[Note: "eery" looked a little weird, so I looked it up. It is an alternate spelling for "eerie", and I'm going to stick with it.]
And now, we move onto one of my favorite rants of all time [yes, I said "one of my favorite rants"; I apparently enjoy individual rants the way I do ice cream flavors]: the uneven distribution of teams in Major League Baseball's divisions. Wait!! If you're not a baseball fan, or even a sports fan, I implore you to keep reading! I can't think of a single reason why, but... come on, I'm imploring you. How often are you implored to do anything?
For those of you who don't know the MLB very well, there are six divisions -- three in the National League ("NL") and three in the American League ("AL"). Each League has a West, Central, and East division. And now, the moment we've all been waiting for. Here are the number of teams in each division:
AL East: 5
AL Central: 5
AL West: 4
NL East: 5
NL Central: 6
NL West: 5
If you're a fan of sports, nae, a fan of such things as decency, justice, and hope, you're probably looking at that and thinking, "WHAAAAAT?!?" I know. Four divisions with 5 teams each, one with 4, and one with 6 makes no sense. But it's worse than just not making sense -- it's super unfair.
Here's the bottom line -- making the playoffs is (theoretically) significantly easier or harder for you depending on which division you're in. For example:
What it takes to make the playoffs if you're in the...
- AL Central or AL East: win your division or win the AL wild card spot -- i.e. outperform 4 specific teams, or outperform 10-12 of the other 13 AL teams
- AL West: win your division or win the AL wild card spot -- i.e. outperform 3 specific teams, or outperform 10-12 of the other 13 AL teams
- NL West or NL East: win your division or win the NL wild card spot -- i.e. outperform 4 specific teams, or outperform 12-14 of the other 15 NL teams
- NL Central: win your division or win the NL wild card spot -- i.e. outperform 5 specific teams, or outperform 12-14 of the other 15 NL teams
Some arguments I've heard supporting this unfair system:
- The AL and NL are like different sports, so how dare we force a team to switch? It would be some sort of disgrace to the game.
- The NL Central is a bad division and the AL West is a good one, so it balances out the factor of number of teams.
- Interleague play (or specifically the way it's scheduled) relies on the NL having more teams than the AL, or the 2 uneven divisions, or a lunar eclipse, or something. -- Courtesy of my friend Jason, whom I've invited to explain in a comment below.
- No, they're not. Having a DH on your roster does not change the game nearly as much as all the raving National League purists claim it does. Plus, we already saw the Brewers make this leap in memorable history, and I don't remember hearing about any spontaneous combustion or anything. Now, we'd never ask a team to move to a stadium built over an ancient Native American burial site...
- This argument is ludicrous. It's like condoning a league with one division of 5 teams and one division of 27 teams and saying, "Well, those are 5 really good teams, so it balances out." No, it's an unfair way to run the league, regardless of where the "good teams" happen to fall.
- On the one hand, I invite Jason to please comment on this entry and explain the Interleague Play Theory. On the other hand, even if Jason presents the most crystal-clear, articulate argument that demonstrates why all of Interleague Play rests on the teams being distributed in their current fashion, I'd still say the system needs immediate revision. Interleague Play, for all its merry matchups and fall foreshadowing, should never be able to dictate something so big and unfair. Interleague Play is a trivial (if not stupid) part of the game, not a major one.
Thoughts? Ideas? Observations?
Bonus question: What year will the Pirates be above .500 again?
Jon
That's crap, probably one of the biggest reasons I don't like baseball. Who ever dreamt up that convoluted way of dividing the teams. I feel so enraged right not that I could vomit!
ReplyDeleteOn a different note, I looked up the word implore for fun (or did I not know the word...?) so I can cross off my list of things to do for today "Lean a new word from Jon".
Bonus Question: I think the year will be 2015 unless Johnny Depp gets his act together.
I've considered this before and will reply to each of your three points in turn.
ReplyDelete1 - AL/NL are different, no switching. Teams have switched leagues or divisions all the time, though it bears stating that typically it was because they were vacating a current city and moving elsewhere: (a) SEA Pilots to MIL Brewers in the AL until NL in 98 onward; (b) BOS Red Stockings/Braves to MIL to ATL (intriguingly the only MLB team to win the World Series from three different home cities); (c) MTL Expos to DC; (d) DC Senators to TEX; etc.
Although the division based on style of play argument can be maintained, it's really nothing more than a preference for style. The rules are codified for each league, but it's a simple issue of adjustment and one that a team could easily get used to considering that the shifting team would get the advantage of an additional "batter" rather than having a stick-wielding pitcher.
