How I would fix baseball

[Alien11]

Many of you know that sometimes the unbalanced tends to favor some teams and not others from year to year depending on which team has more home games against a certain opponent who might or might not be in the division. I mean the Cubs played 4 games at Atlanta instead of 3 and got swept throughly.

 

Well I propose that we keep the 30 teams as they are, more due to the fact that contraction won't happen, and have 3 divisions of 5 teams each. Now the first question is, well you can't have 15 games go on at once under that system, but you can if you set up the schedule in such a way where you have interleague games throughout the season.

 

The plan is simple: Colorado moves to the AL West, the only division I feel teams there have a better advantage since currently there are only 3 teams to hop over and have Houston move to the NL West to preserve the "natural rivalry" it has with Texas.

 

Next have each team play it's "natural rival" 6 times (3 home, 3 away) and 6 times against 4 teams from a opposite league's division which rotate every year, the same as is happening now. If the team has no "natural rival" then it will play 6 games against the 5 teams in the division it is supposed to play that year from the other league.

 

Now that covers 30 games of the season which are interleague and you can space them out over the course of a season.

 

Now onto a teams own division in which it will play the remaining 4 teams 18 times (9H, 9A) thus ensuring that you will have to earn your way into winning the division. So that takes care of an additional 72 games.

 

So what about the last 60 games, well since there are 10 remaining teams outside of a teams' respective division in that respective league then you play 6 games (3H, 3A) against those 10 opponents and you take care of the last 60 games. The benefit of this system is that you can keep the wildcard, have some good interleague games (imagine the Red Sox playing the Cubs 6 times in a season, you get them at Wrigley and Fenway in the same year), and lastly I feel it creates good competition with each team getting a legitemate shot at a playoff spot.

 

My last suggestion would be a salary cap, but we all know that is never happenining anytime soon so I felt this would be a better idea. Besides don't you think it is unfair that the Cubs have to hop over 5 teams just to win a division while others have to go over 4 or in the case of the AL West 3?

 

Anyway, let me know what you think. Thanks!

[sandberg23]

Interesting. Check out thread titled Expand the League and Kill the Wildcard? for more opinions on this subject.

[jiml60]

Schedule 2 day-night doubleheaders each month. That would lop off two weeks at the end of the season. Starting the playoffs in September would guarantee a mid-October World Series and lessen the chance of baseball deciding it's championship in football weather.

 

Also schedule games the first 7-10 days of the season in warm weather cities.

 

Contract two teams, 14 teams in each league with 7 teams in each division. Keep the 8 teams qualifying for the playoffs.

 

Eliminate the DH, expand the rosters to 27, this would satisfy the loss of the DH for the players union and find space for all the players from the contracted teams.

[Derwood]

Schedule 2 day-night doubleheaders each month. That would lop off two weeks at the end of the season. Starting the playoffs in September would guarantee a mid-October World Series and lessen the chance of baseball deciding it's championship in football weather.

 

Also schedule games the first 7-10 days of the season in warm weather cities.

 

Contract two teams, 14 teams in each league with 7 teams in each division. Keep the 8 teams qualifying for the playoffs.

 

Eliminate the DH, expand the rosters to 27, this would satisfy the loss of the DH for the players union and find space for all the players from the contracted teams.

 

Tampa Bay could be eliminated, but who in the NL? They lost their chance with Montreal.

[mjohnson71]

Eliminate the DH and expand the roster to 26.

 

Tampa Bay could be eliminated, but who in the NL? They lost their chance with Montreal.

 

The St. Louis Cardinals would be a good NL team to contract.

LEAGUES OF FIFTEEN DO NOT MAKE SCHEDULING BETTER. ON THE CONTRARY, THEY MAKE IT A NIGHTMARE.

 

the end

[Alien11]

LEAGUES OF FIFTEEN DO NOT MAKE SCHEDULING BETTER. ON THE CONTRARY, THEY MAKE IT A NIGHTMARE.

 

the end

 

Not really, it is possible with interleague sparsed throughout the year.

[Alien11]

Eliminate the DH and expand the roster to 26.

 

Tampa Bay could be eliminated, but who in the NL? They lost their chance with Montreal.

 

The St. Louis Cardinals would be a good NL team to contract.

 

In this plan you could effectively keep the DH (although I don't like it) so that way with the 30 games the NL could gain a little more advantage when the World Series comes around. I feel the AL currently has a slight advantage in terms of offense when the playoffs come around.

 

As to your second point, I hate St. Louis with a passion, but I would contract Tony LaRussa first.

[Alien11]

Schedule 2 day-night doubleheaders each month. That would lop off two weeks at the end of the season. Starting the playoffs in September would guarantee a mid-October World Series and lessen the chance of baseball deciding it's championship in football weather.

 

Also schedule games the first 7-10 days of the season in warm weather cities.

 

Contract two teams, 14 teams in each league with 7 teams in each division. Keep the 8 teams qualifying for the playoffs.

 

Eliminate the DH, expand the rosters to 27, this would satisfy the loss of the DH for the players union and find space for all the players from the contracted teams.

 

Good point, but contraction is not really all that part of a possibility due to the sudden backlash baseball recieved to trying to contract Minnesota and Montreal. Although the reintroduction of the schedueled doubleheader doesn't sound like a bad idea.

[wolf stansson]

Contract the Dbacks. I guarantee no one here would care.

[Alien11]

Contract the Dbacks. I guarantee no one here would care.

 

If I could contract teams they would be the Devil Rays, Blue Jays, Dbacks and Rockies.