# Why don't baseball teams face every other team during a season? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [July 21, 2009, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693 "2009-07-21T00:01:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693/21 "2009-07-22T03:20:40Z")
> [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#): > > It bothers _everybody_. But it bothers them in different ways. It bothers AL fans that the NL doesn’t have a designated hitter, and it bothers NL fans that the AL does have one. I just want to point out that this is not universally true. I’m an American League guy (that is, “my” team is in the AL), and I think the DH is stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Piker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@Piker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Piker)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693/22 "2009-07-22T04:11:23Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Sorry, I should clarify that what I meant was how can the 2 WS teams be said to be evenly matched if they play against entirely different opponents and with different rules. I guess other people sorta answered that for me though > > Out of everything in baseball, I think this bugs me the most. I only recently (in the past couple of years) found out that different leagues actually have different rules. WTF?? Doesnt that throw the whole competitive balance thing into question? I dont see how it would not be like if the NBA’s 2 different conferences had different sized baskets or if one football conference had bigger fields than the other. Does this bother anyone else? I cannot for the life of me fathom baseball fans just ignoring the rule differences between leagues and thinking the leagues are essentially equal It’s pretty self-evident, isn’t it? They don’t play each other equally because they are different leagues. It’s like asking why the SEC and Big XII football teams don’t play a balanced schedule against each other, or why English and French soccer leagues don’t play a balanced schedule against each other. They are separate leagues. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693/23 "2009-07-22T05:11:04Z")
With all these weird rules and traditions, do baseball fans feel that there is more of an impediment for a new fan to get into baseball than the other major sports? Rules-wise, I guess its pretty simple, at least on the surface. But I think any new fan would find the hundred years of tradition kind of overwhelming. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693/24 "2009-07-22T13:56:31Z")
> [@fachverwirrt](#): > > I just want to point out that this is not universally true. I’m an American League guy (that is, “my” team is in the AL), and I think the DH is stupid. So do I! I’m a White Sox fan and I hate the DH. But every time somebody takes a poll, AL majorities want the DH and NL majorities don’t. The thing is, if you had taken a poll in 1972, there’s no reason to expect that AL and NL support would differed at that time. But the minute the dichotomy became established, it became an “our league is better than your league” thing. > [@YogSosoth](#): > > But I think any new fan would find the hundred years of tradition kind of overwhelming. Nah, not really. Even a lot of fans don’t know or care about all that stuff. It’s like science fiction . . . the geeks are into the back-story, fanfic, conventions, and everything, but you don’t have to get into all of that if you don’t want to. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693/25 "2009-07-22T15:12:12Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > **A professional baseball pitcher is paid to destroy his arm.** In other words, the act of throwing a pitch actively injures the pitcher’s muscle, bone and connective tissues (ligaments and tendons). No other act in sports does this that I know of. And yet, my impression is that pitchers last at least as long as position players. At least, I can think of quite a few pitchers, currently active or recently retired, who had nice long careers. Does anybody have any stats comparing pitchers’ age-at-retirement to other ballplayers? ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693/26 "2009-07-22T15:52:23Z")
> [@furt](#): > > This is absurd – expanded playoffs make many, many more games relevant and meaningful. > > I’m not crazy about the 3-division format myself, but there’s no denying that more playoff spots leads to more meaningful games, leaguewide. In an 8-team, no playoff league, half of the teams are eliminated by August 1 in most years. With five-team divisons, most teams still have a chance until much later in the season. You and **RickJay** are obviously correct - more games have a meaningful impact on who makes the playoffs if a larger number of teams make the playoffs. Of course there is also a point where this doesn’t work anymore (the more teams that are “safely” in the playoffs the less their games mean - a league where all teams made the playoffs would have no meaningful regular-season games). However, my point was more that the regular season **as a whole** has more meaning when it is all that is used for determining the “champion” of the league. Playoff systems in general weaken the import of the regular season by making the “playoff champion” the de facto “league champion”. The problem I have with expanded playoffs in baseball is that the goal in the regular season become to “make the playoffs” not to “win the league”. The larger the playoff system, the worse this becomes (witness the NBA and NHL where some legitimately mediocre teams always make the playoffs). ---
**Author:** ![Starbreaker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ac8455/32.png) [@Starbreaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starbreaker)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693/27 "2009-07-22T16:16:55Z")
It makes interleague more fun, and make world series matchups more interesting because there’s a good possibility it will be the only time that year the two teams will meet. ---
