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  1. #1

    Baseball Realignment

    Evidently MLB is considering a few changes. One is moving a team to the AL West from the NL Central and creating 2 15 team leagues rather than the current structure. Which would mean interplay throughout the season. Another idea is to then have the top 5 teams in each league in the playoffs and abandon the divisions.

    One question I have is if that would mean the end of the DH (which would be a blessing) or, more likely, the DH in the NL (which would be a horrible step in my opinion).

    Eliminating the divisions would also reduce the number of rivalry games - a la Yankees/Red Sox. Not sure that is a good idea and I think would favor the big market big money teams.

    It is hard to predict with Bud Light and company will do. They have created a system with teams in the different leagues playing under different rules, adding "meaning" to an exhibition game, and brought us November baseball. What will be next.

    SoCal

  2. #2
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    Looks like some of the impetus for realignment is coming from the MLBPA.

    Here's a link from the Athletic's player rep Brad Ziegler.

    "With interleague play, you've got six teams in the N.L. Central and four in the A.L. West, it's not competitively fair," said reliever Brad Ziegler, the A's player representative. "If there's a way to tweak it and try something for five years, we should always look to (improve) things."
    I tend to agree. Why should the leagues be so different? Moreover, interleague games should not have a disproportionate impact on standings. BTW, I am not sure that SCalDukeFan reads the proposal accurately insofar "interplay" is concerned. I'm not sure that has anything to do with interleague play; more likely it is just a way of describing a partial corrective to current scheduling.

    I do think, however, that the DH is a non-issue. When the Brewers went from the American League to the National in 1994, they just adjusted to NL rules. No reason why that would not occur again.

  3. #3

    My Understanding

    Quote Originally Posted by Jim3k View Post
    Looks like some of the impetus for realignment is coming from the MLBPA.

    Here's a link from the Athletic's player rep Brad Ziegler.



    I tend to agree. Why should the leagues be so different? Moreover, interleague games should not have a disproportionate impact on standings. BTW, I am not sure that SCalDukeFan reads the proposal accurately insofar "interplay" is concerned. I'm not sure that has anything to do with interleague play; more likely it is just a way of describing a partial corrective to current scheduling.

    I do think, however, that the DH is a non-issue. When the Brewers went from the American League to the National in 1994, they just adjusted to NL rules. No reason why that would not occur again.
    is that another proposal is that after balancing the leagues, which does make sense to me, is that the divisions will be dropped and the top 5 teams in each league meet in the play offs. Such a change will reduce the number of rivalry games as the leagues will have to balance the schedules as best they can.

    SoCal

  4. #4
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    The issue isn't that interleague play would occur during the whole regular season, but that it HAS to occur, at least for two teams, at the END of the regular season. Having an even number of teams in each league (14 and 16) means every team can pair off with another team in its own league. Making it 15 and 15 would mean that one team in each league would be left out of the pairings, and would have to face each other.

    This could lessen some drama in a division or wild card (or top 5) race, depending on which teams get stuck with that arrangement.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by brevity View Post
    The issue isn't that interleague play would occur during the whole regular season, but that it HAS to occur, at least for two teams, at the END of the regular season. Having an even number of teams in each league (14 and 16) means every team can pair off with another team in its own league. Making it 15 and 15 would mean that one team in each league would be left out of the pairings, and would have to face each other.

    This could lessen some drama in a division or wild card (or top 5) race, depending on which teams get stuck with that arrangement.

    Wouldn't the best team in each league simply be given a bye for round 1?

  6. #6
    As a Cardinals fan, I definitely like the idea of balancing the NL central to 5 teams. Keep it in the upper-midwest where it belongs and kick the 'stros to the AL. Their owner doesn't like competing anyway.

    However, top 5 teams is only acceptable if teams will be playing reasonably identicle schedules. To me, it's fairer to say -- you and these 5 teams will battle it out for a playoff shot and be playing mostly just each other, rather than ok folks, top 5/15 -- we don't care if the NL East is incredibly unbalanced and you have two teams run up their record against their own division while the NL Central may be more competitive with the teams closer together with fewer wins.

    Also, the way it is set up gaurantees geographical viewership -- you will always have a west coast+central+east coast market going at it.

    I would begin to consider a top-5 if a salary cap was in place...but right now the average payroll of teams skews heavy to the east coast.

  7. #7

    changes

    As a hard-core, old-time baseball fan, I'm constantly amazed by what fans like and what they don't like as the powers that be tweak the game.

