A Simple Way to Fix Baseball

 

This guy obviously is not doing his job

This is the point in the sports calendar where you hear many causal sports fans praise the fact that “the long baseball season is mercifully coming to an end.”  These are the people who complain that baseball games are too long, but will watch ten hours of football on consecutive weekend days.  They argue that the Major League season is too long, but tune in for 82 NBA games over seven months.  These complaints are very real, but the vocal crowd who dislike our national pastime fail to read into their own words.  The problem is not necessarily with the game itself, but with Major League Baseball’s inability to keep casual fans interested.  

 

In April, millions of fans tune in to watch their local teams for a month or so, but slowly find something else to watch as the season progresses.  Why, you might ask, is this.  Some point to the long games, but the average baseball game in 2008 was 45 minutes shorter than the median NFL contest.  I contend that the dwindling interest is arises from the early realization that only a handful of teams will compete for a coveted postseason berth, with roughly 20 other franchises merely going through the motions.  As a result, the average June and July games are of less importance because unless you are lucky, the team you support is no longer in contention.  Unlike every other major American sport, baseball does not field a large postseason tournament.  Instead, Bud Selig limits October play to only eight teams- typically from the same group of a dozen or so high end franchises.  Because the games “no longer matter,” attendance dwindles around the Majors as reality sets in for the small markets.  While the season is no longer than in hockey or basketball, the perception is understandable.  With two weeks remaining in the 2008 NBA season 26 teams were fighting for 16 playoff spots and arenas nationwide were sold out.  Contrast that with this baseball season, where only 10 teams are in playoff contention and only that group (and the Chicago Cubs) continue to sell tickets.  Of course fan interest digresses, unless you cheer for the Yankees or Red Sox, in what is there to emotionally invest?

 

I am sure you can see my solution- add more playoff teams.  Expanding the playoffs to 16 teams (eight per league) would exponentially increase fan support because more people then have a vested interest in the playoffs.  The biggest complaint from casual sports fans is not that they do not like baseball, but rather that they have nothing for which to cheer.  The addition of four teams per league would not only ensure fan participation, but it would greatly diversify the postseason landscape.  My plan is a simple two step amendment to the current baseball structure- decrease the regular season to 145 games and add a best-of-three series to the first round of the playoffs.  Before addressing some obvious concerns this plan presents, I do want to note that subtracting 17 games has nothing to do with the season being too long.  Reducing the regular season is necessary to avoid player injuries that could arise from an additional high energy playoff round as well as the obvious meteorological concern about extending the postseason into a snowy November.  

The first question is how exactly you alter the schedule.  Because of the increase in the number of wild card teams, any scheduling alterations must be done with an eye on uniformity.  As a result, I would maintain the current practice of teams within a single league, but different divisions, playing a round robin series with other non-division teams (i.e. the Cubs would play six games against the Mets- three in both Chicago and New York).  Additionally, I would keep the six game round robin series between interleague “rivals.”  Because the National League has two more teams, my plan schedules six additional games between the division rival San Diego Padres and Colorado Rockies.  That is the extent of what would remain of the current structure.  Rather than schedule nearly a third of each team’s games against divisional opponents, my plan shaves that number in half.  While divisional games would remain the most played on the schedule, gone would be the days of 16 games between the Toronto Blue Jays and Baltimore Orioles.  The final, and perhaps most controversial, revision is my addition of one annual series between all National and American League teams.  The games would rotate location based on year (this accounts for the one game discrepancy between home and road games) but ensures that all teams have roughly equal strength of schedule.  Below is a detailed list of how my plan effects each division:

1) American League East- ten games against each division rival (five home/road), six games against the rest of the American League, six games against interleague “rivals,” three games against each National League team

2) American League Central- Same as the AL East

3) American League West- eight games against each division rival with one additional game based on the previous year’s division standings, six games against the rest of the American League, six games against interleague “rivals,” three games against each National League team

4) National League East- eight games against each division rival, six games against each National League team, two extra games based on the previous year’s standings against a National League West team, six games against interleague “rivals,” three games against each American League team

5) National League Central- eight games against each division rival, six games against each National League team, six games against interleague “rivals,” three games against each American League team

6) National League West- same as the National League East

 

I recognize that this somewhat complicated scheme is not without pitfalls.  One complaint is that traditional rivalries, such as the Cubs-Cardinals or Yankees-Red Sox will lose some value without 16 games between the clubs.  The response to such a claim is that the decrease in games would result in more at stake in each head-to-head matchup and ensure that there is a full house when those teams play.  Secondly, even the most die hard baseball fans do not watch more than a dozen games between the same teams each year, but eight is a more manageable figure.  