**Author:** ![scule](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4af34b/32.png) [@scule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scule)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693/28 "2009-07-22T17:19:20Z")
> [@Jas09](#): > > The problem I have with expanded playoffs in baseball is that the goal in the regular season become to “make the playoffs” not to “win the league”. The larger the playoff system, the worse this becomes (witness the NBA and NHL where some legitimately mediocre teams always make the playoffs). I have to agree with this too. My preferred sport is soccer and the one thing I think they do a lot better in Europe is to have to big trophy for each league go to the league champion (that is, the team with the best record at the end of the season) rather than have the regular season be largely meaningless so long as you can make the playoffs. It is a far better measure of the quality of a team since it shows performance over a longer time, across a wider range of opponents, consistently, than a snapshot-in-time, limited-opposition playoff series. I think baseball shows a lower winning percentage than the other 3 major sports, however, simply because of the length of their season. It tends to average things out. I wonder what the financial impact would be if the NL and AL agreed to move to season where each team plays each other team 4 times, twice at home and twice away. That would be 116 games, which is still a long season but a lot less than currently. How much would they have to raise ticket prices to compensate, I wonder? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693/29 "2009-07-22T17:23:34Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > With all these weird rules and traditions, do baseball fans feel that there is more of an impediment for a new fan to get into baseball than the other major sports? > > Rules-wise, I guess its pretty simple, at least on the surface. But I think any new fan would find the hundred years of tradition kind of overwhelming. I don’t think it’s ever stopped anyone from being a fan. And the rules of baseball are no weirder than any other sport. The main impediment these days is a desire for action. Baseball is not a game of action; it’s a game of suspense. Other sports are Michael Bay; baseball is Alfred Hitchcock. But Bay is much more popular than Hitchcock these days. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693/30 "2009-07-22T18:15:22Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > The main impediment these days is a desire for action. Baseball is not a game of action; it’s a game of suspense. Other sports are Michael Bay; baseball is Alfred Hitchcock. But Bay is much more popular than Hitchcock these days. Well put. Which is why I stay away from Bay’s “movies.” **Thudlow** , if you are going to examine pitchers vs other position players for longevity, you have to also account for attrition. Good pitchers may stay active as long as first basemen, say, but I’d be willing to bet that a lot more pitchers blow themselves up early in their careers. Baseball is the _only_ sport. All others are pale pretenders at best. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693/31 "2009-07-22T18:43:17Z")
> [@Jas09](#): > > You and **RickJay** are obviously correct - more games have a meaningful impact on who makes the playoffs if a larger number of teams make the playoffs. Of course there is also a point where this doesn’t work anymore (the more teams that are “safely” in the playoffs the less their games mean - a league where all teams made the playoffs would have no meaningful regular-season games). > > … > > The problem I have with expanded playoffs in baseball is that the goal in the regular season become to “make the playoffs” not to “win the league”. The larger the playoff system, the worse this becomes (witness the NBA and NHL where some legitimately mediocre teams always make the playoffs). MAD Magazine had a series of “articles” back in the '80s called “Nasty Book”, where they would pick a topic and make sarcastic insults about it. One was a “Basketball Nasty Book”, and the one insult I remember was, "“The NBA plays an [at that time] 82-game schedule to determine which four teams don’t make the playoffs.” ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693/32 "2009-07-22T19:44:09Z")
> [@scule](#): > > I wonder what the financial impact would be if the NL and AL agreed to move to season where each team plays each other team 4 times, twice at home and twice away. That would be 116 games, which is still a long season but a lot less than currently. How much would they have to raise ticket prices to compensate, I wonder? I think it would hurt TV ratings for the local network affiliate quite a bit. You’d be looking at each team spending a greater percentage of their games out of their time zone. One of the advantages of the current unbalanced schedule is teams play more of their games in their home time zone or very close. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693/33 "2009-07-22T23:50:59Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > **Thudlow** , if you are going to examine pitchers vs other position players for longevity, you have to also account for attrition. Good pitchers may stay active as long as first basemen, say, but I’d be willing to bet that a lot more pitchers blow themselves up early in their careers. Indeed, the attrition rate, especially for young pitchers, is gruesomely high. It’s gotten to the point where the acronym TINSTAAPP is out there in regular currency among the stat-heads. It stands for: There Is No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect That is, even the greatest, most unstoppable young pitcher isn’t a ‘can’t miss’ prospect because the odds are strong that he’s going to get hurt…badly…at some point and flame out. Here’s a quote from Joe Sheehan, one of the better analysts of the game > [@](#): > > ``` > [TINSTAAP] is actually a shorthand way of expressing the idea that minor-league pitchers are an unpredictable, unreliable subset of baseball players. [...] > > The principles behind [TINSTAAPP] are pretty simple. Pitchers are unpredictable. They're asked to perform an unnatural act--throw baseballs overhand--under great stress, thousands of times a year. They get hurt with stunning frequency, sometimes enough to cost them a career, more often just enough to hinder their effectiveness. (Modern medicine has dramatically changed what a pitcher can do to his arm and still have a career.) Even the better ones--Andy Pettitte, for instance--have wide year-to-year variations in their performance. It's only the very top 0.1% of pitchers who are consistently good year-in and year-out over substantial careers > > ``` For that matter here’s a brief study [from two guys in the economics department at Pomona College.](http://www.economics.pomona.edu/GarySmith/BBcareers/careers.html) In it, they note that the average career length in their study for batters is 5.6 years and for pitchers 4.8 years. That’s a more than 10% difference in active career. I’d also be willing to bet quite a bit that the number of injuries to pitchers after they made the majors is several multiples of those to batters. And in the minors it is likely worse as those kids haven’t learned how to take care of their arms properly and are receiving less than top-flight medical care. It’s every bit as brutal as football in some ways…but they do it to themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693/34 "2009-07-23T05:39:41Z")
