Lion in Oil interviews Keith Law, formerly of the Blue Jays and currently of ESPN. Here's his view of the biggest problems in baseball:

I've never thought steroids were that big of an issue, and as a fan, I really don't give a Juan Pierre whether or not these guys used steroids or HGH or horse tranquilizers or whatever. The steroid "scandal" is about 90% media sanctimony, and I guess the only good thing there is that it gives me another point on which to rail on the mainstream sports media.

The two biggest issues in baseball to me are the seemingly intractable problem of pitcher injuries, and the totally tractable problem of penurious owners. The first one is a serious issue, because we're getting to the point where pitchers - particularly young ones - are almost treated like disposable assets, and we're seeing ridiculous contracts handed out to pitchers who have mediocre but existing track records because of the shortage (perceived or real) of pitching.

The skinflint owners, on the other hand, represent an easily fixable problem. The revenue-sharing system, as it is, is asinine, because it penalizes teams that run their businesses properly and rewards teams that run them poorly or that run them on the cheap. Competitive balance is innate to baseball, in my opinion, as long as you don't have owners who are draining the profits out of their teams each year rather than reinvesting in the product. This is their legal right as owners, but it's bad for the game.