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The W - Baseball - Floating realignment?
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StaggerLee
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Since: 3.10.02
From: Right side of the tracks

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#1 Posted on | Instant Rating: 1.63
Tom Verducci is on The Herd, talking about how the owners are speaking about realigning some of the teams, based on their ability to contend. For instance, moving Tampa to the Central to compete against the weaker Central Division, and moving Cleveland to the East, since they are pretty much phoning it in, and it wouldn't matter who was ahead of them.

He claims there is also talk about moving teams between leagues.



Erik Kasilius is arguing that they should be doing more to hamper the better teams financially, so that some of the teams can compete.

EDIT: I think this is a bit odd, considering they've only been a three division set up for a relatively short amount of time.

I think it would benefit to move SOME teams someplace, but not for "just to make it more competitive."



(edited by StaggerLee on 12.3.10 1222)
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hansen9j
Andouille








Since: 7.11.02
From: Riderville, SK

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#2 Posted on | Instant Rating: 7.89
Link to Verducci's column.



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Von Maestro
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Since: 6.1.04
From: New York

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#3 Posted on | Instant Rating: 4.72
If they are realigning, can they just put 5 teams in the AL West & 5 teams in the NL Central?

I don't understand how no one mentions the fact that there are only 4 teams competing for a playoff spot in the AL West, while there are 6 in the NL Central & 5 everywhere else. I'm no mathematician, but this seems like a relatively easy fix...
thecubsfan
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Since: 10.12.01
From: Aurora, IL

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#4 Posted on | Instant Rating: 10.00
I'm not convinced it's even a great idea in theory, but it falls apart in practicality. MLB schedules are worked on midway thru the previous season, so teams would have to decide where months before they're sure of how they've done the previous season. Woe for the team that decides next year is not their year, then turns it around in the second half.

Not to mention you'd have to have the same amount of teams who want to move out of a division as who want to move in, which seems unlikely.

And as much as it might help the teams moving into the East to face the Sox and Yankees 9 times each, it'd probably kill attendance on other games if they're giving up in such a public way before the season. If you look around every year, even the worst team talks about how they might slip in as a wild card, if things just happen to break right. Even the teams who acknowledge their actual window is a year or two down the line is still selling based on that slight hope that maybe things will turn up early this year.

Plus - if this actually happened, wouldn't the first two teams to ask out of the AL East be the Yankees and the Red Sox? It'd be a lot easier for either of them to guarantee a playoff birth every year if they didn't have to deal with the other.

Ken Rosentahal of Fox had an equally wacky idea for realignment a few weeks ago, based mostly around putting all the geographical rivals together in division, regardless of current league. It's not going to happen either.

The real solution are either balancing the economics a bit more, but they're acting as if the money issue can't be changed, which is sort of depressing.



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TheBucsFan
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Since: 2.1.02

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#5 Posted on | Instant Rating: 2.33
    Originally posted by Von Maestro
    If they are realigning, can they just put 5 teams in the AL West & 5 teams in the NL Central?

    I don't understand how no one mentions the fact that there are only 4 teams competing for a playoff spot in the AL West, while there are 6 in the NL Central & 5 everywhere else. I'm no mathematician, but this seems like a relatively easy fix...


There must be an even number of teams in each league for scheduling purposes, so two leagues of 15 teams each isn't an option.



Mr. Boffo
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Since: 24.3.02
From: Oshkosh, WI

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#6 Posted on | Instant Rating: 5.41
    Originally posted by Von Maestro
    If they are realigning, can they just put 5 teams in the AL West & 5 teams in the NL Central?

    I don't understand how no one mentions the fact that there are only 4 teams competing for a playoff spot in the AL West, while there are 6 in the NL Central & 5 everywhere else. I'm no mathematician, but this seems like a relatively easy fix...


Yeah the problem with that was that it meant that you'd have to have at least one interleague game every day (or at least every day when all 30 teams are playing), and they wanted to have interleague be confined to a portion of the schedule instead.

I like (in that it's stupid) that there's a provision that teams can't move to a division more than 2 time zones away. In other words, Central teams can choose from any of the 6 divisions, but East and West are limited to only 4.

I say if we're doing this, let's go all out. Sometime after the world series, have a live realignment special. The team with the highest payroll in the previous year starts by deciding which division they want to be in. They're basically laying their claim to being the top team in that division. The second highest spending team gets to choose second. EDIT: The New York Mets were actually in 2nd in payroll last year. Obviously I wasn't paying attention. Will Boston choose to stay in the AL East with the Yankees, do they switch to the AL Central, or do they shock the world and give up the DH by switching to the NL East? This continues as we work our way down the payroll. I think you maybe give them 15 minutes to deliberate in case someone does something unexpected. They continue working their way down. Obviously once a division gets 5 teams it's closed off. The team with the lowest payroll just gets stuck in whatever division is left. This probably ends up being a pretty strong division (since it was the one none of the other bad teams wanted to go to). That gives teams an incentive to not be the lowest team in payroll either.

So you have a made for TV event that I think is close to the equal of the NFL Draft, you have an incentive for teams to spend payroll at both the top and the bottom of the pay structure.

