Hypothetical Division

[Tiger337]

4 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

that becomes the interesting psychology question. Do you sell out 100% to try and get so much better than anyone for one season that you can overcome the randomizing inputs in all those short playoff series, or do you content your self on being good enough to get the playoffs consistently and whatever happens there happens? I imagine there are ownerships that will come down on either side of that calculus. But for sure the two approaches have very different impacts on star player valuations.

I don't think it's possible.  Last year, there was a 107 win team and a 106 win team and neither one reached the World Series which was won by an 88 win team missing their superstar.  

[gehringer_2]

55 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I don't think it's possible.  Last year, there was a 107 win team and a 106 win team and neither one reached the World Series which was won by an 88 win team missing their superstar.  

Oh, I agree it's mathematically demonstrable as a fool's errand, but I don't think you're average owner is attuned to that kind of analysis.

That is my one reservation about the automated strike zone - or not even a 'reservation' because I don't know which way it will go for sure but let's call it a worry. How much of the appeal of baseball is just because the outcomes are so much more random than the absolute quality of the teams playing the games? If the best team just won all their games, you end up with the kind of disparities you get in basketball and football. No thanks. If it weren't for back to back scheduling there might be years when the best NBA teams went pretty close to undefeated. No question the recent trend toward total team teardowns is making things worse in that direction with too many teams getting really bad, but to me one of the more entertaining aspects of baseball - traditionally - was that in general most teams clustered between a 40 and 60 winning percentage, so every game was always in a fair amount of doubt. The automated K zone is going to remove one of the bigger outcome 'noise' injection mechanisms in the game. That could just allow the good teams to win a lot more and bad teams lose a lot more, and I'm not sure that's good thing in the long run. But that is not the only possible outcome because I'm not sure if umpires mistakes are necessarily unbiased. If in the end they tend to favor the players they 'know' are better, then that may already be helping the best teams. More likely, the research from most sports is the umps are biased by the home crowd, and baseball does have a net home/road winning split. If you take that away, fans don't get to see the home team win as much and that would probably be detrimental to ticket sales.

There is no free lunch.

Edited April 29, 2022 by gehringer_2

[RandomNeutral]

6 hours ago, casimir said:

I'm giving you feedback, I just don't like scantron tests.

The smaller the pool of teams in a division, the likelier it is that a losing team wins the division and makes the playoffs.  I don't want any part of that, its an embarrassment to competitive team sports that this would be allowed.  It was going to happen in 1994 in the AL West before the strike wiped out that season.  There have been division winners finish the season with low 80s win totals.

If/when they do expand to 32 teams (which shouldn't happen until the stadium issues in Oakland and Tampa get resolved), MLB can go to 4 divisions of 8 teams each.  They can realign geographically and do away with the current AL/NL structure now that all teams both leagues finally play under the same rules.

If MLB wants to do itself any favors, they need to become more inviting to the fan base.  Stop pushing broadcast rights to multiple platforms in such a way that consumers need to acquire several subscriptions to watch their teams, and eliminate the blackout rules that prevent fans from following their favorite teams on MLB.TV.

And they have to quicken pace of play and get rid of Angel Hernandez.

Now, take this feedback, deliver it to Rob Manfred, and then kick him in his crotch and tell him that it's from casimir at MTF (he'll remember me from when he was trying to recognize me once at a Tiger game years ago).  OK, truth be told, I doubt you work in or with MLB, but its fun to think that someone could take the above, print it out, hand deliver it to Manfred, and then kick him in the crotch.

Look, I don't work for the MLB. All I asked was a simple question. Everything that has been written above, I've seen before.

I'm not prepared to comment any further. 

[gehringer_2]

25 minutes ago, RandomNeutral said:

Look, I don't work for the MLB. All I asked was a simple question. Everything that has been written above, I've seen before.

I'm not prepared to comment any further. 

Silly Troll. It's in the DNA here that *any* commercially interested or ulterior motive posting is frowned upon.  You are either here for the discussion or you are not here.

Edited April 29, 2022 by gehringer_2

[casimir]

1 hour ago, RandomNeutral said:

Look, I don't work for the MLB. All I asked was a simple question. Everything that has been written above, I've seen before.

I'm not prepared to comment any further. 

Will there be a follow up Theoretical Division thread?

