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Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Making minor leagues stronger
Bill James had a proposal for revamping the minor leagues, and in order to make it stronger, one of the things that needs to happen is:
c) Every player going to the major leagues, without exception, is required to spend three full seasons in the minor leagues.
He had a bunch of other things, but this one stuck out for me. This would mean Junior, ARod, Heyward, Strasburg, Ryan Zimmerman, and Ichiro would all be stuck. to me, this is nothing short of a recipe for a disaster. I have never liked the strict control on players, as if we can somehow have a one-size-fits-all solution, and this proposal does that. The NHL used to draft players only when they turned 20, and so quality players at age 17-19 were undraftable. The WHA capitalized on these “underaged” draftees, including drafting a 17-yr old Wayne Gretzky, who turned out to be rookie of the year, and finished in the top 10 in scoring. You simply can’t put players in league where they will simply overdominate them, and leaving Gretzky to play in the junior leagues as the NHL would have otherwise done is a problem.
Now, James has good enough intentions, but what are the consequences of what he is proposing? Well, forget about players going to college. If they are required to have a three-year apprenticeship program in the minor leagues, and if college does not give them any kind of waiver, then why would a player go to college? And what of Japanese players, if they too will not get a waiver?
Can we still get to James’ objective of strengthening the minor leagues? Well, how about soccer-style control of players? Suppose we have a Premier League of 12 teams, where the mininum age is say 25. Then we have a Division 1 league of 24 teams where the maximum age is say 24. And a Division A league of 24 teams of no age limit. We have 60 teams (basically MLB and Triple-A, recalibrated), where you’ve got major-league level talent in all three leagues. Heyward, Strasburg (even Felix!) are in the 24-and-under league, you have Utley and Pujols and Halladay in the 25-and-over league. But, there are tons of great players over 25, and the spillover will be in the Division A league. Young players not good enough for Division 1 get spilled over into Division A.
You have three legitimate leagues, each with enough star power that you’d get national contracts, continual fan interest, and so on. You have sixty teams that will have major-league level ambition and interest.
(Note: maybe instead of 24/25 being the threshhold, it would be 25/26.)
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