Three divisions in the AL (and therefore have a wild card) and four divisions in the NL (and no wild card)?
It’s bad enough that the AL and NL currently play under different rules. It’s even worse that teams don’t even play the same number of games against the same teams as other teams in their divisions (for example, the Mets play the Yankees six times this year, while the Braves only play the Yankees thrice).
Can he not come up with a better plan (say three five division teams with continuous interleague play)? I find it hard to believe that they are planning to implement this format! Am I the only one who sees that this plan (three divisions in the AL/four in the NL) is nuts?
Baseball seems determined to make itself look even stupider than it is, which takes a considerable amount of effort. Why on earth Bud Selig would want two entirely different formats is beyond me. You didn’t even mention the 4-6-4 alignment in the American league, dooming Kansas City and Minnesota to never see the playoffs.
Frankly though, it doesn’t matter what Bud thinks. The union is never going to agree to this and I don’t think the league can do it without them. Besides, the game is careening toward another long, long strike.
Although I greatly enjoy following baseball (Go Mariners!), I just can’t bring myself to look positively toward the long-term future. Not with these rocket scientists running the show.
ARGH! Why are the people who run baseball so stupid? There is such an obvious solution, I can’t figure out why this is going on. There are four teams in the AL West and six in the NL Central. There has been a lot of talk about Arizona moving to the AL, which makes sense because they don’t have a lot of history, period, so they aren’t going to be leaving some long-time rival. So Arizona moves to the AL West, and they have five teams. Now the NL West has only four, and we move one of the NL Central teams to the west, probably Houston. Then every division would have five teams. Why the hell is that so hard?
Clearly, there is some reason that people are avoiding this way-too-simple solution. And my guess is that’s Jerry Colangelo. Big whiny jerk, move your team to the AL and get over it.
The other easy solution would be to move Milwaukee back to the AL, and move one of the AL Central teams to the west, although this isn’t as good, seeing that none of those teams are actually in the west at all.
While Jerry Colangelo doesn’t want the Diamondbacks to the AL (he feels that such a move will hurt attendance), he cannot stop it. MLB has the right to force such a move.
The problem with 6 divisions of 5 teams each is that you’d basically force an interleague game to take place every day. I myself don’t think it’s a big deal, and it’s the fairest solution, but the powers that be think otherwise.
I think a 4-6-4 divisional alignment is outrageously unfair to the six team division members. That’s about the worst possible thing you could do. It’s already inequitable enough that some teams have to fight five other teams to win their division, while teams in the AL West have to fight only three others. There’s also less competition in the AL for a wild card berth.
Before I’d implement a 4-6-4 alignment, I’d turn back the clock and implement one division: top four teams in each league make the playoffs. Period. Fairest solution, if you think about it.
Ah, so that’s it. Okay. I see, makes sense. But it’s still better than a 6-4-6 scheme. While we’re at it, here are some other problems with the schedule:
Balanced schedules. Sorry, I want to see my Giants play the Dodgers more than, say, the Phillies or Astros. What’s up with this?
Repetetive interleague play. The MLB should take a cue from the NFL and rotate the divisions played against, so that they don’t face the same teams every year. Right now, the only AL teams the Giants have faced are the teams in the AL West. How about next year, we can see the AL Central, and the following year, the AL East?
Bug Selig has refused to reconsider Pete Rose’s lifetime ban. This position makes him unworthy to breathe our air.
That being said, his realignment proposal his idiotic, even for him. I believe the players union has a proposal for realignment. Theirs would be less drastic and call for more games between regional teams. More Mets-Yanks, Astros-Rangers, Reds-Indians, Dodgers-Angels, Royals-Cards, etc…
Though I have not seen any of the particulars of the proposal, it would undoubtedly be better than Bug Seligs’.
I understand where you’re coming from here. I should point out that one argument in favor of balanced schedules (a very logical one, to me) is that it evens out the race for the wild card: If the NL East is tougher than the NL West, the NL West wild card contenders have the advantage of an easier schedule. Frankly, I can see arguments for both sides.
This, I totally agree with. I’ve been ranting about it ever since they announced the original plan.
Discussing radical realignment in baseball is like proposing to reinstate prohibition. No one in the league ever takes it seriously. But that is exactly what needs to be done. Screw history and tradition. Bud needs to take notes from the NBA. Group teams by regions and then balance the schedules. Put half in the American and the rest in the National and mandate that the DH is in or out. (You can’t have it both ways) There is no way to keep traditional scheduling AND meet the demands of television markets.
BTW, putting Houson in the West is not a good idea. That means for me to watch a majority of games, I have to wait until 9:00pm to see the first pitch. And I think that we all agree that baseball is not a game of brevity.
Pete Rose should be in the hall of fame. Besides, he’s giving 3:1 odds that he does.
I’d be okay with an NBA-style geographical realignment. But keeping the American and National Leagues and making them so radically different are ridiculous. I even think it’s ridiculous that they felt the need to not split the leagues evenly now. I recall that their reason was that they didn’t want to be bound to play an interleague game every time there’s a full schedule, but my attitude is, why not?
If they’re that strongly opposed to an interleague game almost every night, then why not just bite the bullet and expand to 32 teams, 16 in each league, with 4 divisions of 4, no wild cards, and interleague play the same as it is now?
