Relegation in Baseball

In Other Topics by myles31 Comments

If we're talking about ways to shake up baseball, I've got a pretty off-the-wall idea. It's adding relegation (or tiered leagues) to baseball. Here's one way it could work. 

Take the 15 teams in each league and put them in one mega-division. Then, organize them by record and make 3 new 5-team leagues. 

From 2011 records:

Philadelphia 102-60
Milwaukee 96-66
Arizona 94-68
St. Louis 90-72
Atlanta 89-73
—
San Francisco 86-76
Los Angeles 82-79
Washington 80-81
Cincinnati 79-83
New York 77-85
—
Colorado 73-89
Pittsburgh 72-90
Florida 72-90
San Diego 71-91
Chicago 71-91

Now, you do that for each league and make a schedule that is similar to the one you've got now; the only change is that interleague play ALWAYS focuses on your sister division (lower vs lower).

Playoffs are still 5 teams. This is how I'd envision them working:

The top 2 teams of the top division are the 2 top seeds. The best team in the middle division is the #3 seed. The 1st WC goes to the top team of the bottom table; however, he only gets a WC birth if the team is over .500. If not, the 1st WC goes to the team with the best record (top 2 tables only), as does the 2nd WC. 

They would work this way (now 2012 records):

Atlanta 94-68 (playoffs – top 2 in top table)
St. Louis 88-74 (playoffs – top 2 in top table)
Milwaukee 83-79 (stays in top division)
Philadelphia 81-81 (RELEGATED as bottom 2 in top table)
Arizona 81-81 (RELEGATED as bottom 2 in top table)
—
Washington 98-64 (playoffs – top 1 in middle table; promoted to top table – top 2 in middle table)
Cincinnati 97-65 (1st WC – top record from non-automatic qualifier; promoted to top table – top 2 in middle table)
San Francisco 94-68 (2nd WC – no bottom-table team qualified, best remaining record; stays in middle division)
Los Angeles 86-76 (RELEGATED as bottom 2 in middle table)
New York 74-88 (RELEGATED as bottom 2 in middle table)
—
Pittsburgh 79-83 (failed to meet playoff threshold; promoted to middle table – top 2 in bottom table)
San Diego 76-86 (promoted to middle table – top 2 in bottom table)
Miami 69-93
Colorado 64-98
Chicago 61-101

So the 2013 tables would be:

Atlanta 94-68 
St. Louis 88-74
Milwaukee 83-79 
Washington 98-64
Cincinnati 97-65 
—
Philadelphia 81-81
Arizona 81-81 
San Francisco 94-68 
Pittsburgh 79-83 
San Diego 76-86 
—
Los Angeles 86-76 
New York 74-88
Miami 69-93
Colorado 64-98
Chicago 61-101

The primary advantage to this system is that teams would have more to play for deep in the season. Say you were the 2012 Diamondbacks. Sure, you're 7 or so games back with 16 to go. That might be insurmountable; however, your games still aren't meaningless. You're maybe 2 or 3 games out of relegation range; these games are still important! Even teams like Pittsburgh and San Diego have something to play for late in the season.

The system also rewards continued success. Being in a top table means you play better teams (more ticket sales) and makes the path to the playoffs easier (each table has easier playoff restrictions than the year before it). These are huge bonuses in my opinion. It also masks the weaknesses of teams in the lower tables, because they will play slightly more shit teams. 

The two main disadvantages with these systems is that a) the travel becomes ridiculous and b) you lose historical rivals. I don't care about either of these; teams have jets these days and each team plays each other team every year anyways.

You could also do this by merging all 30 teams together. I like this idea slightly less but am not sure why. In this case, you'd could have 3 tables of 10 teams, with the playoffs being 6-3-1, and maybe 3 up/downs for each table. Haven't thought it about it all that hard.

Let me know what you think.

Share this Post

Comments

  2. JonKneeV

    5 hour flights and time zone changes ARE a big problem though. I don’t think divisions are the problem with baseball.

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0
  3. WaLi

    Berselius wrote:

    Anthony Rizzo’s season line today: .262/.348/.557 for a .388 wOBA. Guess no one is threatening to send him down now (dying laughing).

    Obviously threatening to send him down did the trick. Maybe if we threaten the Cubs to be sent down to the lower tier division and they’d pick up their play!

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0
  4. dmick89

    I’d probably go with the 3 divisions overall to simplify things just a bit. I’m a fan of the ideas here.