Here's a link to a history of the AL and NL from the 1960s onward (long after the high volume of teams switching cities around the turn of the century), using the modern and recognized names for each team.
http://l.yimg.com/a/p/sp/tools/med/2010/04/ipt/1271813900.jpg
2 - This really is ridiculous. Commish Selig recently proposed a "floating realignment" which was based on results from year to year. Not unlike the Euro soccer leagues relegation systems, the worst teams would be shuffled into one division and the best into the other. The outcry among bloggers, analysts and the general baseball-dom was so powerful, Selig might have gone deaf and the idea has shriveled up and hid in a cave somewhere in the recesses of the league offices. There is no way this argument will ever succeed.
3 - Inter-league play does not require an even number of teams in each league. In fact, during ILP, two NL teams always end up playing each other because there are two too many. But *regular* season play requires an even number of teams, otherwise there will always be an IL game.
For my money, this is not a problem, and so long as each division has the same number of teams, the IL game can be rotated among all the teams equally. A simple version of this practice could work like this, assuming the Astros move to the AL West for balance:
NL Games - FLA/NYM, WAS/PHI, PIT/CIN, STL/CHC, MIL/SF, ARI/COL, SD/LAD
AL Games - BOS/TAM, BAL/TOR, DET/CLE, MIN/CHW, KC/TEX, OAK/LAA, SEA/HOU
Inter-league - ATL/NYY
From that point forward, each new series would move like they do now, except that each teams' 15th game would be IL, with a staggered start. Ultimately, the argument for "balance" works against itself because so long as the total number of teams in the entire MLB is an even number, no team is ever left out.
So that's all well and good, but how do we balance the two leagues?
ReplyDelete1) Three League System - what I'll call the Atlantic, Western and Central, each with two divisions of five teams.
How it works - AL (BOS, NYY, NYM, BAL, PHI, DC, PIT, ATL, FLA, TB); WL (SEA, SF, OAK, LAD, LAA, SD, ARI, COL, HOU, TEX); CL (KC, STL, MIN, MIL, CHC, CHW, CIN, DET, CLE, TOR). The divisions are essentially irrelevant since each of the leagues are already divided up into fairly geographically central groupings. Each team would play against someone else in their league and the super-league would rotate the divisions inter-league much like they do now.
Playoffs would be the predominant struggle with three leagues. One fairly radical theory could be that only three teams make the playoffs, with the top team getting a bye and the other two league champs would play into the championship.
Another more plausible theory is that all six division winners would make the playoffs, slotting into a simple two-sided bracket ranked by their records. Winners of the first playoff series would advance to play the respective bye team on each side, with the winners there advancing to the championship.
Why It's Good - it solves the imbalance; there can be a constant interplay between each of the three leagues if desired; the geographic distribution of the teams currently could fit fairly nicely into a system of thirds.
Why It's Bad - three league winners cannot all play for the overall crown, and at least one group will always be clamoring for some additional fairness unlikely to satiate all parties; it destroys the historic integrity of the two existing leagues.
I don't think it will ever be successful, but it is a novel approach with a couple good concepts.
2) Radical Realignment by Payroll - Based on the "floating realignment" method proposed by Selig earlier this year, it considers the budgets rather than just the previous year's results. The leagues would be divided based on total revenues with some yearly flexibility based on projected payroll and actual, year-end payroll.
ReplyDeleteHow it would work - one league would have all the big budget teams, the other would have the small budget teams. Using the 2009 final payrolls - BL (NYY, NYM, CHC, BOS, DET, LAA, PHI, HOU, LAD, SEA, ATL, CHW, SF, CLE, TOR) and SL (MIL, STL, COL, CIN, ARI, KC, TEX, BAL, MIN, TB, OAK, WAS, PIT, SD, FLA). The leagues would not be substantially different, but STL and CLE might switch, based on 2010 results, or SEA may drop down while TEX jumps up. Ultimately, there could be some flexibility and with 15 teams in each league, presumably with 3 divisions each, the same rationale used above to discuss the inter-league system would apply.
Playoffs would proceed as they do now, except that it would be Big v. Little, rather than AL v. NL.
Why It's Good - it maintains the two league division, it separates the spenders from the savers and by doing so "adjusts the difficulty setting" for the teams, and offers the evenly balance overall system.
Why It's Bad - it destroys the historical integrity of the two leagues, it lumps together teams with huge financial disparity and doesn't resolve the issue; TOR, the 2009 smallest of the big boys had a payroll of $80,500,000 whereas NYY, the biggest, had a payroll of $201,500,000; but MIL, the biggest small guy at $80,200,000 is not as hugely different from FLA at $36,900,000.
3) Basic Realignment by Geography - AL and NL would remain fundamentally the same, but the divisions would be jumbled and mixed with one team shifting leagues.