[hijack and rant]
The talent is diluted as it is. There is no juiced ball. The athletes are bigger and the pitching is worse. I’m an Astros fan, I know. We have enough teams, there just in the wrong leagues.
[/hijack and rant]
If talent is diluted, then both hitting talent and pitching talent are diluted.
The explosion of home runs are mainly due to a specific group of fantastic athletes. If expansion = dilution of pitching talent, then why was there only one 50-HR hitter between 1962 and 1990, when the major leagues added 8 teams? Was 26 somehow the “perfect number” of teams in a professional sports league(s)? Does no one remember that awful baseball teams existed before expansion?
It’s just one of those things that comes and goes. Expansion isn’t inherently responsible for the home run explosion.
[response to response to hijack]
Sure, horrible teams have always existed. I should have elaborated better. The focus of baseball is the homerun. Kids growup dreaming of hitting the game winning homerun. Offense is cool. Kids don’t want to be able to paint the corner with a mean slider. They want to jack the ball out of the stadium. So, what we have is more athletes who concentrated on strength and power to hit the ball deep and fewer pitchers who can keep the ball in the park. With more teams being added, the teams still have their pick of hitters (who BTW don’t have to be as talented since the pitching is worse ) and fewer pitchers to go around. Dilution.
[/response to response to hijack]
Dry said, “The problem with 6 divisions of 5 teams each is that you’d basically force an interleague game to take place every day.”
How so? Teams have days off all the time. This isn’t like the NFL where all games are played on the same day and an odd number of teams means someone gets a bye.
Yes, but no team takes a whole week off. Maybe you can have only 14 games in the major leagues on one day, but since major league schedules are arranged in series of 3 or 4 games each, avoiding season-round interleague games would mean making sure each league has an even number of teams.
winky:
I agree with your analysis of the problem. However, as your message clarifies, expansion isn’t the cause.
As folks like Greg Maddux and Pedro Martinez become the higest-paid players in the game, pitching will regain its glamour position and coaches at the lowest levels will begin focusing on teaching kids to pitch. But a moratorium on expansion isn’t necessarily going to make a major difference.
CM, I see your point, but why would expansion be necessary at this point anyway? Where should there be a team that there isn’t already? It was a travesty that there weren’t any teams in Florida, but that’s solved now. Just cut out the expansion. Who needs it?
By the way, the players’ suggestion is terrible too, IMO. I think interleague play is kind of neat, but I sort of consider the games to be almost exhibitions. The Giants just lost two out of three to the Mariners, and I have a hard time getting irritated or upset with them, because is this for real? I’m not against interleague play, but I don’t really want to see any more of it than there already is.
If I had my druthers we’d go back to 2 divisions in each leage with no wild card, but that’s not going to happen.
Given that, I favor the proposal put forth by Bob Costas in his new book, “Fair Ball” (and by Paul White of USA Today Baseball Weekly) of moving the Astros to the AL West, and keeping the divisions intact otherwise, and of playing more in-division games. I hate interleague play too, but we’re not going to get rid of that either, but if there is one such game per day, then so what? To quote Costas, “At least one interleague game every day of the season is admittedly not ideal, but neither is it a catastrophe. … The notion that these games have to be played in blocks-like some Mardi Gras of Interleague Play-is nonsense. If you’re watching the Red Sox facing the Cardinals, what do you care whether the Indians are playing the Phillies at the same time?” Fair Ball, pp 117-118.
Where Costas really hits the nail on the head is his proposal to do away with the wild card, and having the team with the best record get a first round playoff bye. Having the wild card has eliminated the best part of baseball, being the drama of a tight pennant race.
Okay, maybe my brain is not functioning here, but I don’t see how that matters. The total number of teams is 30. 15 in each league. When “interleague week” comes up, doesn’t that work out just fine? Each of the 15 AL clubs plays one of the 15 NL clubs, where’s the problem?
Again, the scheduling quirks of MLB allow for double headers, and an uneven game total among teams throughout the season. For exmaple, the Yankees have played 8 games less than the Blue Jays to this point. I guess I’m just not following the scheduling problem of having 15 teams in each league.
Let me join the chorus saying 4-6-4 in the AL is an awful idea.
One part of a realignment idea I’d heard that did make sense was moving the Diamondbacks to the AL West, and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays to the NL. Perhaps creating a new NL Southeast Division: Atlanta, Tampa, Florida with maybe Houston thrown in there.
As the most recent expansion teams, both the Diamondbacks and Devil Rays cannot veto a change. Makes you wonder why they weren’t put in the “right” leagues in the first place.
I think part of what’s getting in the way of sensible realignment is all this petty bickering between teams worried about losing their rivalries. You’ll still be playing those rival teams, and maybe playing them less will heighten it. And new rivalries can’t help but develop over time with teams close to one another in pennant races.
One problem that realignment can’t prepare for: Eventually, some small market team is going to go for big bucks and move their franchises to Washington D.C., Charlotte, or perhaps other places (San Antonio? Portland?). It seems inevitable that Washington and Charlotte will get MLB franchises sooner or later. And there goes this carefully crafted realignment.
) and fewer pitchers to go around. Dilution.