THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Tango, I’m curious if you believe that history deserves any place in this discussion. The World Series has been around for over 100 years and has always been between a National League team and an American League team. Would you agree that if two proposals are equally good based on the merits, then we should stick with the way we’ve always done it? It seems to me that stability and consistency are worth something; the burden of proof should be on the side that wants to change things. I’m not sure how high that burden should be. If your new system is 1% “better,” is that enough? Or does it need to be 10%? 20%? 50%? (or maybe it’s easier to express it in this way: can you show that there’s a 51% chance that the series will be “better”? 60%?)

I really think we should get rid of the NL and AL.  Divide the teams into five six-team divisions.  Each division plays 90 games in division, and 72 games against two other divisions on a rotating basis.  Five division champions, three wild cards.  Rank all division champs ahead of the wild cards, and rank the team 1-8 based on winning percentage.  One plays eight, two plays seven, etc. in the first round.  Second round, re-rank the teams, wild cards always last.  One plays four, etc.  The two winners play for the championship.

No, I don’t believe “history”, as you are defining it, deserves a place.  Because it implies “all other things equal”.

Is the burden of proof on me to expand the NHL from 6 teams to 12, to 17, to 21, to eventually 30 in a matter of just three decades?  Is the burden of proof on me to expand the season from 44 games to eventually 82?

The “history” deserves a place when we are talking about the core of the sport.  Of all MLB rule changes that have taken place, there are only two that apply: the DH rule, and the strike zone changes (or similarly, the mound being altered).  Introducing a radical change like the DH requires great care, as it changes the fundamentalness of the play.  Even more drastic is the ball/strike calls, since that is at the heart of all things baseball.  The entire sport revolves around the ball/strike calls.

If we are talking about the history of the sport as having nine men on the field, then I agree, we defer to history.  If we are talking about the history of the sport as now being 4 balls and 3 strikes, then I agree, we defer to history.

That is really stare decisis.  We stand by what is settled.

But, to have two divisions or three divisions and not one?  To have 30 teams and not 16?  To have 8 teams in the playoffs and not 4 or 2?  Stare decisis does not apply here.

To force the Jays and Orioles to be married forever inside the same division?  No, we don’t need “history” to apply here.

Most of the time “history” and “tradition” are used as a lazy way to avoid the argument.  History and tradition to have their places.  But, not in the case that I’m talking about here.

David, that’s good thinking, certainly better than what we have.

The NHL used to stick to brackets, like NCAA and tennis.  But, now they changed it so that after every round, they reseed, so that the best team always has the more favorable opponent.  David is sticking to this principle.

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As for the “divisions”, I argued in the past that we don’t need to have the divisions married.  For example, you can have a redraft of the divisions every ten years.  The NHL has no problem with the Canadiens moving divisions (some three or four different divisions since I’ve followed hockey these last 30 years).  No one complains.

You can even make it exciting by having the 5 or 6 teams with the best records over the last 10 years “draft” their divisions.  They can decide whether they prefer geography or whatever.

If we adopt your suggestion we might as well do away with the concept of leagues.  That may not be a bad thing.  MLB has already started the process by eliminating the separate league offices and interleague play.

One league, expand by 2 teams, have 8 divisions of 4 teams each.  Divisions would be grouped geographically, but some consideration would be given to market size.

Yankees, Mets, and Red Sox would certainly be in the same division.  Not sure who else would have to be there - Philadelphia?  I think that’s still the biggest market with only one team so they would fit.

Teams would play slightly more games against division opponents (part of the object is to minimize travel miles), but would play every team at least once.  Playoffs would be the best 8 teams seeded by record, so you could have a division winner not make the playoffs.

NY, BOS, PHI would be at a slight disadvantage in posting a W-L record, depending on how imbalanced the schedule is, but it’s the price they pay for having a massive market and massive payroll.

I like to stay away from 4 team divisions, if at all possible.  A 3-team division would be disaster, so having one more team above disaster can’t be seen as optimal.  The optimal point must be at least 5, perhaps 6, and maybe as much as 8.  We’ve had a long history of 6-team and 8-team divisions in baseball, and 5-team and 6-team divisions in hockey.  I think 6 offers the best balance.

After a little thought, with that many teams scheduling is a tough task.  If you want just a slightly imbalanced schedule under the above scenario, you’d play 5 games against each non-division opponent (alternate by year which one gets to be home for 3 games) and 7 against 2 division teams, 8 against the other.

If you cut down the non-division games to 4, you’d have 17 or 16 against division opponents.  Either way, the increase in the # of 2 game series would probably kill any idea of minimizing travel miles.

It’s an idea but I don’t know if it would be better than the status quo, or if any change need be made.  I was not bored in the least by this world series, I enjoyed it more than any since 2002.

One more thing, if the concept of leagues was eliminated, the DH must go out the door with it.

I offer the history as a guide to experience, not as anything else.

The DH option that I prefer is the home-manager-option (previously discussed on this blog).  It offers a great story line ("coach, you allowing the DH meant that Hafner got to play!"), and is the only one that both sides can agree to.  Those that oppose the DH currently live with it in the World Series and don’t seem to complain about it.  Those that like the DH also live with it in the World Series, and also don’t seem to complain about it.

