THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

From 1956 to 1966, there was one Cy Young award for MLB.  And no interleague games outside of spring training and the World Series.

There’s no reason they can’t compete for the same award right now, if that’s what people wanted.  But I don’t see any reason to reduce the amount of awards handed out.

Rally: do you see any reason not to increase the awards handed out in NFL, NBA, NHL?

Basically, why maintain the status quo, while treating MLB differently?

I agree with Rally that they can compete for the same award right now.  I don’t really see any advantage to doing away with the American and National Leagues or reducing the number of awards. 

If one is interested in moving to a unified MLB though, I think a bigger issue than the number of inter-league games is the designated hitter rule.  I think that the leagues will be viewed as separate as long as they have separate rules.  The differences will only become more obvious with increased inter-league play.

Yeah I agree that unless you resolve the DH there is a fundamental difference between the AL/NL which is not present in other sports.

I doubt the players union is just never going to allow the amount of awards given to players to diminish.

But personally, I think that in 2013 when MLB has (at least) one inter-league game per day, then there is no more demarcation between the leagues any more than there is between the divisions. So I guess I’m saying the tipping point has occurred.

The MVP, CY, etc are BBWAA and are not subject to the CBA.

It’s the BBWAA that would be the one that would be against the idea to merge.