Re: MLB considering radical floating realignment

[UMFan83]

Why should the Rays, the team with the 2nd best record in the majors, have to play a 1 game playoff against a team 7 games worse than them just because they have the misfortune of being in the same division as the Yankees?

 

ETA: Identical story with the Red Sox in '09

 

Theres really no perfect way to do it. If you just seed everyone by records, then the issue is devaluing the divisions. There is a reward for winning the division. If the teams were playing balanced schedules, I'd feel differently, but if you are playing close to half your games against teams in your division, it doesn't make sense to rate teams from different divisions solely on the basis of record. But I think unbalanced schedules are really stupid personally because there's no way around having to compare teams from different divisions based on their record, whether it be for the Wild card, or for seeding, HFA, etc.

 

Also, I'd prefer a quick 3 game series between 2 WC teams to determine the WC instead of a 1 game. Baseball is just too flukey in a single game to let one game decide a "play in" series.

[SouthSideRyan]

Can somebody make an argument as to why the '09 Twins deserve the same rewaard that the Angels (or Yankees if you kept the rule that the wild card can't play their own division winner) receive? Yeah they all won their divisions, but the Yankees were 16 games better, and the best they get out of it is an extra home game (which you already argued isn't worth much)

 

Making a change to reward division winners any more is more evidence of old timey thinking than leaving things as is. Divisions are a relic of the past, and have no real use other than to create artificial races. I'm not saying to dump them and go back to 1 big league apiece, but there's no reason to reward the '07 Cubs(relatively) and punish the '10 Rays because of their geography.

[bcl412]

Can somebody make an argument as to why the '09 Twins deserve the same rewaard that the Angels (or Yankees if you kept the rule that the wild card can't play their own division winner) receive? Yeah they all won their divisions, but the Yankees were 16 games better, and the best they get out of it is an extra home game (which you already argued isn't worth much)

 

Making a change to reward division winners any more is more evidence of old timey thinking than leaving things as is. Divisions are a relic of the past, and have no real use other than to create artificial races. I'm not saying to dump them and go back to 1 big league apiece, but there's no reason to reward the '07 Cubs(relatively) and punish the '10 Rays because of their geography.

 

You may not be saying you want to get rid of divisions but that seems to be the best solution to the problem.

[SouthSideRyan]

Well for fairness, sure, the best way to do it is to take 2 leagues, take the winners and match them up, but you have to keep fans interested too

[Guest]

Well for fairness, sure, the best way to do it is to take 2 leagues, take the winners and match them up, but you have to keep fans interested too

Why bother with leagues? Have the 30 teams all play in one big pool. The top eight make the playoffs and get seeded accordingly.

 

anyway...

 

I still want to expand by two more teams, go to four divisions of four teams in each league and you win your division to make the playoffs. Clean and simple. If you are the second best team in baseball in a division behind the best team in baseball...sucks to be you. Get better than the other team.

[UMFan83]

Can somebody make an argument as to why the '09 Twins deserve the same rewaard that the Angels (or Yankees if you kept the rule that the wild card can't play their own division winner) receive? Yeah they all won their divisions, but the Yankees were 16 games better, and the best they get out of it is an extra home game (which you already argued isn't worth much)

 

Making a change to reward division winners any more is more evidence of old timey thinking than leaving things as is. Divisions are a relic of the past, and have no real use other than to create artificial races. I'm not saying to dump them and go back to 1 big league apiece, but there's no reason to reward the '07 Cubs(relatively) and punish the '10 Rays because of their geography.

 

Again, unbalanced scheduling makes rewarding division winners necessary. There is no way that teams from different divisions have the same schedule strength. So a 95-67 record in one division may not be the same as a 95-67 record in another division.

[SouthSideRyan]

Congratulations Cubs, you did better against 5 shitty teams than they did against you.

[jersey cubs fan]

Making a change to reward division winners any more is more evidence of old timey thinking than leaving things as is. Divisions are a relic of the past, and have no real use other than to create artificial races.

 

That is a whole bunch of nonsense stuffed into a couple sentences. Divisions are relatively new things. Having everybody in each league all bunched together is a relic from the past.

[lumafia]

Making a change to reward division winners any more is more evidence of old timey thinking than leaving things as is. Divisions are a relic of the past, and have no real use other than to create artificial races.

 

That is a whole bunch of nonsense stuffed into a couple sentences. Divisions are relatively new things. Having everybody in each league all bunched together is a relic from the past.