In terms of compromise, either you make both sides happy or both sides unhappy.  And the Optional DH satisfies that.

If you are not interested in a compromise, then you have to have a prolonged fight over it.  Those against the DH will lose, eventually.  I don’t see it as a fight worth having that would bring distaste of that level to fans.  It’s a needless fight that is simply partisan in its nature.  In my opinion, of course.

Not to hijack the thread, but I’m in favor of the DH in all games.  The reason is simple - there’s so much of a disconnect between the pitcher (or at least 99% of them) and all other hitters that it just isn’t right.

Why insist the pitcher has to bat when there are thousands of other people who can’t even make it to the majors that are better hitters?

Sure, it adds a little bit of strategy, but so would saying that the left fielder wears a blindfold in odd-numbered innings.  Which isn’t so different from making the pitcher bat.

To me, the point of watching is to see the world’s best players play.  And when the pitcher bats, that’s just not happening.

DH discussion is here:
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/the_perfect_dh_rule/

I would float the idea of keeping the divisions as they are now and to have some kind of power rankings or combination of computerized and coaches ranking system determine which teams are the best.  Then take the top two teams from this ranking system and have them play a seven game series at a neutral warm weather site.  A few of the other good teams, perhaps the top half of the remaining teams could partner up and also play a 3 or 5 game series at a neutral site just for the fun of it.  These neutral site cities would make lots of money from the fans pouring in from other cities.  If they want they could even start a tradition of having a big parade prior to the start of each series.  Each series could also be sponsored by a big corporation as to bring in even more money for MLB.  The championship series could be rotated throughout a half dozen or so warm weather cities.  Thoughts?
vr, Xei

The *only* reason that you have computerized rankings or pollings is because not every team plays every other team.  In the four major sports, we have, effectively, a round-robin tournament.  They settle it on the field of play.

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As for host cities for various events: Part of the reason people by season tickets is because they get dibs on the playoff tickets.  In effect, the regular season tickets are a “personal seat licence” (PSL) for the sought-after playoff tickets.  You will turn off alot of actual customers if you don’t give them easy access to the playoff games.

Only for the World Series can you hope to make it a neutral-site situation.

My idea may go the other way as it’s more “traditional”:

Eliminate inter-league play.  Part (most?) of the mystique of past World Series was that it represented the only meaningful games between the two leagues.

First, I think it is madness to have two leagues overlapping one of the largest countries in the world. More out of division games should be scheduled for the weekends to allow more people to see other teams. As a Jays fan, all the other AL East teams are a burden to see over and over. Shouldn’t it be natural to put the same teams from the same city in the same division (or at least if travel is a consideration at all)? There are many different ways to improve baseball that are not all mutually exclusive. Someone may also need to adjust the length of the season to find the right number of games so that the inter and intra division games can be worked out. Almost everything should be on the table. A few internet polls could be revealing to see what people value more or are quite willing to change.

If the MLBPA would accept an extra 12 games, then you could do six games against the other 29 teams in the majors.

The nice thing about east/central/west divisions is that each region of the country is guaranteed some postseason action. You wouldn’t want all eight playoff teams coming out of the northeast.

I find that the divisions in the NHL became meaningless when they switched to the “conference style” (1 vs 8, 2 vs 7 etc) playoff system. A lot of newspapers switch to conference standings partway through the season, and the race for the division title doesn’t mean anything. It should, if the divisions are organized geographically.

I don’t know if the comparison to the shuffling of divisions in the NHL is valid. The NHL conferences never had any historical meaning as separate leagues. Also, I don’t think there is really a distinct style of play or “character” to the different conferences in the NHL the way there is in MLB. As recently as the 1980s, I remember Al Michaels calling a controversial call like this: “… and he’s called safe by third-base umpire Don Denkinger, American League” ... ie the rivalry between the leagues was strong enough that Michaels implied that Denkinger was biased because he was an AL ump.  I can’t imagine Bob Cole on Hockey Night In Canada saying “… and he’s called for hooking by referee Don VanMassenhoven, Prince of Wales Conference”.

It’d never happen, but I’d love to see a soccer-style 30-team league with relegation and promotion, maybe with a 1 vs 8, 2 vs 7 playoff at the end of the year.

The race for the division title has some significance (all three division leaders are seeded 1 through 3), and the divisions are split geographically (much better geography than MLB).  That said, I agree that the divisions mean very little in hockey, other than to force the number of games between teams (and the seeding issue).

Once you move the Brewers from one league to another, and if you moved the Rays or Marlins or any of the expansion teams since 1969, the league distinction in MLB will also become meaningless. That is, no fan will care if the Jays and Rays and Mariners move to the NL, while the Padres and Nationals and Dbacks and Rox move to the AL.  The only ones who really b-tch about it is if you move ONLY the Cubs or ONLY the Redsox.  You handle the DH issue as a single uniform rule, you can do a massive reorg of MLB, and we can move on, except for the Field of Dreamers who have to complain about everything that changes when it comes to baseball.