> [@scule](#): > > Baseball is one of those sports that’s hung-up heavily on tradition. True. > [@](#): > > That’s 100% of the answer to your question (ok, maybe 95%, but still the largest part). Horseshit. There’s been a half-dozen posters in this thread that already offered rationales for the difference. The thing about baseball is that, moreso than any other team sport popular in the U.S., is that it’s a game of fine adjustment. That’s related to the pace – you can’t be that precise when you’re running up and down the basketball court non-stop. That’s why the differences in park are important, because you have to work your strategy based on the field as well as your opponent. The same thing with the schedule – the more you play a team, and especially the more you play a particular guy – the more you understand his strengths and weaknesses. The more you understand what he throws, when – or what he likes at the plate and what he’ll chase. So you play your division a lot, the rest of your league somewhat less, and the other league just a little. That means that over the course of the season, luck should be less and less a factor, esp. against those teams with whom you compete most directly. Whenever anyone curious about the sport asks questions like this, somebody has to come in and superciliously declaim about how baseball fans are so hidebound and there’s no reason why they like the things they like. I find it tiresome. Go ahead and dislike the sport if you wish. But don’t pretend you’re dropping some secret knowledge when all you’re saying is that it isn’t the sport you prefer. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693/35 "2009-07-23T05:46:28Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > With all these weird rules and traditions, do baseball fans feel that there is more of an impediment for a new fan to get into baseball than the other major sports? > > Rules-wise, I guess its pretty simple, at least on the surface. But I think any new fan would find the hundred years of tradition kind of overwhelming. Not so much. As you say, there really aren’t any weird rules. In the NL, everybody in the game takes a turn at the plate. In the AL, the pitcher doesn’t have to hit, and in turn the team gets to use a slugger who doesn’t have to field. That’s it. As for the hundred years of tradition, for the beginning fan, it’s as transparent as the decades of history of baseketball or football. Although baseball is a tough sport to describe to someone who’s never seen it played, it’s really easy to understand most of what’s happening just by watching. And then, as you watch more, you see more of what’s going on. And if something happens you don’t understand, well, you can ask somebody about it. But it’s not that common. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693/36 "2009-07-23T07:33:23Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > This is a part of the fact that baseball is, by far, the major American sport with the most inherent balance. Look at the top winning percentages from recent years for the major sports: > > Hockey > 2008 .654 > 2007 .722 > > Basketball > 2008 .805 > 2007 .805 > > Football > 2008 .813 > 2007 1.000 (!!!) > > Baseball > 2008 .617 > 2007 .595 > > In fact, the highest MLB winning percentage, the 1906 Chicago Cubs, came in at .721. So the highest EVER winning percentage was topped by six of the seven top teams in the other three sports. **scule** mentioned it in passing, but it’s worth repeating that this argument is wholly without merit. The lower best winning % is purely a factor of the sample size and has nothing to do with the inherent balance of the contests. Have 30 people flip 10 coins, then have 30 people flip 100 coins. Count every “tails” as a win, and of course the best record in the 10-flip league will be a much higher percentage than the best record in the 100-flip league. That’s just how probability works. MLB is clearly not as balanced as the other sports simply by virtue of the big-money teams having a much better chance to make the playoffs. Note all 30 payrolls on opening day, then make 30:1 wager on every team in the top half making the playoffs and you’ll clean up. If MLB were actually balanced, those bets should break even. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693/37 "2009-07-23T07:46:20Z")
> [@Cliffy](#): > > Although baseball is a tough sport to describe to someone who’s never seen it played, it’s really easy to understand most of what’s happening just by watching. I’ve always liked to point out that baseball is the only major team “ball” game (I’m including the hockey puck in the definition of “ball” for the purpose of the argument) that doesn’t involve running up and down the length of a rectangle, with one team trying to get the ball to the other end and other team trying to stop them. As far as I’m concerned, football, basketball, hockey, and soccer are all basically the same game 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693/38 "2009-07-23T11:15:12Z")
> [@Mister Rik](#): > > I’ve always liked to point out that baseball is the only major team “ball” game (I’m including the hockey puck in the definition of “ball” for the purpose of the argument) that doesn’t involve running up and down the length of a rectangle, with one team trying to get the ball to the other end and other team trying to stop them. Cricket. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693/39 "2009-07-23T12:21:34Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > Note all 30 payrolls on opening day, then make 30:1 wager on every team in the top half making the playoffs and you’ll clean up. If MLB were actually balanced, those bets should break even. Doh! This is like a math version of Gaudere’s Law. It’s clearly not 30:1 odds to make the playoffs; more like 30:8. I think you’d have to factor in divisions and wildcards to get the actual odds, and they’d be different for teams in different divisions, but I trust the general idea was clear. Whatever the true odds for the top 16 payrolls, make opening day bets on all 16 making the playoffs and instead of breaking even you’d end up way ahead. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693/40 "2009-07-23T17:18:54Z")
> [@Dead\_Badger](#): > > Cricket. I was limiting my list to popular “American” sports. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693.md?page=3)