ReplyDeleteHow It Works - One theory, mentioned above, is that HOU shifts into the AL West, offering instant balance. In theory, there is nothing wrong with this. But the question of cultural similarity jumps out much as it did and will in the college football expansion debate. HOU does not fit in with the "culture" of the AL West. LAA and TEX both play an efficient style of ball based on plus defense with moderate power-hitting. SEA tried to play that game, but has made some truly poor personnel choices lately. OAK is indescribably unique. HOU could arguably fit under a financial analysis, but based on the trends this year, would quickly be outpaced and outclassed. HOU is not the answer.
Another theory is that PIT gets kicked into the NLEast, ATL moves to NLCentral and another NLCentral team gets booted to the AL - either into the ALCentral and someone moves to ALWest, or directly into ALWest. Although the first half seems plausible enough, the problem is that ultimately proponents of this theory invariably shift HOU to the AL. They don't fit with the ALWest, and for similar reasons don't fit with the ALCentral.
My personal favorite is for MIL to move back into the AL...again, locating themselves into the culturally familiar ALCentral. What then, since the ALCentral would have 6 teams? KC gets the boot out to the ALWest where it has a similar mate in SEA and possibly OAK. Additionally, the cultural similarity to TEX is much larger than to CHW, MIN, DET, CLE or now MIL - all of which share an upper-Midwest/Great Lakes vibe and play similar styles of baseball.
The divisions would look like this, after the realignment:
ALEast: NYY, BOS, TOR, BAL, TB
ALCent: CLE, DET, CHW, MIL, MIN
ALWest: KC, TEX, OAK, SEA, LAA
NLEast: NYM, PHI, FLA, ATL, DC
NLCent: PIT, CIN, STL, CHC, HOU
NLWest: ARI, COL, SD, LAD, SF
Playoffs would operate in exactly the same way they do now, except that each team would have the same requirement to best the other 4 teams in their division or the remaining 11 non-division winners.
Why It's Good - It retains the historical integrity of the existing leagues (PIT, CIN and CHC all get to stay where they have always been - NL); the cultural similarity of each division is preserved and exiting rivalries continue; a regional rivalry is resumed between MIN/MIL within the division.
Why It's Bad - arguably, KC doesn't deserve becoming the sacrificial traveling lamb since it already has it hard being a low payroll team in a small market; MIL doesn't quite fit with the rest of the ALCentral because they're an "indoor" team where the rest of the division plays outside; the financial imbalance of the league hasn't been rectified.
Closing Thoughts:
ReplyDeleteReorganizing the entire league based on revenue has the permanent effect of impermanence. While the same 5-10 teams will always be at the top and at the bottom, the middle 10-20 teams can fluctuate wildly over the years. For much of the 1990s and early 00's, DET was a small-mid market team with a low payroll. But money has been poured into the team (somewhat unwisely, I might add as a Tigers fan) lately and the payroll has risen into the top levels. These rankings move too much to effectively create a system based on it.
The same goes for divisions based on previous records. They fluctuate too much to make a system of it.
The only reasonable theory is to move a single team, or group of teams to realign the structure. I've detailed what I believe to be the best option, but I have heard others such as PIT moving into the ALCentral rather than MIL, with KC still moving out. I've heard HOU moving to ALWest. I've heard massive geographic redrawing of the divisions, ignoring team history within certain leagues. I'll stick with the MIL/KC shift, but I could be persuaded if there's another reasonable alternative.
Sorry for bombing the responses, but apparently there's a strict (and fairly small) character-limit.
Nick (sorry if you go by Nicholas; in fact, it's a safe bet you do since that's your moniker here, but alas my memories of you as Nick are too compelling),
ReplyDeleteYou went to town on this topic. I mean, you hit it out of the park. You called it "Baxter" and punted it off a bridge.
Thanks so much. No need to apologize for adding tons of comments and making my blog look cooler and more popular.
After reading all the options you listed, I think "Basic Realignment" is by far the way to go, and I agree that the MIL/KC shift seems to make the most sense.
Though, I'm a little confused about the culture of the baseball being a huge factor. Suppose HOU, for instance, went to the AL West. Does it really matter that their style of baseball is different? I always liked the old LAA/OAK matchups chiefly because such different styles of ball were being played.
Is the problem just that it would be unfair to HOU to thrust them into the alien game of AL West baseball? I don't think it's a huge issue; baseball is baseball, and if one style of play proves better, teams can over the long run adjust their rosters and coaching to reflect that, right?
Anyway, awesome thoughts dude. You bomb the crap out of my comment boards whenever you want.
What about adding more teams? ... Well, now that you mention it...
