THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

If you think the +8 / -8 is too much, then you can make it “half”, so +4 / -4.  That puts the Cards and Rangers at 87 / 91.

Or, if you want, you can do a one-game playoff between the Cards and Rangers (regardless of record) to see if you the Rangers get to cross-over.

Basically, the league with the better record gets to send it’s 5th best team to face the other league’s 4th best team in a one-game playoff.

I think I like that one the best actually.

Actually, it should be +4/-4.

The AL is .558 against NL teams and .500 against AL teams, which makes them .529 against an “average” team.

Same for the NL.  So, the adjustment is +4/-4.

Like I said, you can still make it half, so +2/-2, and that sets up a tie with the Cards/Rangers.

I also like the more simple approach in the end of post 1.

There many interesting ideas for playoff systems, but I believe that complicated formulas for determining who is in the playoffs may be a turn off to the majority of fans.  I don’t like the crossover when different rules are used (DH in baseball), especially when it’s just one team that gets to decide.  Perhaps if it were a mutual agreement, but I think too complex is not very enjoyable.  Don’t get me started on the BCS!

I’ve seen AYSO soccer leagues where you have two divisions and the playoff structure is setup the following way.

Div A 2nd vs Div B 1st
Div B 2nd vs Div A 1st

This simple setup gaurantees a crossover.

vr, Xei

Yes, that’s what they use in the Olympics, and I’ve advocated its use when it comes down to the final 4 (AL2 v NL1 and AL1 v NL2).

In terms of non-complex, what’s so hard about saying: whichever league has the better record, gets to have a one-game playoff from its 5th best team against the other league’s 4th best team?

Surely, this is less “complex” than the tie-breaker rules in the NFL?

I like it up until the point when we would get a Yankees - Red Sox World Series. Then I’d need to leave the country for 2 weeks.

Love the choose your opponent stuff.

The system in Rugby League here in England is fantastic - 8 team playoff, #1 vs #8, #2 v #7 ,#3 v #6, #4 v #5 and then the winners play each other, but highest surviving seed chooses their opponent and the two other teams play (rather than reseeding, or a fixed draw).

I’d love to have a rule where the #1 seed in each league chooses which one of the other three playoff teams they want as an opponent.

And, even as a Red Sox fan, I agree with Brian; a Red Sox-Yankees World Series would be hell.

I think the NFL tie-breaking system is so complex because you don’t have time for a one or even two game tie-breaking playoff like you do in a sport like baseball.  Baseball takes care of its tie-breaking system H2H, which is really the ideal way of doing so, though three way ties get a little uglier, but atleast you control your own destiny on the field.  Growing up, I always wished that the sport of boxing had a reasonable playoff system or season.
vr, Xei

I came up with a similar idea independently for the NBA.  My idea was a little simpler.  Teams with the top sixteen records make the playoffs, period.  Teams in the conference that has “extra” teams in the playoffs cross over into the conference that is “short”.  Maybe this is a permanent switch, leading to parity between the conference, albeit with some geographic anomalies.

But this is for the NBA.  Unlike the NFL and MLB, the NBA conferences don’t have particularly deep historical roots.  Plus in recent years there has been an unbalanced in terms of the strengths of the teams in the West and East much greater than has ever existed between the AL and NL, or even the AFC and NFC.

You could also just switch a handful of strong teams in the stronger conference with weaker teams in the weaker conference.  Some of the original NFC teams in American football, notably the Steelers, wound up in the AFC.  Even in baseball, the Brewers switched leagues for poorly understood reasons.

I think its important that fans accept and understand the playoff system, so I prefer simpler systems.

Baseball is different because the two leagues have longer histories as separate entities, and even with interleague play, teams in one league play a lower percentage of games against teams from the other league than is the case with the NFL and NBA.  Plus, there have been periods in the past where the NL was stronger than the AL, and this reversed itself without tinkering. 

You will always have one league or conference stronger than the other by definition.  If there is no structural reason for it, it will reverse eventually.  If there is a structural reason (the DH?), it can be found and eliminated without the need for fancy playoff systems.

Someone came up with the idea of a third baseball league, with the league with the strongest interleague play record essentially getting a by in the playoffs (pennant winners of the two weaker leagues play to deterimine who plays the pennant winner of the stronger league).  But this was actually a traditionalist idea, designed to get rid of the wildcard while squaring the circle that the owners want at least six teams in the playoffs and more than two rounds of playoffs.  But it was an ingenious idea that would have the effect of “rewarding” the strongest league.

Ed, your NBA idea is fairly solid.  I can see detractors bringing up the following issues though.

1) To fairly do this you’d have to get rid of the unbalanced schedule.  If a team like Oklahoma City (west) is fighting Chicago (east) for the 16th playoff spot, shouldn’t they play each other more often or have more common opponents?  The team with the easier strength of schedule will be at an advantage.

2) Not a pretty site if due to this method Boston draws a west coast team like Portland or Golden State in the first round.  Kind of a tough travel situation.  And it would take more complexity to eliminate this type of scenario.

I think inequities between leagues can be lived with and they should regress back to equality, unless there are some outside forces like unfair amounts of revenue that one league may have to work with than the other.

While we are throwing out ideas, how about realigning baseball divisions either by team revenue or salary paid out in the previous year.  Not realistic, but would be interesting .

vr, Xei

I’m with BrianK/5.  I *really* don’t like the idea that the World Series could be two teams from the same league.

I’d be in favor of merging the two leagues into one, and going from there.  Either you consider the leagues equal, or you don’t.  If you don’t, merge them, or fix things so they become equal eventually.

If you treat the AL and NL as two “leagues” you’ll have a different perspective than if you treat them as two conferences.

It’s a lot easier to think of them as leagues so long as they play by different rules.  Give the NL the DH and we can talk. 

I like the “top team picks their opponent” rule for the first round of the playoffs, though.  Particularly compared to the current rule where you don’t get the wild card, no matter how weak a team, if they’re from your own division.

Why not let the higher-ranked team pick their opponent in every round?  I’m thinking of the NHL ... since teams are often very close in the standings, the top team might often pick someone who’s not the worst ranked, if they think they can handle the matchup better.

Or maybe they’d pick a team geographically closer, or a rivalry, or some such.

Again, MLB, the NFL, and the NBA have different histories in this regard.

Baseball started with the National League, the American League was just the one alternative league that had success and stuck around, so they reached an accomodation.  Only one team has switched between the leagues.  Teams still play most of their games within their leagues, and didn’t play any regular season games at all in the other league until 1995.  The two leagues even have different rules.

American football was somewhat the same way, with the NFC analogous to the National League and the AFC analogous to the American League.  But the history is more recent, more teams have switched conferences, and more inter-conference games are played as a percentage of regular season games.  There are no rules differences like the DH.

In the NBA, the only basis seperating the two conferences is geography.

With these different histories, you have to treat the league/ conference structure differently.  Baseball has the most robust history of a separate structure, and basketball the least.  Plus, the “strongest league” has rotated a few times in baseball history and it will probably keep rotating.