is no effective way to tell if the five-man infield has ever been employed in the World Series, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, because the position change would not be recorded on a scorecard.

But the Rays have already tried it twice this season, (Ben) Zobrist said, once against the Seattle Mariners and once against the Chicago White Sox on Aug. 24. Zobrist was the fifth infielder in Seattle on Aug. 9 ...

the Rays are now 1-2 in 2008 when they employ the five-man infield
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​I don't remember this because I was already in bed.​  Who the heck stays up until 1:30 AM watching baseball?  This stuck out because it was so unusual.  The Phillies batter, Carlos Ruiz,  dribbled a single to third for the game winning RBI.  Phillies went on to win the championship 4 games to 1.

The Arizona Fall League (AFL) stuff was certainly a step in the right direction but let's see what, if anything, comes of it.  What's likely to happen is not likely to help: incremental stuff that goes unnoticed and therefore does not help.  We've already heard that the feeble AFL stuff shortened games by a few minutes.  Who cares?  Games need to end within two hours, not go from 3:45 to 3:30.  I think people will abandon baseball long before the rulers of the MBL do anything radical.  By then, of course, it will be too late.