ReplyDeleteThis would kill 2 birds with 1 stone, so to speak. First, adding more teams to the New York, Boston, Chicago, and LA markets (maybe a couple others?) would add more competition for fans/ticket revenue in the big cities. In the long-run, this would help to bring those payrolls back down to earth.
Second, the new teams could then be distributed across the divisions in order to make them all of an equal number. This would minimize the need to shuffle teams between divisions/leagues, thus minimizing the whining from "purists."
i love this blog =) ...i really have no feelings on this, except that no matter what, even if it changed, it couldn't ever help the pirates, haha, they will still be horrible...but anyway, i read this and cracked up a lot! especially this: "You called it "Baxter" and punted it off a bridge." Laughed out loud for sure!
ReplyDeleteNick - Nicholas - either is fine. I just suppose it depends on whether there is money involved, or if I'm in trouble. The history of Nick is long lived, so no reason to divert from it.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, the culture of the ALWest and/or HOU really is a secondary point at best. I agree that fundamentally it does not matter, except from a general fairness point of view. In addition to selecting the team most suited for transfer to the AL both stylistically as well as geographically (MIL, in my opinion), the general fairness should be taken into account as a small factor. Moving HOU could solve the problem in one fell swoop; moving MIL and KC would take more steps, but may be a better long-run option.
And for the record, my apartment really does smell of rich mahogany (thanks Yankee Candle!).
Alright, since I was rudely called out, I suppose I'll comment. First, a caveat: Nicholas, you've put way too much thought into this (as have you, Jon), and I've not come close to reading all your comments. Sorry. I have attention span issues.
ReplyDeleteHere's my best shot at the interleague play argument. Nicholas actually covered it pretty well, neglecting one important fact: tradition. Remember the outcry among "purists" when ILP became a reality about a decade ago? You'd have thought swine had sprouted wings and were gliding above Yankee Stadium. It's slowly become embraced, but there are still hardliners that decry it.
The solution proposed by Nicholas (one team (brewers - they already were in the AL before) swaps leagues, one interleague series constantly on the schedule) is the most logical (and did you like that parenthesis-within-parenthesis?). But baseball people don't want there to be an interleague series happening every day of the year. They like having it as a novelty adding interest to the early part of the season - and lets face it, that's the only reason it exists.
If it were simply a matter of math - an equal 15 teams in each league - the MLB leadership would take care of it. But they clearly see it as more than a math/balance issue. Baseball is weird in that they embrace the individual traditions of each league, rather than adopting a full merger (as in the NFL when the AFL came along). A constant interleague series going on would further meld the two leagues, and baseball's time-honored tradition of two distinct and separate leagues (however antiquated and dumb it might be) would slowly erode.
So, I'm all for the 15 and 15 setup. Makes perfect sense to me. The only reason I've become an apparent proponent of the system is because I argue the point of Bud Selig and his cronies, who are always conveniently absent when Jon brings this topic up - which happens at least twice a week. Perhaps our time would be better spent bombarding the MLB offices with subpoenas, requiring their appearance at Jon's apartment.
Jason, you seem mad! I hope you called my shout-out to you "rude" in a spirit of kind-hearted jest. I think about it so much not because it's important (it's not), but because the baseball season is long, and every time I look at or think about the standings, the unfairness is looming there, taunting me.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, thanks for commenting. Good stuff about the league traditions.
(Also, I've never thought of you as a supporter of the MLB status quo, so if I painted you that way it was a mistake.)
I'm looking forward to starting in on your book's rough draft soon!
The constantly rotating IL game could possibly erode the existing traditional and historical integrity of the AL/NL split. I don't deny that.
ReplyDeleteBut considering that other than the DH rule there is no difference between the two leagues, it may already be a moot point. Although the MLB's situation is not completely analogous to the NFL/AFL situation, it's also not like the CFL merging into the NFL; they have a variety of differences between them.
Of course, in the alternative it would be just as easy for MLB to give one team in each league a break for a few days, or to stagger the series so that they don't all run simultaneously.
cough cough... 8 teams per division/ 24 teams per league... cough cough
ReplyDeleteThere was certainly no anger on my end - sorry it was conveyed that way. Maybe my attempts at sarcasm don't translate well on "paper". Duly noted.
ReplyDeleteI've thought about the possibility of a longer (3-day) break that teams would have if IL play would continue as is and the leagues were evened out. I suppose it's feasible, but it would likely extend the season by a few weeks as teams would have more days off. Considering teams play 2 series a week, each team would have an extended break every 7 1/2 weeks. Over the 6 month baseball season, that's another 1 1/2 to 2 weeks of time added in. Not the end of the world, but people already complain about how long the season is.