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Expanding Playoffs Rewards Mediocrity

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 3:00 pm 6 Responses »
Nov 162010

Apparently baseball’s GM’s support the plan to expand the postseason (via Craig):

The general managers are all meeting in Florida this week and, as we’ve expected, one of the items on the agenda will be making a proposal to Commissioner Selig about expanding the first round of the playoffs with an additional wild card team. The news nugget here is that the GMs USA Today’s Bob Nightengale spoke to all prefer that the first round of the playoffs, which would be between each league’s two wild card teams, either be a one-and-done elimination game or, at most, a best of three scenario.

This plan will have some consequences that I fear may be detrimental to the sport. As Craig notes, a 1 or 3 game series simply adds to the randomness of the postseason, and will often result in the better team going home. Relatedly, this system rewards mediocrity and will allow weak teams into the postseason. A perfect example of the ill effects of this idea can be found in the events at the end of the 2010 season.

If there had been an extra wild-card round in 2010, the AL might have been more exciting down the stretch. The Yankees and Rays likely would have been playing much harder so as to win the East and obtain a first round bye. On the other end, the 89 win Red Sox and 88 victory White Sox would have been locked in a battle for the second Wild card spot. Conversely, some of the drama may have been pulled from the NL race to the finish, as the Giants, Padres, and Braves would have all been guaranteed of at least a wild card berth.

The question that needs to be asked, of course, is whether we want those teams in the postseason. Why should the 95 win Yankees and 89 win Red Sox, with a clear gulf in talent between them, be put on equal footing in a wild card round? By the same token, does anyone really believe that the 2008 Yankees belonged in a postseason series with the 2008 Red Sox? The short nature of the series means that the highly inferior clubs would have a legitimate chance to advance. This plan diminishes the importance of the 162 game schedule, which is the feature that distinguishes baseball from other major sports.

A better plan would focus on tweaking the current system to make the wild card berth significantly less valuable than a division championship. One solution would be to give the team playing the wild card team an extra home game, with the wild card club getting only Game 3 in their building. This would make winning the division a priority, while serving to create a race for the best record in the league (and right to play the wild card team) as well.

Do you like the playoff expansion idea? Do you have an alternative?

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ESPN: Realign MLB Divisions Every Year

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 3:00 pm 7 Responses »
Feb 012010


For the last decade or so, a club like the Toronto Blue Jays has found competing to be an almost impossible task. They do not have the money to parry with the Yankees and Red Sox of the world, but have not been quite awful enough to build a farm system such as that of the Rays or Orioles. They are caught in the middle ground of being a mid-market club in a loaded division. ESPN’s David Schoenfield suggests an innovative and radical approach to fixing this issue and the general competitive balance issue:

So, yes, it’s a complicated situation without an easy (or realistic) solution. That’s why I’m here. I have one.

Change the divisions. Each season.

Why does baseball have to keep the same division format every year? Why should Tampa Bay and Baltimore always have to beat out the Yankees and Red Sox while the AL Central teams duel each other to 87 wins? Why should the Angels only have to beat out three teams instead of four in the AL West?

So the plan is to realign the divisions after every season. For the American League, there would be three basic rules:

1. The Yankees and Red Sox always remain in the AL East. It makes sense and it’s good for the game.

2. Tampa, Toronto, Baltimore, Detroit and Cleveland can play only in the AL East or AL Central. All five cities are in the Eastern time zone and having them play in the West creates logistical and television issues.

3. The Angels, Seattle and Oakland always remain in the AL West. This makes sense for logistical reasons, as well.

Now, how do we disperse the remaining teams? Simple. MLB holds a big telecast two days after the World Series ends. We put all the team names in a big ball like during the NBA lottery selection show. Teams send their general manager and a star player and Hall of Famers like George Brett and Reggie Jackson draw out the team names….

So, here’s how it theoretically would work. Each division would rotate as the four-team division once every three years. The Red Sox, Yankees and West Coast teams are locked into place. The other teams are drawn until the divisions are properly filled out.

It is an interesting plan, although one that would never, ever be put into practice for a variety of reasons. Firstly, it complicates things from a logistical point of view, particularly in terms of scheduling. Furthermore, it will kill any possible rivalries outside of those between the 5 teams that are fixed in their divisions. With divisions shifting every season, the Yankees and their fans will be unable to develop any sort of real animosity for the Rays or Orioles, for example.

However, I do believe that realignment could be one way to fix the competitive balance issue. Another plan that I have seen before (I cannot recall where, and help on a link would be appreciated) is to group teams based upon the size of their constituencies. This would result in the grouping of major market clubs together, making the teams with huge budgets compete with each other while the less affluent teams fight between themselves in other divisions. For example, the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, Braves and Phillies could be one division, and so forth, with alignment done while trying to consider size of market as well as considering geographical issues. The issue here is that you end up creating two entirely different sports, where there may not be an impetus to grow your brand if you are only competing against similarly limited clubs. Furthermore, is it truly fair to make teams that have plenty of money traverse a significantly more difficult path to the postseason? I am not so sure.

This is a complicated issue with many possible solutions, all of which have some major flaws. What would your plan look like?

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A 3rd Team In New York?

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 10:50 am No Responses »
Dec 292009

Since the Yankees won the World Series, there have been rumblings among baseball insiders about the need to correct the “Yankee problem,” namely the fact that the Yankees outspend some clubs by more than 100 million dollars. While a salary cap is the most popular suggestion, a cap on teams would by nature by a cap upon player salaries, and therefore would require approval of the players union. Tim Marchman suggests that one way baseball can deal with the competitive imbalance while bypassing the MLBPA is to add another club in NY:

According to the measure used by the Office of Management and Budget, the New York metropolitan region numbers about 19 million people. In other words, New York has one MLB team for every 9.5 million people. Chicago, by this measure, has one for every five million people, just as Miami and Atlanta do. Los Angeles has one for every 6.5 million people, as do Dallas and Philadelphia. (This doesn’t even take into account New York’s vast, inherent wealth.) As we learned a decade ago, baseball at large is quite willing to jury-rig a silly tax system that only works against the Yankees, because everyone else benefits, be it poor teams getting handouts or rich teams who see the Yankees ever so slightly chastened in their spending. With the collective bargaining agreement coming up for renegotiation, a bad economy and a Yankees team that looks like it will be ferociously good over the next few years even if the likes of Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera begin their inevitable decline, it’s quite likely that their continued high spending will provoke some new set of ineffectual regulations meant to reign them in a bit. The better solution would be to place a third team in New York. That would bring the town’s population:team ratio down to the level of Los Angeles or Philadelphia, and with the same number of people and dollars chasing more baseball, would quite likely bring Yankee spending down a hair without doing anything punitive or unfair. The main holdup is baseball’s archaic territorial rights system, which has also trapped the A’s in Oakland when they should really be in San Jose.

I agree with Tim in that this is certainly a better solution than raising the luxury tax, which is basically a redistribution system that penalizes the Yankees for effectively utilizing their market advantage. An additional team in New York would be an organic solution, creating more competition in the market and helping equalize the playing field. A team in New Jersey or even Brooklyn would have a built-in audience of locals, and a motivated owner could help bring in players to make the team a success within its first 5-6 seasons. While some might suggest that there is no way for anyone to put a dent in the Yankee revenues, it is important to note that the Mets of the late 60′s and mid to late 80′s did just that. The Mets were the talk of the town and consistently outdrew the Yankees over those time spans. It would likely be a difficult go for a 3rd New York club at first, but I think it could work.

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