    Personally, I HATE interleague play, which destroys the uniqueness of the World Series. I have no problem with the designated hitter, which is a very old idea (first proposed in the 19th Century). Yeah, it negates certain in-game strategies, but it also creates new, long-term strategies.

    But there is NOTHING I hate more than the wild cards and the expanded playoffs. I've heard the argument that it allows more teams in the playoff hunt at the end of the season, but, hell, if that's your goal, just expand to a 16-team playoff like the NBA and NHL -- think of all the teams that will be in the mix at the end!

    Baseball is different. In football, the best team is going to win 90 percent of the time. In basketball, the best team wins 75-80 percent of the time. In baseball, the best team usually wins less than 67 percent of the time.

    The point is that the best teams are at a disadvantage over a short series. Just by chance, a weaker team is going to win a fair share of 5 and 7 game series. For more than a century, baseball determined its best two teams over the course of the long season, then let them play off in a short 7-game series. True, that sometimes led to so fluke world champions, but with the leagues seperate you could never know whether the Dodgers victory over the A's or the White Sox over the Cubs in 1906 was a real upset or a reflection of the two leagues.

    Ah well, I know I'm spitting in the wind here. As far as moving a team (the Astros) to the American League, what does it matter? The two leagues are so intertwined now and schedules are so convoluted that it makes little difference.

    Indeed, the designated hitter is just about the last difference left between the two leagues.

  8. #8

    It is funny

    Quote Originally Posted by Olympic Fan View Post
    As a hard-core, old-time baseball fan, I'm constantly amazed by what fans like and what they don't like as the powers that be tweak the game.

    Personally, I HATE interleague play, which destroys the uniqueness of the World Series. I have no problem with the designated hitter, which is a very old idea (first proposed in the 19th Century). Yeah, it negates certain in-game strategies, but it also creates new, long-term strategies.

    But there is NOTHING I hate more than the wild cards and the expanded playoffs. I've heard the argument that it allows more teams in the playoff hunt at the end of the season, but, hell, if that's your goal, just expand to a 16-team playoff like the NBA and NHL -- think of all the teams that will be in the mix at the end!

    Baseball is different. In football, the best team is going to win 90 percent of the time. In basketball, the best team wins 75-80 percent of the time. In baseball, the best team usually wins less than 67 percent of the time.

    The point is that the best teams are at a disadvantage over a short series. Just by chance, a weaker team is going to win a fair share of 5 and 7 game series. For more than a century, baseball determined its best two teams over the course of the long season, then let them play off in a short 7-game series. True, that sometimes led to so fluke world champions, but with the leagues seperate you could never know whether the Dodgers victory over the A's or the White Sox over the Cubs in 1906 was a real upset or a reflection of the two leagues.

    Ah well, I know I'm spitting in the wind here. As far as moving a team (the Astros) to the American League, what does it matter? The two leagues are so intertwined now and schedules are so convoluted that it makes little difference.

    Indeed, the designated hitter is just about the last difference left between the two leagues.
    I also consider myself a hard core old time baseball fan. See some things the same, some things differently.

    The DH may be an old idea but it is not something I grew up watching. I generally watch NL games so maybe I am just not used to it. However I think the strategy of handling the pitchers makes NL games much more interesting.

    Inter-league play is ok with me on a limited basis. I am not sure if its something I want to see all season.

    Like you I don't like expanded play offs and more short series. Agree with your thinking completely on that one.

    If they make these changes then I think they should shorten the season and finish the World Series in mid October. Baseball is best played outdoors in the summer.

    SoCal

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by brevity View Post
    The issue isn't that interleague play would occur during the whole regular season, but that it HAS to occur, at least for two teams, at the END of the regular season. Having an even number of teams in each league (14 and 16) means every team can pair off with another team in its own league. Making it 15 and 15 would mean that one team in each league would be left out of the pairings, and would have to face each other.

    This could lessen some drama in a division or wild card (or top 5) race, depending on which teams get stuck with that arrangement.
    I have heard this argument from others-- that having 15 teams means two teams are playing intra-league games at the end of the season -- as a negative. I don't get it.

    Lets say the Brewers and Cards are battling for the division title in the final week of the season. The Brewers close with 3 games against the Cubs and the Cards close with 3 games against the Orioles.

    What is the difference? The cellar-dwelling Cubs and Orioles are each just playing out the string. What does it matter if they are playing out the string in the NL or the AL?

    I don't get why 15 teams per league is such a negative. Someone explain it to me.