[casimir]

1 hour ago, RandomNeutral said:

Look, I don't work for the MLB. All I asked was a simple question. Everything that has been written above, I've seen before.

I'm not prepared to comment any further. 

Realignment was a topic around here when we were twiddling our thumbs during the lockout.  Here was my proposal.

I think its time to set things up geographically.  You brought up Houston and Texas who probably have a larger chunk of games outside of their time zone by more than an hour than any other teams because they are lumped in with Seattle, Los Angeles, and Oakland.  By realigning geographically, you can get teams within lined up within an hour of each other inside the division.  I would think that would help with viewership.

Specific to Detroit sports fans, there was a time when the Red Wings were in the western conference and they had a lot of road playoff games that started at 10pm Detroit time.  (The Pistons were in the western conference at one time, too, but Pistons' fans didn't have to worry about the playoffs).  That's a drag to deal with, although the owners don't really care about the common fan and normal work hours, so whatever.

[Tiger337]

Is this the thread where we talk about relegation?

[RandomNeutral]

3 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

Silly Troll. It's in the DNA here that *any* commercially interested or ulterior motive posting is frowned upon.  You are either here for the discussion or you are not here.

I asked a straight question. I still haven't got an answer from anybody. I'd engage with any debate after somebody gave me a direct answer to my specific question. That seems to be too much to ask of this particular forum.

Every other team forum I have asked for feedback on has been constructive, at least.

I gave two options:

Tigers, Yankees, Red Sox, Guardians

Tigers, Orioles, Blue Jays, Rays

I simply wanted to know which division set up would be better for the Tigers in the fans' eyes. Do you hate certain teams more? Is travel important more to you? Is there a choice that you feel would see you making the play-offs in future?

If this makes me a troll, if this is the sort of response that you get from Detroit natives when you genuinely ask their opinion, then it's little wonder that the city has the reputation it does.

[gehringer_2]

>Every other team forum I have asked for feedback on has been constructive, at least.

>In all honesty guys, I'm not here to make friends

And we aren't here to do your homework for you.  

This is a community of local Sports fans, if you are here to join on that basis welcome. If you are doing survey work for others or even for you yourself but with no interest in the community, so long.

Edited April 29, 2022 by gehringer_2

[RandomNeutral]

2 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

>Every other team forum I have asked for feedback on has been constructive, at least.

>In all honesty guys, I'm not here to make friends

And we aren't here to do your homework for you. 

So you believe I should collate fan opinions by not asking fans? You think that I should guess your responses instead?

[gehringer_2]

Just now, RandomNeutral said:

So you believe I should collate fan opinions by not asking fans? You think that I should guess your responses instead?

I think you should go away

[RandomNeutral]

Just now, gehringer_2 said:

I think you should go away

Yes, I've wasted enough of my time here.

[casimir]

1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

Is this the thread where we talk about relegation?

Yes.  We actually solved a lot of the world’s issues in that thread. There was some good work going on in there.

[casimir]

1 hour ago, RandomNeutral said:

I asked a straight question. I still haven't got an answer from anybody. I'd engage with any debate after somebody gave me a direct answer to my specific question. That seems to be too much to ask of this particular forum.

Every other team forum I have asked for feedback on has been constructive, at least.

I gave two options:

Tigers, Yankees, Red Sox, Guardians

Tigers, Orioles, Blue Jays, Rays

I simply wanted to know which division set up would be better for the Tigers in the fans' eyes. Do you hate certain teams more? Is travel important more to you? Is there a choice that you feel would see you making the play-offs in future?

If this makes me a troll, if this is the sort of response that you get from Detroit natives when you genuinely ask their opinion, then it's little wonder that the city has the reputation it does.

Could you elaborate on why 4 team divisions are better than 8 team divisions?

[Biff Mayhem]

On 4/29/2022 at 7:54 PM, RandomNeutral said:

Yes, I've wasted enough of my time here.

Do you ever suspect that Al Avila recognizes you when you're at the ballpark and gives you a long look as he ascends the escalator?

[gkelly]

Obviously, the second option you proposed

But why would MLB not keep the Orioles in the same division with BoSox and Yankees?

[Tiger337]

If MLB wanted to make the regular season more interesting for losing teams, they could do this!  It's a lot more exciting than a lottery pick or seeing how much money your favorite team can save.  Yeah, I know we don't know how to do that in America and it will never happen.  

