Hypothetical Division

[chasfh]

On 4/29/2022 at 2:13 PM, 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. 

lol “the MLB”.

Go back to Russia.

[chasfh]

On 5/21/2022 at 8:53 AM, 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.

Not to worry—there’s no money in forcing ten MLB teams to play in a de facto minor league each year. Fan interest and broadcast/advertising revenue in those cities would crater.

[chasfh]

Thinking a little more about this, some of us have tried to work out what a schedule would look like in a 32-team world. I think most of us have assumed two leagues, unbalanced schedule, the most teams would be against your division, second most against your league, and a smattering of inter league games against selected teams.

But now that Baseball is going to a new thing next year in which everybody plays all 29 of the other teams, so that fans can see every player in the league play their team during the year, for marketability purposes, any new schedule would probably have to maintain that new system.

So here is a radical proposal that i do not advocate, but which I think is certainly within the realm of possibility: create a single league of eight four-team division and shorten the season dramatically to expand playoffs.

in this kind of system, each team would play the 28 teams not in their division three times apiece for 84 games, and then play each team in their division 18 times for 54 games, for a total of 138 regular season games. Season starts in late March and ends the day before Labor Day, after which playoffs starts.

Sixteen teams makes the playoffs and all round are best of seven. Four sets of series: wild card round (16 teams whittled down to eight); quarter finals (eight to four); semifinals (four to two); and World Series (two to one). Playoffs start the day after Labor Day and end by the last Wednesday in October. No more November games. All Saturday and Sunday games will be night games to avoid the football buzzsaw, plus no Monday or Thursday games at all.

Sure, this would be an execrable situation. But if the goal is to maximize playoff revenue and “excitement” while avoiding having your lunch eaten by football, this will probably look mighty fine to Baseball. The players wouldn’t mind it, either, as long as their current contract salaries are not cut by 15% because of the shortened season.

[Tiger337]

3 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Thinking a little more about this, some of us have tried to work out what a schedule would look like in a 32-team world. I think most of us have assumed two leagues, unbalanced schedule, the most teams would be against your division, second most against your league, and a smattering of inter league games against selected teams.

But now that Baseball is going to a new thing next year in which everybody plays all 29 of the other teams, so that fans can see every player in the league play their team during the year, for marketability purposes, any new schedule would probably have to maintain that new system.

So here is a radical proposal that i do not advocate, but which I think is certainly within the realm of possibility: create a single league of eight four-team division and shorten the season dramatically to expand playoffs.

in this kind of system, each team would play the 28 teams not in their division three times apiece for 84 games, and then play each team in their division 18 times for 54 games, for a total of 138 regular season games. Season starts in late March and ends the day before Labor Day, after which playoffs starts.

Sixteen teams makes the playoffs and all round are best of seven. Four sets of series: wild card round (16 teams whittled down to eight); quarter finals (eight to four); semifinals (four to two); and World Series (two to one). Playoffs start the day after Labor Day and end by the last Wednesday in October. No more November games. All Saturday and Sunday games will be night games to avoid the football buzzsaw, plus no Monday or Thursday games at all.

Sure, this would be an execrable situation. But if the goal is to maximize playoff revenue and “excitement” while avoiding having your lunch eaten by football, this will probably look mighty fine to Baseball. The players wouldn’t mind it, either, as long as their current contract salaries are not cut by 15% because of the shortened season.

Manfred will love this because Americans love brackets!!! This is not a farfetched plan at all.  It's inevitable.