    -Jason "I like the notion of 15 teams per league but don't get rid of the divisions" Evans
    Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by theAlaskanBear View Post
    As a Cardinals fan, I definitely like the idea of balancing the NL central to 5 teams. Keep it in the upper-midwest where it belongs and kick the 'stros to the AL. Their owner doesn't like competing anyway.
    While I agree with your assessment of Drayton McClane, the Astros past owner, I do note that he has sold the team. So no more Wal-Mart style ownership. Thank the lord.

    I'd be disappointed if the Astros went to the American League. To me, it only make sense for the Brewers to go back.

    And "where it belongs" doesn't make much sense. Was it the "upper midwest" when the division included the Mets and Phillies? There's not a traditionally "midwest" division in baseball.

    All that said, the above poster is right that 2 15 team leagues would not quite work, requiring inter-league play at some level all year long. Although I do like the idea of no divisions.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by A-Tex Devil View Post
    All that said, the above poster is right that 2 15 team leagues would not quite work, requiring inter-league play at some level all year long. Although I do like the idea of no divisions.
    I am a little confused. What is wrong with having intraleague play all year long? Why is there something wrong about a Cubs vs. Tigers game versus a Marlins vs. DBacks game?

    I really need someone to explain the problem with this.

    -Jason "unless you think all intraleague games should be done away with, which ain't happening" Evans
    Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?

  12. #12
    Because interleague games should be done away with. Oh, wait. Sorry, Jason!

    Those of us fans who don't like interleague at all can stomach it better when it's crammed into a two or three week period and then we're done with it and can go back to normal for the rest of the season. But with 15 team leagues, literally every weekend of the season would have one interleague series. Probably not that big of a deal from the perspective of following just one team, as it would only effect them once every three weeks or so, I guess, but still you need to deal with it all season long.

    That said, I am generally sympathetic to the fairness argument regarding the NL Central and AL West. Houston makes more sense than Milwaukee to me, to move into the AL West from a geographic/travel perspective, being so close to Dallas. It also would be odd to move Milwaukee back to the AL and then not have them share a division with Chicago and Minnesota, although they also shared a division with Oakland and Seattle and the Angels way back when, of course.

    Count me among those that hate the wild card and expanded playoffs but have learned to live with it. And I would not be enamored of getting rid of divisions at this point in favor of the top 5 of 15 making the playoffs. For one thing, it should be top 4, if anything. But I've also come to enjoy the smaller divisions and their identities and rivalries, even though their existence is owing to the wild card. That does not, however, mean I have anything but disdain for the unbalanced schedule. Hate it.

  13. #13
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    The American League DH thing will have a bearing on any move realign the leagues, but it shouldn't. Rather, it should just dropped. They way I look at it is this: A Dh is not a player. He is a batter. Neither is the pitcher a player. He is a pitcher. All other players are full time participants in the game, both playing a position and batting in turn. The DH rule goes back to around 1973. Somebody had an idea for improving the offensive capabilities of a team by removing pitchers from the batting order. Is there any evidence that that has actually happened? I don't recall that ever being discussed.

    The idea reflects the laziness of the AL managers who wished to be relieved of the responsibilities of making the decision to pinch hit for a pitcher when he comes to bat at a critical time. Also a factor is that the managers would rather not take the effort to train pitchers to hit the ball. In 1973 it was a change that lacked an honest reason, and now it hangs around as some sort of tradition. Well, maybe 38 yeas is long enough to establish a tradition, but what about the tradition of more than a century in which all players took a turn at the bat?

    To put it another shorter way, the DH rule is an abomination that needs to die. I hate it. Realign, but in that process leave a slot for the eventual move of the Durham Bulls to the Majors. North Carolina needs a Major League franchise, and the well storied Bulls would fill a 45,000 seat stadium for all 81 home games.

  14. #14
    The NL Central only looks like it has six teams.

    But one team hasn't won a world series in 103 years (and has won exactly one postseason series in that time), and one other has given up any pretense of being competitive.

    So it's really only a four-team division. If you're the Cards, Astros, Reds or Brewers, I'm not sure what the problem is.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by JasonEvans View Post
    I am a little confused. What is wrong with having intraleague play all year long? Why is there something wrong about a Cubs vs. Tigers game versus a Marlins vs. DBacks game?

    I really need someone to explain the problem with this.

    -Jason "unless you think all intraleague games should be done away with, which ain't happening" Evans
    I think the issue is that in September, you'll have a bunch of interleague games. There isn't anything inherently wrong with this -- what is different about the Phillies playing the last place Mets vs the Phillies playing some middling to bad AL team in September? I think it will be a perception issue when a division leader is playing interleague at the end of the year instead of a division rival. But frankly, I agree that there shouldn't be an issue. So long as the 'Stros aren't in the AL, I'm fine with it I guess.