    @ JonKneeV:
    Is it really any different than when Atlanta played in the NL West? I’d like to see a study on this, as well as some potential schedules. It would be more travel for some teams, but I don’t know that it would be overwhelming or even worse than what Atlanta faced for awhile.

    If it proves to be too much of an issue, I’m not opposed to taking region into account. One possible solution would be to give a team that might travel a great deal more, like Atlanta for a long time, additional home games. There’s nothing set in stone that a team would have to have 81 home games if we’re changing things this much.

    Just my 2 cents, but I’m someone who isn’t at all concerned about shaking things up. Tradition and historic stats mean nothing to me.

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0
  12. SVB

    Doesn’t the NFL do a lite version of this already? The non-conference games are shifted toward the teams with the more similar records, so losers play losers and winners play winners? Detroit plays Arizona and Dallas plays SF, or some such? Obviously there is no tiering, but it helps the schedules balance out and brings lower teams up to potentially get smashed in the wildcard game of the playoffs.

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0
  13. SVB

    From dmick, last thread:

    5. Instead of a runner going to first base after an intentional walk, he’d go to 2nd base and each baserunner would advance 1 base. To close any loop holes, all 4-pitch walks and non-strike HBP would be treated as an IBB.

    This is the drive-a-stake-in-Marmol’s-career rule. Right?

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0
  14. SVB

    Honestly, until about 30 seconds ago, I was reading this whole topic as “regulation” and thinking “whatever makes you happy, but the Republicans will NEVER go for this.” (dying laughing)

    Surprisingly, I don’t hate this idea. (Of relegation, not political intransigence.)

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0
  17. josh

    That fucking awesome. I can’t tell if baseball is just more boring than I remember, or if I’m losing interest in sports in general, but ideas like this I really like.

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0
  20. WaLi

    @ SVB:
    I don’t really paint myself in his the “Ian Stewart fan club” but I can’t really blame him. If he thinks he is done with baseball, might as well take the extra time off with pay. This all but cements his position in not making the big leagues with the Cubs again, especially since he already seemed to be in Sveum’s doghouse.

    Plus, he is batting .091/.255/.114

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0
  21. dmick89

    SVB wrote:

    This is the drive-a-stake-in-Marmol’s-career rule. Right?

    If that rule eliminated the guys who walk 15% of the batters they face, that would be a good thing for baseball. That would help speed up the game.

    Looking at stats from 2010 to 2013 for pitchers who threw at least, that would only eliminate 2 pitchers (Carlos Marmol and Henry Rodriguez). Kevin Gregg has the 13th highest walk percentage over that span so if that would also eliminate his career, all the better for baseball. (dying laughing)

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0
  24. Aisle424

    My favorite Rant Sports line of the day:

    This decision may have been easier to make without the contract given to Jackson, which looks like a colossal mistake five weeks into a four-year deal.

    (dying laughing)
    (dying laughing)
    (dying laughing)
    (dying laughing)

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0
  28. dmick89

    I was curious what the highest strikeout rate was in the minor leagues. Baez’s is up to 30% now and I was wondering where that ranked. I looked at players with more than 70 plate appearances. There were 1196 of them. To my surprise, there’s actually a batter, Courtney Hawkins in the White Sox organization, who has struckout 50.6% of the time in 89 plate appearances. Brett Jackson’s 32.4% ranks 52nd and Baez’s 30.0% ranks 92nd. Not too far behind Baez is Easterling and Tim Saunders.

    There are 4 batters with 70 or more PA who have not walked this season. One of them has 101 PA. Gustavo Pierre has a 0.0% walk rate and a 29.7% strikeout rate. Despite this, his OPS is actually just over .700. I know nothing about this guy, but I can tell you that unless he’s had some severe eyesight problems this year, he’s never going to amount to anything.

    Baez’s 3.8% walk rate ranks as the 111th worst. There’s good news for him, there are at least 3 Cubs ranked worse than him (Rubi Silva, Ben Carhart, Marco Hernandez). Baez’s walk to strikeout ratio is 59th worst. Rubi Silva’s is 27th.

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0
  31. Valerie Keefe

    I like my plan better:

    http://imgur.com/bxTlshI

    3 Leagues, including Branch Rickey’s almost-started Continental League. 23 different end-of-season situations, and a chance for any team to win the WS at the start of the year.

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0

Leave a Comment