 

Divisions have been around in MLB for 41 years. I wouldn't exactly call that "new". Technically, different "divisions" of the same entity began 90 years ago when the first baseball commissioner was appointed to make unilateral decisions for all of professional baseball.

[lumafia]

Can somebody make an argument as to why the '09 Twins deserve the same rewaard that the Angels (or Yankees if you kept the rule that the wild card can't play their own division winner) receive? Yeah they all won their divisions, but the Yankees were 16 games better, and the best they get out of it is an extra home game (which you already argued isn't worth much)

 

Making a change to reward division winners any more is more evidence of old timey thinking than leaving things as is. Divisions are a relic of the past, and have no real use other than to create artificial races. I'm not saying to dump them and go back to 1 big league apiece, but there's no reason to reward the '07 Cubs(relatively) and punish the '10 Rays because of their geography.

 

Again, unbalanced scheduling makes rewarding division winners necessary. There is no way that teams from different divisions have the same schedule strength. So a 95-67 record in one division may not be the same as a 95-67 record in another division.

 

That's the ultimate issue. What is fair, and what generates excitement and tickets sales are 2 different things. If we all wanted it to be "fair", it would be a round robin format for the regular season where everybody plays everybody else the exact same number of times, and then the top 8 or 10 teams would play a "seaded" tournament consisting of best-of-seven series with only 1 day off during each series.

 

The only other method would be to have a formula that would be able to calculate and "account for" the strength of schedule based on the division and the un-balanced scheduling.

[MSG T]

Can somebody make an argument as to why the '09 Twins deserve the same rewaard that the Angels (or Yankees if you kept the rule that the wild card can't play their own division winner) receive? Yeah they all won their divisions, but the Yankees were 16 games better, and the best they get out of it is an extra home game (which you already argued isn't worth much)

 

Making a change to reward division winners any more is more evidence of old timey thinking than leaving things as is. Divisions are a relic of the past, and have no real use other than to create artificial races. I'm not saying to dump them and go back to 1 big league apiece, but there's no reason to reward the '07 Cubs(relatively) and punish the '10 Rays because of their geography.

 

Again, unbalanced scheduling makes rewarding division winners necessary. There is no way that teams from different divisions have the same schedule strength. So a 95-67 record in one division may not be the same as a 95-67 record in another division.

 

That's the ultimate issue. What is fair, and what generates excitement and tickets sales are 2 different things. If we all wanted it to be "fair", it would be a round robin format for the regular season where everybody plays everybody else the exact same number of times, and then the top 8 or 10 teams would play a "seaded" tournament consisting of best-of-seven series with only 1 day off during each series.

 

The only other method would be to have a formula that would be able to calculate and "account for" the strength of schedule based on the division and the un-balanced scheduling.

 

Isn't a form of this what many, myself included, are wanting to get away from in college football?

[lumafia]

Can somebody make an argument as to why the '09 Twins deserve the same rewaard that the Angels (or Yankees if you kept the rule that the wild card can't play their own division winner) receive? Yeah they all won their divisions, but the Yankees were 16 games better, and the best they get out of it is an extra home game (which you already argued isn't worth much)

 

Making a change to reward division winners any more is more evidence of old timey thinking than leaving things as is. Divisions are a relic of the past, and have no real use other than to create artificial races. I'm not saying to dump them and go back to 1 big league apiece, but there's no reason to reward the '07 Cubs(relatively) and punish the '10 Rays because of their geography.

 

Again, unbalanced scheduling makes rewarding division winners necessary. There is no way that teams from different divisions have the same schedule strength. So a 95-67 record in one division may not be the same as a 95-67 record in another division.

 

That's the ultimate issue. What is fair, and what generates excitement and tickets sales are 2 different things. If we all wanted it to be "fair", it would be a round robin format for the regular season where everybody plays everybody else the exact same number of times, and then the top 8 or 10 teams would play a "seaded" tournament consisting of best-of-seven series with only 1 day off during each series.

 

The only other method would be to have a formula that would be able to calculate and "account for" the strength of schedule based on the division and the un-balanced scheduling.

 

Isn't a form of this what many, myself included, are wanting to get away from in college football?

 

I'm not advocating for the use of a BCS-style format to MLB, but I do think it would be more relevant based on the large sample size, i.e. 162 games instead of 11 or 12. The other problem with the BCS is "how" the points are calculated. In baseball, you could propose a very simple formula based on the limited number of teams and the fact that they all play each other.

[Derwood]

I don't know why people get all uptight about balancing the MLB schedule when the NFL schedule is MASSIVELY unbalanced and no one says boo about it

[Guest]

I don't know why people get all uptight about balancing the MLB schedule when the NFL schedule is MASSIVELY unbalanced and no one says boo about it

 

 

Is it mathematically possible to balance the MLB schedule, or at least get very close to it? Yes.

