Bud & Boys To Give O’s, Rays & Jays An A.L. East Escape Clause?
Via Tom Verducci today –
When baseball commissioner Bud Selig named a 14-person “special committee for on-field matters” four months ago, he promised that all topics would be in play and “there are no sacred cows.” The committee already has made good on Selig’s promise by discussing a radical form of “floating” realignment in which teams would not be fixed to a division, but free to change divisions from year-to-year based on geography, payroll and their plans to contend or not.
The concept gained strong support among committee members, many of whom believe there are non-economic avenues that should be explored to improve competitive balance, similar to the NFL’s former use of scheduling to help parity (in which weaker teams were awarded a weaker schedule the next season).
As with most issues of competitive balance, floating realignment involves finding a work-around to the Boston-New York axis of power in the AL East. In the 15 seasons during which the wild-card system has been in use, the Red Sox and Yankees have accounted for 38 percent of all AL postseason berths. The league has never conducted playoffs without the Red Sox or Yankees since that format began — and in eight of those 15 years both teams made the playoffs. Since 2003 the Sox and Yankees have won at least 95 games 11 times in 14 combined seasons.
One example of floating realignment, according to one insider, would work this way: Cleveland, which is rebuilding with a reduced payroll, could opt to leave the AL Central to play in the AL East. The Indians would benefit from an unbalanced schedule that would give them a total of 18 lucrative home dates against the Yankees and Red Sox instead of their current eight. A small or mid-market contender, such as Tampa Bay or Baltimore, could move to the AL Central to get a better crack at postseason play instead of continually fighting against the mega-payrolls of New York and Boston.
Interesting.
Me? I would just go with this revised set-up, if you want to try something totally new and radical:
N.L. East: Atlanta, Baltimore, Florida, Tampa Bay, Washington.
N.L. Central: Cubs, White Sox, Houston, Kansas City, St. Louis, Texas.
N.L. West: Anaheim, Arizona, Colorado, Los Angeles, San Diego.
A.L. East: Boston, Philadelphia, Mets, Yankees, Toronto.
A.L. Central: Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh.
A.L. West: Oakland, San Francisco, Seattle, Minnesota.
How about you leave everything as is, and you have a balanced schedule. Solves everyones problem.
A.L. East: Boston, Philadelphia, Mets, Yankees, Toronto.
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this would make it worse, I would think. Sure, the phillies might have a chance at cracking the playoffs, but what about the Jays and Mets?
And the whole floating division thing is stupid, too. What kind of message does it say to your fans if you have a bad team that you would rather sit back and collect checks from playing the Yanks and Red Sox a ton vs. switching to the weaker division and competing?
i like the floating alignment thing. keeps everyone in the league theyre in already and makes for some interesting baseball in the playoffs since ull get some different teams in there every year. right now ur pretty much gettin the same core teams while subing in a couple new ones every now and then. like in the AL right now your pretty much getting NY, Boston, LA, and the teams that are shuffling in and out are Chi Minn and Det. u do the realignment u can get teams like Tampa and Sea and Tex in there alot more. those teams if theyre not either competing with NY and Boston or between eachother their in the playoffs on a regular basis.
How about this idea?
The teams stay in their divisions, and those who can’t contend, EVER, fire their incompetent management?
Or how about they’re forced to spend more of the dough they rake in, including the bucks they get from us, on players — required minimum payroll, along with a rule that any part of the charity they get that’s not spent on players would have to be returned to the pot, would make some of these teams lots more competitive.
cr1 wrote:
Not really, chances are they’ll make really dumb FA signings. Spending money for the sake of spending never works out. I’d rather they spend the money on player development, international scouting and signing and the like. Working agreements with teams/leagues in Asia or South America.
Stev, Toronto wouldn’t be in the AL East in that the new rule is basically there to help a team like that actually make the playoffs NOT remain bottomfeeders. I don’t see things being helped that much by realignment. On the other hand, if there was a truly balanced schedule AND a hard payroll cap THEN things would change. Otherwise, the situation will be status quo.
@ Corey Italiano, we agree on the balanced schedule! I’d to see them try that one and see how mighty the Twins would be then…….
And to Verducci’s point about the attendance going up when The Yanks and Red sox visiting…has anyone looked at The Blackbirds and Bluebird’s attendance numbers? Not that great. AND The Sunrays of St Pete are not filling up the dome,are they? There’s a bump especially when Boston plays because their tickets are so hard to come by and the die hard Red Pox fans will go to TO, Balty and anywhere just to see them. And the Yanks provide a bump as well BUT it’s overstated in any case.
they would never put all those high revenue teams in the same div. First of all the other owners would revolt because that takes away from their dates with them.