Sep 24, 2009
Sometimes the easiest, best answers, are the hardest to implement and accept.
There is a great article by Peter Gammons on ESPN.com, talking about the lack of excitement surrounding the baseball season in September. His answer to the lackluster feeling regarding baseball that has swept a large majority of the nation? More playoff teams!
Essentially the only teams thinking about tomorrow in a September in which the NFL, college football and golf all blitz our consciousness are the eight teams that will be playing in October. So baseball, for 22 franchises, is either tepid or in full autumnal frost, with little momentum heading into the playoffs.
So is it time to think about expanding the playoffs? I agree with Brewers general manager Doug Melvin, who says, “Most general managers don’t want it watered down like the NHL or NBA. Not many are wild about the idea.”
Granted, it seems as if so many teams make the Stanley Cup playoffs that they need a WCCA-Hockey East shootout to fill out the brackets.
But why not think about having two wild-card teams per league? For instance, in what might be an aberrational season, the Giants, Marlins, Braves and Cubs would be within 2½ games of that NL spot right now.
So MLB can avoid a Thanksgiving clash with the Lions, start the season half a week earlier; someone much smarter than I points out that, as opposed to starting on Monday and getting no one at weekday games on Wednesday and Thursday, they should start on Thursday and play the first weekend.
Then have the two-out-of-three play-in series on the weekend.
First off, its always disheartening to see the condescension that always seems to come from baseball analysts, traditionalists, and purists towards every sport that is not the beloved “past time of America”. As if baseball is so pure that if it copied anything from any of the other sports it would sully the game beyond belief, and all of the fans would stop watching. Yes, 16 NHL teams, 16 NBA teams, and 12 NFL teams make the playoffs. 8 MLB teams make the playoffs. Baseball’s playoffs are more exclusive. And who wrote the rule that said that sort of exclusivity is always better? Who’s to say that baseball fans wouldn’t want to see the Yankees fight their way through another opponent to get the World Series? Especially in those years in which the Yankees and Red Sox don’t play each other…isn’t baseball potentially leaving revenue on the table by having such a small playoff structure?
Leaving baseball purity on the back burner though, the real solution to baseball’s conundrum? A shorter season.
Yes, this is on the list of things that will happen when “hell freezes over” but doesn’t it solve the problem that Gammons posed? September baseball is boring because the games don’t matter. Obviously, a shorter season increases the importance of a team’s baseball games, which in turn keeps fans interested. If you look at the baseball standings at the start of August, the Sox & Yanks were 2 games apart. The Twins, White Sox, and Tigers were 2 games apart. The Angels and Rangers were 3 games apart. Now imagine if August was the last month of the season and the playoffs started at the beginning of September. We would have had an interesting month of baseball, no? And the other concern, competing against college football and the NFL? That would be lessened as well, as those seasons would just be getting started (compare the USC v. Ohio State game versus their first week opponents). Fall television premiers only happened this week…baseball’s playoffs would be competing against television re-runs.
Isn’t baseball long enough anyway?
Honestly, the only people following baseball right now are the Baseball Tonight crew, and die-hard fans. At some point, you’d think that the law of diminishing returns would take effect (it does). But, baseball is still a business, and we all know that baseball would never cut a month off of their season when they’re still making money on that month. So, the result? boring baseball that makes a marginal amount of money, that doesn’t really make any body overly happy.
It’s the summer past time at its best.
One comment
I do agree that the season could be a little shorter. Until 1962, both leagues only played 154 games. The number of games was increased in an expansion year so that all teams in a league played the same number of games against each other. The season was not lengthened for expansion in 1994 or 1998, so apparently the powers that be are not concerned with playing the same number of games against each team And now, with inter-league play it would be nearly impossible to come up with a balanced schedule.
Since there is no longer a specific reason to play a certain number of games, it wouldn’t hurt to shorten the schedule. I would be in favor of taking 10-14 games off the schedule. Not that I find baseball boring or uninteresting. I think that such a long season combined with the pressure to perform at such a high level may be part of the reason that players chose to use performance-enhancing drugs. Cut 14 games out of the schedule–shorten the season by 12 days and add two more rest days. Players don’t have to put so much wear on their bodies and post-season play can start a week and a half sooner.
However, baseball should not include more teams in the play-offs. The point of an exclusive post-season is to reward consistent play. The season is already long enough as you said. It seems ridiculous that they have added another wild card this year. How you play in the season is exactly what should determine who goes to the post-season. What’s the point of having a season if everyone goes to the post-season and division winners can be eliminated by second-place teams?
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