(edited by Mr. Boffo on 12.3.10 1407)
JayJayDean
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Since: 2.1.02
From: Seattle, WA

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#7 Posted on | Instant Rating: 7.12
    Originally posted by thecubsfan
    I'm not convinced it's even a great idea in theory, but it falls apart in practicality.


That was my immediate thought. It also seems like an incredibly odd way to solve the problem of competitive imbalance. However, if that was the goal it seems like the most sensible answer would be to just scrap the division format entirely and go with a 14-team American League and a 16-team National League, with the four best teams in each league advancing to the playoffs. Then if you were in a world where two behemoths (the Yankees and Red Sox) were annually in the top-two you could still aim for the World Series by going for third or fourth-place (which the other AL East teams can't do right now).



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Liverwurst








Since: 9.2.02

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#8 Posted on | Instant Rating: 6.90
    Originally posted by Mr. Boffo
    I like (in that it's stupid) that there's a provision that teams can't move to a division more than 2 time zones away. In other words, Central teams can choose from any of the 6 divisions, but East and West are limited to only 4.
So, in theory, could Oakland and Tampa both wind up in the AL Central? If so....it doesn't really seem feasible.
Big Bad
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Since: 4.1.02
From: Dorchester, Ontario

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#9 Posted on | Instant Rating: 5.69
I think I proposed this a few years ago on this very board, but my interesting idea for realignment was three divisions of ten teams each. You can do it by last year's standings or, perhaps more logically, by payroll.

The top four teams in the 'A' division make the playoffs, top two in the B division, top two in the C division. You play every divisional opponent 10 times (five home, five away) for 90 games worth of schedule, and then you play each team in the other divisions three times each (the home-away dates are rotated every year), thus making 60 games for a total of a 150-game regular season schedule.

Each playoff round is a best-of-nine, since what the hell, it's baseball, it's all about proving yourself over an extended period of time. Screw this best of five random chance junk. Pick uniform rules, so either a DH or no DH (I prefer the DH).



"In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love. They had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock." -- Orson Welles, The Third Man
JayJayDean
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Since: 2.1.02
From: Seattle, WA

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#10 Posted on | Instant Rating: 7.12
    Originally posted by Big Bad
    I think I proposed this a few years ago on this very board, but my interesting idea for realignment was three divisions of ten teams each. You can do it by last year's standings or, perhaps more logically, by payroll.


My buddy and I set up a league like this on a computer game a few years ago just see how it could be like European soccer, with promotion and relegation. We did three ten team divisions by wins, each team plays only its division 18 times each for 162 games. We staggered the starts of each division's season, and set up the playoffs so the top-four in the worst division played playoffs with the winner advancing to play the next round with the top-three of the middle division, the the winner of that group would advance to the Final Four with the top-three of the best division. We thought it was pretty cool and it could probably work if not for the fact that you would have one division starting up in mid-February and nobody would be down with their team being a "third division" team, I think.



Holy fuck shit motherfucker shit. Read comics. Fuck shit shit fuck shit I sold out when I did my job. Fuck fuck fuck shit fuck. Sorry had to do it....

*snip*

Revenge of the Sith = one thumb up from me. Fuck shit. I want to tittie fuck your ass.
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Peter The Hegemon
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Since: 11.2.03
From: Hackettstown, NJ

Since last post: 61 days
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#11 Posted on | Instant Rating: 7.03
I don't think I like the idea of attacking the problem so indirectly. I appreciate that they are thinking outside the box, but ultimately the solution to competitive imbalance is to make the big-market teams share some of the money they make with the teams who are obligated to play in such smaller markets.

Still, it wouldn't really bother me so long as they don't mess with the clear separation of the leagues. One of the ESPN radio guys the other day had a suggestion wherein the A's ended up in the National League. They've been an American League team for 110 years; they *are* an American League team. (The Brewers moving wasn't such a big deal--they were a comparatively new team, and their home city had been an NL town once upon a time.)
Zeruel
Thirty Millionth Hit
Moderator








Since: 2.1.02
From: The Silver Spring in the Land of Mary.

Since last post: 1675 days
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#12 Posted on | Instant Rating: 4.50
This is what I would like, because I hate the American style of two groups of teams, each trying to be the champion of their own group to face the champion of the other group for the league championship.

Single table of 30 teams. Nine teams are played eight times (four home, four away for 72 games), and 20 teams played four times (two home, two away for 80 games) for a total 152 games.

These groups of ten teams will play each other nine times:

Boston, NY Yankees, NY Mets, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Cleveland, Detroit

Chicago White Sox, Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Kansas City, Atlanta, Texas, Houston, Florida, Tampa Bay

Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland, LA Angels, LA Dodgers, San Diego, Arizona, Colorado, Minnesota, Milwaukee

Each team's ground rules will determine if pitchers are allowed to hit or not.

Top eight by record will make the playoffs.



(edited by Zeruel on 14.3.10 0951)


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Idiots. I was actually surprised that the American League vote is actually spot on with both B-Rob at 2nd and Tejada at short deserving of their spots.
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