 

Is it mathematically possible to balance the NFL schedule? Not even a little bit.

[jersey cubs fan]

I don't know why people get all uptight about balancing the MLB schedule when the NFL schedule is MASSIVELY unbalanced and no one says boo about it

 

 

Is it mathematically possible to balance the MLB schedule, or at least get very close to it? Yes.

 

Is it mathematically possible to balance the NFL schedule? Not even a little bit.

NFL has 32 teams, 16 in each conference. Each team could face the 15 opponents in its conference and seed the playoffs from those results. Completely balanced.

 

Is there any good reason to balance the MLB schedule? No. It's a pointless endeavor. MLB is a business.

[Guest]

NFL has 32 teams, 16 in each conference. Each team could face the 15 opponents in its conference and seed the playoffs from those results. Completely balanced.

 

The NFL season has 16 games, and is probably going to 18 soon.

[jersey cubs fan]

NFL has 32 teams, 16 in each conference. Each team could face the 15 opponents in its conference and seed the playoffs from those results. Completely balanced.

 

The NFL season has 16 games, and is probably going to 18 soon.

 

Is there a law that says it has to play 16? They could add a round of playoffs. Or have each team play one team twice, either way you were wrong when you said "not even a little bit".

 

And the point is the search for a balanced schedule is a pointless endeavor.

[apete6]

I don't know why people get all uptight about balancing the MLB schedule when the NFL schedule is MASSIVELY unbalanced and no one says boo about it

 

 

Is it mathematically possible to balance the MLB schedule, or at least get very close to it? Yes.

 

Is it mathematically possible to balance the NFL schedule? Not even a little bit.

 

The schedules will always be unfair as long as there are leagues and playoffs. The most fair thing to do would be for each team to play every other team in both leagues (baseball and football) the same amount of times home and road. So, in MLB, each team should play the other 29 teams 6 games each (3 home, 3 road) for a total of 174 games. Take the highest winning percentage and declare a champion. That would be the most fair. That would obviously be the most boring.

 

Even in the NFL, why don't they just play each team in their league once (15 games) and then the 1st place teams play each other in the Super Bowl?

 

Because everything is all about $$$, not fairness.

[Guest]

NFL has 32 teams, 16 in each conference. Each team could face the 15 opponents in its conference and seed the playoffs from those results. Completely balanced.

 

The NFL season has 16 games, and is probably going to 18 soon.

 

Is there a law that says it has to play 16? They could add a round of playoffs. Or have each team play one team twice, either way you were wrong when you said "not even a little bit".

 

And the point is the search for a balanced schedule is a pointless endeavor.

 

That wasn't the point I was arguing/refuting at all.

 

The point is that it's easy to see why there's no outrage at the NFL schedule being unbalanced while people complain about the MLB schedule all the time.

[jersey cubs fan]

NFL has 32 teams, 16 in each conference. Each team could face the 15 opponents in its conference and seed the playoffs from those results. Completely balanced.

 

The NFL season has 16 games, and is probably going to 18 soon.

 

Is there a law that says it has to play 16? They could add a round of playoffs. Or have each team play one team twice, either way you were wrong when you said "not even a little bit".

 

And the point is the search for a balanced schedule is a pointless endeavor.

 

That wasn't the point I was arguing/refuting at all.

 

The point is that it's easy to see why there's no outrage at the NFL schedule being unbalanced while people complain about the MLB schedule all the time.

 

Well the point you tried to make was wrong and what you said here just backs up what you were replying to.

 

The whining about unbalanced schedules is just a stupid waste of time.

[Guest]

The whining about unbalanced schedules is just a stupid waste of time.

 

Yes, much like other things.

[Productive Outs]

The whining about unbalanced schedules is just a stupid waste of time.

 

yet you keep wasting your own time by telling other people that it is a waste of time.

[UMFan83]

I don't get up in arms about the NFL unbalanced schedule because to me sample size is going to play a huge part of things anyways. Every year there are 1-2 playoff teams that are probably worse than 1-2 non-playoff teams, but because of unbalanced scheduling, flukes caused by sample size, the high injury rate of the sport, and tiebreaking rules, these things happen all the time.

 

You are right its not about making it 100% fair, its finding the middle ground between fair and most appealing to the fans. Fans want to see every team have an opportunity to play every other team, thus we have to include interconference matchups. Fans want to see division races, so the schedule is fixed so each team plays their 3 division foes 2 times a year.

