Tom Verducci does not like the new MLB schedule:
Don’t worry, you might say, you’ll get used to it. That’s what I’m worried about.
I would still like to see a radical redesign, with five divisions of six teams each. Play 90 games in the division, and 72 games against two other divisions, which rotate year to year. Five division winners and three wild cards (all second place finishers) go to the playoffs.
So, David, in doing so, you are advocating the elimination of the two leagues?
And what would be the basis of choosing the two teams for the All-Star Game, or would that be eliminated as well?
Or add two teams and have 8 divisions of 4 teams each. No wild cards, just LDS series, LCS series and the World Series.
But if you are going to stick with 30 teams, with two leagues you have to go with this set up. A 4 team division and a 6 team division is unfair on the face.
“The end of baseball as it was invented gets a little bit closer.”
That’s just bizarre. As it was invented, there was a dead ball and no gloves. And no professional players.
Joe G » The two leagues don’t really exist anymore, every since Bud Selig usurped the power of the league presidents, making them figure heads. The five divisions would just make that clear.
You can easily make up ways to play the All-Star game. This would eliminate it as conferring home field advantage, which would be a good thing.
Sheesh, it’s so much easier than that now that they’ve finally fixed the Astros/AL West problem.
1. Make the DH mandatory across all divisions. This eliminates the disadvantage AL teams have when stuck playing in NL stadiums in a playoff race (the Tigers, for instance, in September).
2. Eliminate the silly wild-card play-in game we had last year and just go back to the pretty much perfect playoff schedule we had for six divisions. 6 division winners, 2 wild cards, easy-peasie.
There’s no need to fiddle with divisions any further, unless you believe rivalries are more important than equitable schedules.
I’d still prefer to keep the leagues for historical reasons. HIstory is more important for major league baseball than other sports (and the NFL still keeps remnants of the AFC/ NFC system).
However, I would be open to something like this and just relabeling the divisions “Leagues”. One division would be the National League, consisting of six of the original eight National League teams. The second league would be the American League, consisting of six of the eight original American League teams. Then come up with non-geographical names for the other other three leagues (including Continental and Federal). I’m not sure which should be the two odd original National League and two odd original American League teams out, probably LAD, SFG, OAK and MIN for geographical reasons.
My other objection is that I never liked the Wild Card, simply because I liked the “win the league/ division or go home” pennant races. At the least, require a wild-card team to have a better record than at least one of the five division or league winners to take part in the playoffs (the current wild cards usually meet this criteria).
For these two reasons, I still prefer three leagues, six divisions of five teams each, six teams in the playoffs who are all division winners, with the LCS winners of the two leagues with the weaker inter-league play records playing for the right to play the LCS winner of the league with the strongest inter-league play record in the World Series. I think this would make a strong nod to tradition, but unlike the four-divisions-no wild card idea acknowledges that expansion happened and that the MLB doesn’t really want to go back to the days of “lower division teams” (eg the Browns).