The MLB playoffs started today, and I don't really care at all.
It wasn't like this. I grew up a Cub's fan, and was in my first fantasy league in 1986 at the age of 14. I can still give you the starting lineup of the '84 Cubs. Between being a Cubs and Indians fan, I can think of four absolutely heartbreaking endings (1984/1997/2003/2007) that I suffered through.
And maybe that's my problem- get beaten down enough, and you stop caring. Lord knows I've earned the scars.
But baseball itself has some serious problems- and regardless of the status of my teams, the sport needs to be fixed. Here's what I see as the problems and the solutions.
Problem: Baseball is too imbalanced between the high-payroll teams and the low-payroll teams.
OK, here's where I get the soapbox and rant about how the Yankees pay $200 million and most teams don't pay half of that. Go ahead and take a look. Players are always going to favor certain markets. But only in baseball have they given up trying to balance things between the large market teams and the small market teams.
And hey- baseball claims they're making money. The small market teams make a profit, the large market teams get the glory and the higher ticket prices. Maybe everyone wins- unless you're a fan of the small-market teams. In which case there are three choices:
1) Accept It
2) Stop watching altogether
3) Embrace it and become a fan of a Large-Market team
Solution: If they do want to fix it, besides a salary cap and floor, they need revenue sharing. Now, for tickets at the ballpark they already have revenue sharing. But where the large-market teams make their fortune are in the cable deals- which are not shared with the other teams.
But again- maybe baseball has calculated that they do better with six superteams and 24 jobber teams. And if that's what they want, enjoy. I'm just not participating anymore.
Problem: Too many playoffs
People were celebrating how 'exciting' the end of the season was. Basically, they were watching a race between the fifth and sixth best teams. Oooh. Ahhh.
Now, if we went back to the pre-1969 days of no divisions, every game would count, and it would have come down to the last day of the season to see who'd go into the World Series. Even the two-division days would have been exciting.
The rule of thumb: The more playoffs there are, the less exciting the regular season is. By adding so many teams to the playoffs, you've made the regular season less and less relevant.
Solution: On this one, I'm ideally a purist- get rid of the divisions. Two leagues, no interleague play, winners face in the World Series. I doubt I'll get my wish, but if we could go back to two divisions, I'd be happy.
Problem: Moneyball.
The problem with the 'Moneyball' philosophy is not that it failed. It's that the philosophy (get players with hig On-Base Percentage and Power to generate the greatest number of runs) succeeded. 29 teams in baseball now try to emulate this style of baseball. Seattle is the only exception, and sadly they don't do well enough to challenge the model.
The problem is, the Moneyball style, while being the most efficient style to win games, is also... what's the word I'm trying to say... boring. Hitters wait and try to draw walks and wear down pitchers, leading to long, slow boring innings. Less contact, more walks and strikeouts, very few stolen bases.
I don't blame the teams- they are trying to win. The problem is, the way baseball is set up, the best way to win is also the most monotonous.
I grew up in the 80's. You had teams that won with power (86 Mets). That won with speed (85/87 Cardinals). That won with Pitching (85 Royals). George Brett could hit .390 one year, then another year Rickey Henderson would steal 130 stolen bases. Different styles could succeed- and that made the game better.
Solution: Expand the strike zone, encourage more parks that favor pitchers and discourage home runs... if necessary, deaden the ball. I don't want to go back to the pitching-dominated 60's... just to the sweet spot that we had in the 80's.
Maybe if we did these things I'd go back and proudly call myself a fan again. Sadly, at this moment in my life, I'm not. And I'm not sure if I'll be going back anytime soon.
None of the top 4 spending teams made the World Series. Half of the top 10 spending teams missed the playoffs. 5 of the 10 playoff teams were in the top half of spending, and 5 were in the bottom half. I'm not seeing the disparity in payroll spending as a big problem - a well run organization can compete even with moderate revenues (see the Orioles, A's, and Nationals this year, and the Rays over the last few years) and a poorly run organization will fail despite being in a big market and spending lots (the Red Sox lost 93 games this year. The Phillies, Angels, and Dodgers missed the playoffs. The Mets and Cubs have been lousy for years).
ReplyDeleteSpending money is not a gaurantee to get into the World Series- especially when MLB allows 1/3 of the teams to get into the playoffs. Detroit and san Francisco weren't the best teams in baseball, but both got hot at the right time.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, a team with a moderate revenues can make a run. But after they've made their run, their top stars will hit free agency, they won't be able to afford retaining all of the players, and they'll head back into the abyss. That's what is happening to the Rays now, and will happen to the A's, Orioles and Nationals in a couple of years.
Which is fine if every team did that. But the Yankees don't fall into that abyss- they just reload and get back into the playoffs the next year. And if the Red Sox, Dodgers, and Angels were run by competent people, they'd be in the same situation.
Ah- who knows. Maybe I'm just a bitter Indians fan. Nothing like seeing the two best pitchers you've developed in years (Sabathia and Lee) starting a World Series Game 1 after you've traded both of them away because you couldn't afford to keep either.
Baseball has worked very hard to drive me away as a fan. Mission Accomplished.
The Indians definitely got a raw deal, and it is pretty much down to bad luck that they didn't win a World Series during the decade or so when revenues from Jacobs Field and great personnel decisions allowed them to be a competitive team most of the time. (Any year from '95-'97, and again in 2007 they could easily have caught a couple of breaks and won it all.)
ReplyDeleteI think we just disagree on the level of parity we want to see in sports. The main thing I dislike about the NFL is the lack of dynasties, whereas the NBA goes too far in the other direction and gives most small market teams no hope. (If any league needs a overhaul of its economic system, it's the NBA. Any team in baseball can come up with a realistic plan to be a playoff contender in 5 years, but there is no chance in hell of a Sacramento or a Charlotte being anything else but a whipping boy or at best a first round playoff exit today, tomorrow, and for the foreseeable future.) To me, baseball hits the sweet spot in the middle where a few teams can be good most every year, but there are always spots open for well managed teams on the rise.
I'm with you on the playoffs, though. What always made baseball special was how important the grind of the regular season was. With 30 teams, I think you need 4 and not 2 spots, but I'd be right on board with four division champions and that's it. Or if they really wanted to keep the wildcard one game play-in, which is admittedly an interesting idea, we could just have the two 15 team leagues, top team gets into an LCS, teams #2 and 3 play a one-game wild card, winner gets a best of 5 with the league winner (with more rewards for winning the league, say 4 of the 5 games at home) and then a traditional best of 7 World Series.