He's at it again. For some reason, Bud Selig seems determined to screw up the great game of baseball by over-commissioner-ing (yes, I just made up that word, what's your point?). His latest great idea? No divisions. Seriously, Bud? This is even dumber than your two wild card idea. You floated this idea of rotating divisions last year and nobody liked it, so what makes you think this is any better?
First, let's get into the specifics of this "brilliant" plan. The Astros move to the American League, giving each league 15 teams (evidently he thinks this makes more sense than adding two expansion teams to the AL). Then, the three divisions go away, meaning each league is one massive 15-team division. And the expanded playoff thing (another stupid idea) seems to be a done deal according to this scenario, since it calls for the top five teams in each league to make the playoffs. I'm not going to get into the expanded playoffs. You already know my feelings on that. But, believe it or not, they've found something worse to get me going.
Where do I start with the flaws in this plan? How about the uneven number of teams in each league? When baseball last expanded in 1998, the Diamondbacks were placed in the NL West and the Rays in the AL East. That gave both leagues 15 teams, so the Brewers switched from the AL to the NL in order to keep both leagues balanced. Otherwise, there would either have to be an interleague series every day or two teams (one in each league) would have to be off. Since neither one of those things would work, moving Milwaukee was a good and necessary move. (Sidebar: If they promised to put Arizona in the NL West, why didn't they just put Tampa Bay in the National League? Then, the Brewers wouldn't have had to switch.)
What next? How about scheduling? As it is now, teams play an unbalanced schedule. They play the teams in their division 18 times each (the NL Central doesn't since it has the extra team), 18 interleague games (in the NL, they play either 18 or 15) and a random number (anywhere between 6 and 10) against the rest of their league. Until 2001, they didn't play an unbalanced schedule, which I'm guessing is what they would want to go back to. But if you want to have interleague play (which you'd have to), the schedule still has to be unbalanced anyway. Teams play 52 series a year (26 at home, 26 away). If there are 15 teams in each league, you already can't play two at home and two on the road against everybody else. Add in interleague play and you're trying to divide 23 by 14. That obviously doesn't work. So who are you more likely to play the extra games against? Probably the teams that are currently in your division. If that's the case, what's the point of dropping divisions?
Now let's get into the whole reason divisions exist in the first place. Of course, baseball didn't have divisions until 1969. But from 1901-61, there were only 16 teams total. Now they want 15 in each league! The divisions were created in 1969 when four expansion teams came into existence, giving each league 12 teams. In 1994, they added the wild card and went from two divisions to three. Divisions exist to limit travel, foster rivalries and (theoretically, at least) increase late-season excitement by keeping more teams in the race until September. All of those elements would be lost if the divisions went away. (Using the Red Sux as the example is too easy, so I'll use Tampa Bay. I only care if the Rays win or lose because they're in the AL East. That's the same reason why I don't give a crap about a random Wednesday night game between the Tigers and Royals in May. Now you're telling me that I'm supposed to dislike 14 teams equally? Not gonna happen.)
It seems to me that the four people other than Bud's braintrust who actually think this is a good idea haven't really thought the whole thing through. Right now, you go into the season knowing that you only need to finish with a better record than four other teams to make the playoffs. No divisions means you have to finish better than at least 10 other teams. Sure, Blue Jays fans like it because they know they won't need to beat both the Yankees and Red Sux to make the playoffs, but what about fans of teams in the other five divisions? How long until you get four (or five) playoff teams from what used to be the same division? That's not as unlikely a scenario as you might think.
And what about the playoff races? They would be all but nonexistent. The top three teams in each league would be pretty clear, and those teams would have absolutely nothing to play for down the stretch. (Does it really matter who has home field in a best-of-five 2 vs. 3 series?) Likewise, the bottom three or four teams would also be pretty clear, and they'd all be out of it by the end of August. Thus, you'd have about five or six mediocre teams fighting to see who can be the least mediocre and reach the playoffs. Instead of what we have now, which is good teams fighting each other to win the six divisions while simultaneously also in a wild card race that one of the non-division winners is going to win. September baseball is pretty damn exciting. You wouldn't be increasing excitement. You'd all but take it away.
In baseball and football, there's actually value to winning your division. So why would you eliminate them? In basketball or hockey, where everybody makes the playoffs and all winning your division does is help your seeding, this would somewhat make sense. European soccer leagues are the only thing I can think of that doesn't have divisions. The English Premier League has 20 teams, all in one "division." The top four teams advance to the next season's Champions League. But the English Premier League also has a system of promotion and relegation with the second division. The bottom three teams are demoted each season.
If we're going to drop divisons, why not go all the way? The last-place team in each league is relegated to Triple-A, while the winners of the International and Pacific Coast Leagues get to become Major League teams the next season. That could actually be fun. And it's only slightly more stupid than dropping the divisional format that's worked just fine for 40 years.
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