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by A-Tex Devil View Post
    I think the issue is that in September, you'll have a bunch of interleague games. There isn't anything inherently wrong with this -- what is different about the Phillies playing the last place Mets vs the Phillies playing some middling to bad AL team in September? I think it will be a perception issue when a division leader is playing interleague at the end of the year instead of a division rival. But frankly, I agree that there shouldn't be an issue. So long as the 'Stros aren't in the AL, I'm fine with it I guess.
    There is no difference if the game in in Philly, but if they have to go to an AL city and play the last three games of the year with a DH, it becomes a huge deal. All of a sudden, they have to play a different game that the franchise wasn't built to play in order to make the playoffs. Rosters are built differently between the two leagues, and it would be pretty bogus to have 2 teams in a division race at the end of the year, and one has the advantage of playing the lineup that they had envisioned all year, while the other has to stick a random bench guy in the order against a professional DH. If the DH rule were to be standardized one way or the other, baseball could have inter-league play with no consequences much like every other pro league does.

  17. #17
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    I think the Astros are the ones widely considered to be the team to move in a realignment plan because 1) it's probably the only team that could move from the NL to AL without another AL team changing divisions, and 2) an instant, in-division rivalry would be created with the Rangers. I'd like to see that...if they keep the divisions, it would create the cleanest realignment plan since it would increase the one 4-team division to 5 and lower the only 6-team division to 5, keeping things nice and even (and somewhat making sense).
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  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by SCMatt33 View Post
    There is no difference if the game in in Philly, but if they have to go to an AL city and play the last three games of the year with a DH, it becomes a huge deal.
    That's a good point - hadn't thought of that. Obviously, it's more one of perceived rather than actual unfairness, since every team would play as many interleague games as every other over the course of the season, and both benefit from and be disadvantaged by the DH rule equally. But it's hard to say "well, they should have won one more of those games when they got Pittsburgh at home back in May" to the fans of a team in an AL race the last week of the season, when their opponent gets three games against the DH-less Cubs.

    Anyone know how the numbers play out for home/away splits in interleague? I know the AL has traditionally crushed the NL overall, and maybe a large part of it fits with what SCMatt seems to espouse - that there's no advantage to the NL team hosting an AL team forced to bat their pitchers, while the AL teams have a huge homefield advantage. I would think, though, that there's at least some benefit at home for the NL team. Pitchers obviously don't hit well in the NL, but I would think they'd outproduce their AL counterparts who get around 5 at-bats a season. And the AL managers are at a disadvantage in terms of tactical practice when they're in NL ballparks, too. Whether all that offsets the structural issue of not having one of your traditionally three best hitters for the DH spot in AL parks or not, I don't know, but I still think there's "a difference" regardless of where an interleague game is played.

  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by blazindw View Post
    I think the Astros are the ones widely considered to be the team to move in a realignment plan because 1) it's probably the only team that could move from the NL to AL without another AL team changing divisions, and 2) an instant, in-division rivalry would be created with the Rangers. I'd like to see that...if they keep the divisions, it would create the cleanest realignment plan since it would increase the one 4-team division to 5 and lower the only 6-team division to 5, keeping things nice and even (and somewhat making sense).
    Of course it would make sense to have the Astros move to the AL West, for the reasons stated. That team would not like the move, unless the unbalanced schedule issues were also resolved; nobody likes those extra west coast trips.

    I agree with most of what Olympic Fan says. Baseball is a long season with lots of games, and you should have to win your division to make the playoffs. Expanding the playoffs is a bad idea. I didn't like the wild card when it was added, and I don't like it now. And I do not like the interleague play, especially insofar as it further throws scheduling balance out of whack.

    But, OF, we need to dump the DH. I don't care if it's an old idea; it's a bad idea.

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by rasputin View Post

    But, OF, we need to dump the DH. I don't care if it's an old idea; it's a bad idea.

    Hey, hey, hey! I must disagree. This business of having pitchers hit and become a virtual offensive cipher is for the birds. Sacrifice bunts are ok, but taking the pitcher out for some perceived batting advantage, defeated by a another pitching change just wastes time and removes perfectly good pitchers from the game. Let the players do what they do best.

    Besides, I like my AL (partial) season tickets (OK, it's only for the A's) I enjoy the current product; that's a good thing in general, even if the A's leave a lot to be desired.

    You NL purists bore me. Sub this, sub that, warm up another pitcher...No wonder my soccer friends hate baseball. At least the AL keeps things moving along.

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