Backstage
Menu
Statting Lineup
Blog Posts
For those that enjoy reading, seeing visuals, and having immediate access to data sources that are used. The frequency of posts varies greatly and merely depends on when I have an idea come to mind and when I have the time to address it. Feel free to contact me with any blog ideas or desires.
It is my opinion that the current regular season and postseason format of Major League Baseball is broken and in need of fixing. Recently, the Chicago Cubs were defeated in the National League Wild Card Game by the Colorado Rockies, eliminating them from the playoffs. The Cubs, at 95-68, had the second-best record in the National League but a single game against Colorado ended their World Series hopes. Furthermore, it was another single game that prevented them from being the top seed in the first place. The MLB boasts the regular season with the most games out of any of the major sports but does little to reward the teams that finish the best. In the NBA, which plays about half the games the MLB does, a team with the 2nd best record in its conference is seeded second and has a 7-game series to try to advance. The Cubs weren’t alone in this predicament either; the Yankees finished with the 3rd best record in the American League – and 3rd best in the MLB overall – and likewise had to battle in a single game to keep their hopes alive. Imagine if the Warriors and Rockets had played a single game at the start of the NBA postseason in order for one of them to move on. Hopefully you are beginning to see the issue at hand. I’ll start by going over the regular season format of the MLB. As it currently exists, the MLB is divided into 2 conferences: the American League and the National League. There are 30 teams in the MLB overall and therefore 15 teams in each conference. From there, each conference is divided into 3 divisions: the East, Central, and West, respectively for both. With 15 teams in each conference, this means there are 5 teams in each division. Each team in the MLB plays a total of 162 regular season games. These consist of 19 games against each of a team’s division opponents (total 76 division games), 6 to 7 games against each team’s conference opponents (total of 66 non-division conference games) and 20 games to be played against various (not all) teams in the other conference. Upon the end of the season, each division winner is not only guaranteed a spot in the playoffs, but also given a top-3 seed in the playoffs. It is for this reason that the 91-71 Cleveland Indians, who won their division, are seeded higher this year than the 100-62 New York Yankees, who finished second in their division. The top 2 teams in each league that did not win their division play in the “Wild Card Game”, a one game showdown to determine who will play the top ranked division winner. From there, the winning wild card team plays the top division winner while the other two division winners play each other in what are called the “Division Series”. The DS both consist of best-of-five series. The winners then compete in a best-of-seven series called the “Championship Series”. Lastly, the two winners of the championship series, and thus the two winners of each league, play in the “World Series”, another best of 7 competition. For the regular season, uniformity is the main key. In order for records to hold true for teams in the same league, they should all play each other the same amount of times, not “6 or 7”. Additionally, each team should be able to play a series against every team in the season. Since there are only 20 interleague games, and MLB games are played in series of 2-4 games in a row, the current system does not allow for every team to play each other. For example, this year the Reds didn’t play the American League teams of the Athletics, Astros, or any of the AL East teams. Thus, teams that play worse interleague opponents have an advantage over those that play superior teams in the opposing league. Lastly, the division winner should take divisional wins into consideration. Giving teams a spot in the postseason for winning their division comes with the assumption that that team is the best in their division. However, that is not always the case. This year, the Brewers and the Cubs met in a one game showdown to determine the division winner since both teams finished with the same record. The Brewers won. However, Milwaukee finished with a divisional record of 39-37 before the game whereas the Cubs finished at 41-35. Even more specifically, the Cubs were 11-8 against the Brewers this season before that game. Such a “tie-breaker” game shouldn’t be in place. The team with the best divisional record in their division should be claimed the winner in the event of a tie overall record. Now I’ll talk about what should be changed in the postseason. Obviously, I find it extremely ridiculous that teams with roughly 10 more wins than other teams are seeded lower and furthermore, forced to play in a single “sudden death” type game to advance while the worst record team sits at home, safe for the next round. I agree that division winners deserve to be in the playoffs, but the seeding of the playoffs should be based on the overall record of every team, regardless of whether they won their division or not. From there, the bottom two teams can still compete to play the 1st seed, but this should be at least a 5-game series. Playing 162 games in a season is effectively futile if all of that season’s hard work can be destroyed in a single game. Then, the division series should be placed at 7 games as well to make up for the postseason-regular season game ratio that is currently not in effect. If the NBA makes its teams play 82 games in the regular season and uses 7 game postseason matchups throughout, that puts them at a ratio of .0854 (7 / 82). Using that same ratio on the MLB, it couldn’t hurt to have series of 13 games (.0854 x 162 = 13.8293). However, since baseball games are traditionally longer and weather is more of a factor in the MLB postseason than the NBA, a series of 7 should suffice. I’ve listed what is currently in place and what is wrong with the MLB schedule format, so now I’ll state what should be implemented:
I’ve thought long and hard about this format and think it can truly better the MLB. It rewards teams for doing well in the long regular season by guaranteeing more postseason games but still encourages regular season competition by limiting the amount of postseason teams. It doesn’t punish teams for being in the same division as the best team that year. It ensures each team plays each other so that teams don’t get an advantage by playing certain teams less or not at all. And lastly, it prevents major seeding implications coming down to a single game by taking divisional record and head to head record into consideration. I hope you enjoyed reading about this proposed change and I challenge you to think of other ways in which our nation’s pastime may improve. Aaron Springer Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_schedule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/misc.shtml https://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/head2head.cgi?teams=MIL&from=2018&to=2018 https://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/head2head.cgi?teams=CHC&from=2018&to=2018 https://www.mlb.com/standings https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CIN/2018-schedule-scores.shtml
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Statting Lineup Newsletter Signup Form:
|