 

The second major contention is that dropping eight or nine home dates each year is incredibly detrimental to franchise revenue.  This argument ignores the fact that teams like the Royals, Marlins, or Reds currently operate at a loss because the attendance figures are inconsequential compared to the financial burden each team faces in opening the gates every afternoon.  Additionally, increasing the number of teams in the playoffs will necessarily increase the scope of the playoff hunt.  When a home team has a chance to play in October, fans come through the turnstiles.  So while there may be fewer games, overall attendance numbers would likely increase across the board.  

 

The next predominant concern is that even expanding the playoff field would not spike interest across the board.  The argument goes as follows- eight teams may make the playoffs, but roughly the same eight teams would qualify each year.  This ignores history.  If my plan were in effect, only the Pittsburgh Pirates would not have made the playoffs this decade.  The NBA and NHL, both of which follow long seasons with expanded playoffs, teach us that a postseason appearance goes a long way in luring free agents to otherwise less than appealing markets.  Not only would this plan diversify October, it would allow smaller market teams to effectively pitch the idea that a big free agent is in reality the missing piece to a deep run- something a 83-79 season without the playoffs does not.  

 

Finally, some purists may complain that abandoning the 162 game season marks a divergence from many of the statistical benchmarks of the past.  However, this is a fools argument.  Most of the holiest records- .406 batting average, 191 runs batted in, 60 home runs- were all set in a 152 game season.  Moreover, the home run marks set in the 162 game era are all unfortunately associated with performance enhancing substances and a shortened season will eliminate these comparisons.  Finally, the pitching milestones of the past would remain unaffected- as the days of 383 strikeouts and 30 wins have gone the way of the four man starting rotation and the dinosaurs.  I am well aware that baseball is the most statistically focused sport in America, but losing seven games relative to the schedules of Ruth and Gehrig hardly justifies complaint.

 

So what would this mean for this October?  The 145 game was played two weeks ago, so the playoff standings would be set as follows:

American League- (1) New York Yankees v. (8) Minnesota Twins; (2) Los Angeles Angels v. Tampa Bay Rays; (3) Detroit Tigers v. (6) Seattle Mariners; (4) Boston Red Sox v. (5) Texas Rangers

National League- (1) Los Angeles Dodgers v. (8) Atlanta Braves; (2) St. Louis Cardinals v. (7) Chicago Cubs; (3) Philadelphia Phillies v. (6) Florida Marlins; (4) Colorado Rockies v. (5) San Francisco Giants

I have adopted the NBA’s playoff model- assigning the top three seeds to division winners and allowing intradivision series to open the playoffs.  Based purely on this season’s head to head records, here is how October would play out-

American League Division Series- (1) New York Yankees v. (4) Boston Red Sox; (2) Los Angeles Angels v. (6) Seattle Mariners

National League Division Series- (2) St. Louis Cardinals v. (6) Florida Marlins; (5) San Francisco Giants v. (8) Atlanta Braves

American League Championship- (1) New York Yankees v. (6) Seattle Mariners

National League Championship- (5) San Francisco Giants v. (6) Florida Marlins

World Series- (5) San Francisco Giants v. (6) Seattle Mariners

As you can see, my format results in a postseason that the current system does not allow- with three of the four LCS teams staying home next week.  All-west coast World Series home field advantage would not be determined by the All-Star game, but by the winner of the three game series the teams played during the year.  I know it is not perfect, but I really believe this format trumps Bud Selig’s attempt at parity that has most sports fans searching for the remote in October.