THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Other than reasons of greed, I don’t know why there are divisions at all.  The regular season is just a qualifying heat for the playoffs, so not put the top 4 teams in each league in the playoffs?

OOPS, that should be:  “...WHY not put the top 4 teams in each league in the playoffs?”

Tango,
The World Cup has expanded to eight groups with four teams each, but it’s the same idea. I really like this idea a lot. It also indirectly adjusts for the perennial inbalance between the leagues and the divisions discussed a few posts below.

Right, agreed.  And I forgot that they went to 32-teams recently.

When it was 24 teams, 16 went into the knockout round (top 2 teams of the 6 divisions, plus 4 wild cards).  What are they doing now with 32 teams?

Baseball’s charm may be in its roots to the past, but forcing a root like non-divorce of divisions just seems so contrived.

The DH rule by the way can be handled by making it “home manager discretion”.  This way, you don’t have to worry about the arbitrariness at the league level.  (Not my idea, but I love the idea.)

What about basing the divisions on payroll?

I think this would let teams in smaller markets compete without putting arbitrary constraints on big spenders.  Plus the natural variance in the game means the post-season would still offer any team a chance to win it all.

Of course, teams in every division except the highest would aim for the “magic” payroll that keeps them in the lower division but spending the most money.  I could deal with that.

Tom/#4,

FIFA still have the 16 teams for the knockout stage, although now it is strictly the top two teams in each group that move on.

The World Cup also separates teams into pots by region, not quality (other than the ‘top seed’ pot). One pot has Europe, another has North America & Asia, and the last has South America & Africa. Now there’s generally a pretty big gap in quality between those pots, but the big thing is getting a good regional mix in each group (no group is allowed to have three Euro teams, for instance).

This concept is diametrically-opposed to MLB’s ‘least travel’ division setup. Making such a change would wreak havoc on the schedule.

Yes, I offered that as an option last year (based on market size, not salary, but they’d be close anyway):

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/balanced_playoff_hope/

where I said in part:

The first proposal:
- two teams from each of four divisions makes the playoffs
- the number of teams in each division are: 4,6,8,12 (total 30 teams)
...
The bottom 11 teams in payroll were playoff-bound a total of 2.15 teams per season.  That is, these 11 “small market” teams are just as likely, as a group, to make the playoffs as the 4 “large market” teams.  Hence, the breakdown from my first proposal to have a different number of teams in each division to keep this large market / small market balance in check.  That is, there should be no objection on realignment based on the market size, since I’m using that as the basis.
...
What will be the effect? If the Premier Clubs are all in the same division, it sets up its own universe of bargaining.  Would the teams really try to one-up each other, if there was a guarantee that half of them won’t make the playoffs?  I don’t know.  I don’t know if the Premier teams would try to outspend each other silly, or try to take a more reasoned approach.

I suggest reading Pinto’s BP article, and Justin’s subsequent blog post…

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=6205

http://jinaz-reds.blogspot.com/2007/05/pintos-radical-realignment.html

Anthony: the least-travel concept has been forced upon each team.  However, is that what teams really want?  Like I said, why not let them choose what they want?  Given the choice, do the Yanks want the Mets or the Royals in their division?  I don’t know.  Let the Yanks decide.  Do the Twins want the Whitesox, and Tigers, or maybe they prefer the Cardinals.  I don’t know.

And, even if that is a necessity, you can create that system a bit under the “quality” scenario as well.  After you have your top 6 teams, one in each division, you have your next 6 best teams, which you would then assign based on proximity.  If the Mets were one of those teams, they’d go to the Yanks division.  If you had the Astros, maybe they’d go to the Braves division.  You repeat for the next 6 teams, based on proximity to the two teams in each division, and so on.

In this manner, you will likely get a repeat of division teams for 2 or 3 teams per division, and brand new teams for the other ones.  Whitesox might not be in the same division as the Cubs, if the Whitesox happen to have found themselves with teams more West or South by the time they were selected, and then the Cubs might end up being closer to some other group that are really tight geographically-wise.

You can come up with dozens of ways to do this.  The key to accept however is that you have a divorce every 4 years.  People seem to want to be married to their divisions longer than to their spouses.  How is that supposed to be romantic?

I don’t see any real point to having divisions if you’re not going to use them to foster some long-term rivalries (based first on geography and then later, hopefully, based on prior on-field history between the two).

Rather than switching the divisions every year to the point where I can’t remember what division any of the teams are in for two seasons, I’d rather just go to one division with the top four teams qualifying for the playoffs.

Steve, no one said to switch every year, so there’s no reason to rip it on those terms.  I said every 4 years.  You can make it every 8 years or 10 years.

The NHL ripped out the divisions several times, and the rivalries between Montreal and Boston/Toronto remain intact.  You can’t “create” a rivalry by forcing divisions.  And, this idea that you can “foster” rivalries by pitting them more often is equally ridiculous.  Why not play in-division 25 or 30 times each?  Right, exactly.  While you can stomach 30 games of Yanks/Redsox, you’d want to play the Jays and Orioles as often as you’d want to play the Twins and Whitesox.

These forced setups don’t do anything that are intended, other than save airfare.  They might as well call the divisions: Continental, Delta, USAir, Southwest, United, Northwest.

I just hate the approach of feeding us nursing babies whatever soylent green Big Brother wants.

Let the market decide.  Imagine the Redsox trading their division with say the Mets.  How much would it cost the Mets to go the AL East?  Or, perhaps it will cost the Redsox to go to the NL East?  (New DH rule in place, natch.) The market will decide the best place for them to play.

Looking at the map, a five team league makes a lot of sense. Best of all, it sets up a tournament at the end with the five division winners. It would have more of a Superbowl feel to it as the games would be held in one city. It would be far more exciting IMO. Maybe the team that clinches their division first will get to host the tournament (to ensure that the host city has a team playing). I think they should try out the tournament in the minor leagues and see how it works.

It would be pretty easy to let the teams set their own divisions, with 5 divisions of 6 teams each. They could decide for themselves how much the geographical and other factors mattered. If the Yankees wanted to buy a playoff spot by putting themselves in a division with the Royals and four other weak teams, that would be OK. 

I’d add 3 wild cards—two based on best record and one based on strongest division. Then I’d divide the playoff teams into two groups of four and let them play each other three times, with one team advancing to the World Series.

While it’s all well and good that Yankees ownership decides they want a constant playoff spot by paying the airfare to travel, but is it fair to the teams that have to play an equivalent amount of games in NYC as a result? Or do the Yankees need to subsidize the airfare of their division-mates?

If this is a ‘winner picks first’ sort of deal, then how do you prevent the top teams from deciding everything for the ones below?

Nothing is stopping the league in implementing travel subsidies, if the concern is that there will be an undue bias that way.

For example, say that the Braves are drafted into the Dodgers division (not sure why that’s a problem, since they went decades in the same division).  MLB could set up a “proximity-sharing” plan, by figuring the total miles that a team will likely travel, and then giving them a subsidy by miles.  This way they are not unduly burdened.

But, like I said, you don’t have to have the “winner pick first”.  You can set up 5 tiers of 6 teams each, and after you assign the first 6 teams, the second 6 teams are assigned by proximity to the first 6, then the 3rd 6 are assigned by proximity to the first 12, and so on.  Basically, a take on the World Cup system.

You may end up with a slightly worse situation than now, but likely better than the Reds/Braves/Dodgers division that existed for a long time.  And, who complained about the Dodgers and Phillies being in the same division (league), when airlines were barely getting started?