 

Baseball, over a 162 game season, has the potential to get things a lot closer on the fair side by simply balancing the schedules. Sure there will still be inequity, but a lot of the randomness (injuries, trades, prospects coming up) gets worked out over the course of 162 games. It will never be fair, but I believe that it's necessary especially when you have teams from all divisions in a league playing for 1 playoff spot. I think its nearly been proven that really good teams from a really tough division can still compete for the wild card spot. It doesn't affect their record as much as you'd think, but still even if playing in a tougher division makes you one game worse than playing in another division, is it fair for that team to lose the wild card by 1 game to a team whose division allowed him an extra win over the "average" division?

 

Sorry that got confusing in that last paragraph, hopefully what I said makes sense.

[jersey cubs fan]

I don't get up in arms about the NFL unbalanced schedule because to me sample size is going to play a huge part of things anyways. Every year there are 1-2 playoff teams that are probably worse than 1-2 non-playoff teams, but because of unbalanced scheduling, flukes caused by sample size, the high injury rate of the sport, and tiebreaking rules, these things happen all the time.

 

You are right its not about making it 100% fair, its finding the middle ground between fair and most appealing to the fans. Fans want to see every team have an opportunity to play every other team, thus we have to include interconference matchups. Fans want to see division races, so the schedule is fixed so each team plays their 3 division foes 2 times a year.

 

Baseball, over a 162 game season, has the potential to get things a lot closer on the fair side by simply balancing the schedules. Sure there will still be inequity, but a lot of the randomness (injuries, trades, prospects coming up) gets worked out over the course of 162 games. It will never be fair, but I believe that it's necessary especially when you have teams from all divisions in a league playing for 1 playoff spot. I think its nearly been proven that really good teams from a really tough division can still compete for the wild card spot. It doesn't affect their record as much as you'd think, but still even if playing in a tougher division makes you one game worse than playing in another division, is it fair for that team to lose the wild card by 1 game to a team whose division allowed him an extra win over the "average" division?

 

Sorry that got confusing in that last paragraph, hopefully what I said makes sense.

 

It really doesn't make sense. You don't care about it in the NFL but even though you realize it doesn't make much of a difference you care about it in MLB.

[UMFan83]

I don't get up in arms about the NFL unbalanced schedule because to me sample size is going to play a huge part of things anyways. Every year there are 1-2 playoff teams that are probably worse than 1-2 non-playoff teams, but because of unbalanced scheduling, flukes caused by sample size, the high injury rate of the sport, and tiebreaking rules, these things happen all the time.

 

You are right its not about making it 100% fair, its finding the middle ground between fair and most appealing to the fans. Fans want to see every team have an opportunity to play every other team, thus we have to include interconference matchups. Fans want to see division races, so the schedule is fixed so each team plays their 3 division foes 2 times a year.

 

Baseball, over a 162 game season, has the potential to get things a lot closer on the fair side by simply balancing the schedules. Sure there will still be inequity, but a lot of the randomness (injuries, trades, prospects coming up) gets worked out over the course of 162 games. It will never be fair, but I believe that it's necessary especially when you have teams from all divisions in a league playing for 1 playoff spot. I think its nearly been proven that really good teams from a really tough division can still compete for the wild card spot. It doesn't affect their record as much as you'd think, but still even if playing in a tougher division makes you one game worse than playing in another division, is it fair for that team to lose the wild card by 1 game to a team whose division allowed him an extra win over the "average" division?

 

Sorry that got confusing in that last paragraph, hopefully what I said makes sense.

 

It really doesn't make sense. You don't care about it in the NFL but even though you realize it doesn't make much of a difference you care about it in MLB.

 

I do care about it in the MLB. With a schedule that's 10 times longer in the MLB, you have a much better opportunity to makes things fair and get the 4 best teams in each league into playoff spots. In the NFL even if every team plays the other 15 teams in its division, due to sample size, and the fact that the schedules still won't be fair because of home/road games, its still going to lead to a level of randomness that can't be removed. In baseball you can make a 174 game schedule where you play each of the other 29 teams 3 games at home and 3 games on the road, or a 154 game schedule where the 14 other teams in each league (1 NL team moves to AL) play each other 5 times at home 5 times on the road. It's still not going to make everythign 100% fair but nothing really will, we can only try to get as close as possible.

 

I'm not in favor of this, like I said, I'm about finding a middle ground between fair and exciting. Playing the Pirates 15 times a year at the expense of the Mets and Phillies and Dodgers, is not what I consider exciting.