 

[gkelly]

On 5/19/2022 at 7:16 PM, Tiger337 said:

If MLB wanted to make the regular season more interesting for losing teams, they could do this!  It's a lot more exciting than a lottery pick or seeing how much money your favorite team can save.  Yeah, I know we don't know how to do that in America and it will never happen

The Tigers would be monsters in the PCL or International League.  

If they did it for football, the Lions would dominate the MAC.

[Tiger337]

18 minutes ago, gkelly said:

The Tigers would be monsters in the PCL or International League.  

If they did it for football, the Lions would dominate the MAC.

You have two major leagues - the upper and lower divisions.  The top 20 teams player in the upper division, the bottom 10 in the lower division. The bottom two teams in the upper division get relegated to the lower division and the top two teams in the lower division get promoted to the upper division the next year.  

[casimir]

12 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

You have two major leagues - the upper and lower divisions.  The top 20 teams player in the upper division, the bottom 10 in the lower division. The bottom two teams in the upper division get relegated to the lower division and the top two teams in the lower division get promoted to the upper division the next year.  

This might be the worst idea I've ever seen you post.  Well, there is the "conversation" about Neifi & Javy, but I think that thread has its own special degree of absurd.

I steadfastly hate the promotion/relegation thing.  I think setting up groups of teams based on the previous season's standings is awful.  Each season of play should be its own entity and the previous season should determine divisions/playoffs of the current/next season.

[casimir]

Damn'it, I forgot the "with all due respect" opener above.

[Tiger337]

12 minutes ago, casimir said:

This might be the worst idea I've ever seen you post.  Well, there is the "conversation" about Neifi & Javy, but I think that thread has its own special degree of absurd.

I steadfastly hate the promotion/relegation thing.  I think setting up groups of teams based on the previous season's standings is awful.  Each season of play should be its own entity and the previous season should determine divisions/playoffs of the current/next season.

It's not really a serious idea.  I know it will never happen, but I think it's intriguing.  If you're you're going to have so many wild cards and so much interleague play, do divisions even matter?  I also like that European soccer does not have playoffs.

Edited May 21, 2022 by Tiger337

[casimir]

5 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

It's not really a serious idea.  I know it will never happen, but I think it's intriguing.  If you're you're going to have so many wild cards and so much interleague play, do divisions even matter?  I also like that European soccer does not have playoffs.

I wouldn't rule it out.  If there is somehow an angle to it where MLB can chase some nickels, it'll happen.

[Tiger337]

18 minutes ago, casimir said:

I wouldn't rule it out.  If there is somehow an angle to it where MLB can chase some nickels, it'll happen.

They are more likely to settle tie games by having homerun derby.  I think that will happen eventually.  

[chasfh]

On 4/29/2022 at 7:11 AM, casimir said:

If/when they do expand to 32 teams (which shouldn't happen until the stadium issues in Oakland and Tampa get resolved), MLB can go to 4 divisions of 8 teams each.  They can realign geographically and do away with the current AL/NL structure now that all teams both leagues finally play under the same rules.

There is no way Baseball is going to eight-team divisions over four-team divisions. They want sixteen teams either in first place or within shouting distance of it, which gooses fan interest in more places, and no billionaire owner of a team would ever brook the idea of being in eighth or seventh or even fifth or sixth place. They can’t sell that to the locals, and even though owning a team is a license to print money, these are still competitive alpha people we’re talking about. They would rather rig the system to give the illusion they have a winning team than compete fairly and take a chance on looking like losers, ten times out of ten.

I do think geographical realignment (or even renaming) of the leagues is in the cards, although I posted an idea some time ago about structuring the divisions to make travel more equitable among the various teams, i.e., all teams come as close as possible to traveling the same number of miles in the same number of trips. Regardless of how many pounds those gorillas weigh, it wouldn’t be right to lump NYY, NYM, BOS and PHI into one division with its favorable travel situation for an unbalanced schedule while putting SEA, OAK, LAA and LVX in another division where they have to fly all over hell’s half acre for their division games. To even out the travel, assuming it’s even important enough for them to consider, I could see something like NYY/DET/PIT/ATL in one division, NYM/CHC/NSH/TOR in another division, etc. Something like that.