Friday, April 30, 2010

Baseball Realignment

Since 1995 Baseball has been divided in 6 divisions, 3 in each league. Each division consists of 5 teams, with the exception of the NL Central and AL West. They have 6 and 4 respectably.
How is this fair at all?
You play teams within your division more often than teams outside your division. In time you see the same pitchers more offer, you find batters weaknesses more often, realize a first basemans tendancies on pickoff plays etc. What I am saying is the teams in the NL Central have to dedicate more time and effort in disquising these things (signals, pitch calls etc). In contrast the teams in the AL West have the luxury of playing all but 3 teams fairly infrequently. Tendancies, signals, weaknesses are less obvious.
Now I'm not at all saying that having one less team in the NL Central will make the Reds, Brewers, Pirates and Astros more competitive, but it would make Tony LaRussa's job a little harder. He is by far and away the best coach in that division and has 4 extra games per team to see that Brandon Phillips has trouble with high heat or that Prince Fielder can hit a inside curve. This is a huge advantage.
I played Little League in a small community known as Mingo Junction, OH. There were 4 teams and the Orioles had a Coach by the name of Mike Melko. He was the best coach that league had. He would pitch around people, throw shifts on for every batter...because he saw them so regularly. Now I'm not saying that Mr.Melko wasn't a good coach. He was. I didn't even play for his team and still learned alot from him but would he had been that successful in a 10 team league with the same number of games? It's hard to say, but if I were a gambling man (haha) I'd probably say no. It's a numbers game. A game of percentages and scouting. If you even the playing field in that aspect, it would make the whole division more competitive.
During this blog I did single out the Cardinals. Now I have no disrespect for St.Louis, their baseball team or the people of (I think Sam Bradford is soft but that is next week). In fact it may be the best baseball city in America. I'm a big Reds fan and love playing St.Louis (big series this weekend!!) win or lose it's always great. Two of baseballs storied franchises playing on a bright spring day. You can't beat it.
The point of this incoherant rant is that it would just be a little more on the level if the division only had 5 teams. Four other teams you are most concerned with beating, 4 other teams you prepare for all winter, 4 other teams that you spend most of your effort scouting.
My cry to Major League Baseball is move the Astros to the NL West and ship The Colorado Rockies to the AL west. Geographically it makes perfect sense. It's been done before or realignment with the Brewers and how they didn't see this as a problem I don't know.
Take my thoughts for what it's worth, a disgruntled Reds fan looking for an edge...and fairness in an uncapped league.

1 comment:

  1. This is by Fabz by the way incase Fred doesn't share my views.

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