Return of the Two-Divison Format, Part 2
Yesterday in Part 1, we set out to see what the MLB landscape would look like if the current three-division format was scrapped in favor of the old two-division ways, but with two Wild Card teams instead of one. Today, we go back to 1996 and view the playoff races in the past 15 years through this lens, and it turns out that one-third of the playoff races were affected.
In the proposed new format, 10 different teams would have reached the postseason – nine new Wild Card teams, and one new division winner (the 2000 Cleveland Indians). It would break down as follows:
American League Year Team That Made It Team That Would Have Made It 2000 NY Yankees Cleveland 2003 Minnesota Seattle 2008 Chicago White Sox NY Yankees 2009 Minnesota Texas National League Year Team That Made It Team That Would Have Made It 1996 St. Louis Montreal or St. Louis 1997 Houston LA Dodgers or NY Mets 2005 San Diego Philadelphia 2006 St. Louis Philadelphia 2007 Chicago Cubs San Diego 2008 LA Dodgers NY Mets
You’ll notice that only two of these scenarios involve the AL East, and that seven of the teams bounced reside in the Central divisions. You’ll also notice that in eight of the ten cases, a team from a larger market would have reached the postseason, giving rise to the possibility of higher playoff ratings. If you would like to make the case that even though the city is smaller, it’s baseball-viewing population would have been higher, you could put St. Louis over Montreal and bump that down to seven of 10 (sorry Jonah). But the Expos wouldn’t have necessarily made the postseason in 1996 over St. Louis, because the two would have needed to play a tiebreaker game.
Scheduling would have undoubtedly been a little different, but that is getting away from the point. Certainly, there are extreme examples, like the 2010 Cincinnati Reds, who punched their postseason ticket by beating up on their fluffiest competition, but since we have no way of knowing how teams would have responded to a different schedule we’ll assume the teams would have compiled the same records for our purposes here.
Looking at winning percentages, we find that the winning percentage of the group that in reality made the playoffs was .530, with a Pythagorean winning percentage of .529. The teams that would have made it fared much better, at .546 and .551, respectively. But while the new system rewards the better teams, each team is still capable of winning a pennant. In the past 15 years, 21 of the 30 teams have won their division at least once. In the new format, it’s still a robust 20 of 30 teams, with the only team excluded being those 2010 Reds.
It appears that the drama of a pennant race would be positively affected as well. For instance, we end up plus-one on tiebreaker games. Still happening are the 1998 Cubs-Giants, and 1999 Mets-Reds games, but no longer necessary are the more recent vintages: 2007 Rockies-Padres, 2008 White Sox-Twins and 2009 Twins-Tigers (losing that Rockies-Padres game is a downer personally, as that is the most exciting baseball game I’ve ever attended). However, we are also adding two tiebreakers – 1996 Cardinals-Expos and 1997 Dodgers-Mets. Furthermore, there is evidence that some teams that didn’t make it may have had a little more incentive down the stretch.
The 2006 Chicago White Sox finished with 90 wins, but still comfortably behind the 95-win Tigers and 96-win Twins. In the new system, it would have been unlikely, but still possible, for them to have come roaring back to take a playoff seed. Or how about the 2008 Blue Jays? They finished a distant fourth place, and in the old system they would have known that it was an unattainable second place or bust, and they played as such, harmlessly dropping five of their last seven to the playoff-bound Red Sox. In the new system, perhaps they would have fought harder and earned a playoff berth of their own. And just look at how the 2004 NL West would have shaped up:
Team W-L St. Louis 105-57 Los Angeles 93-69 Houston 92-70 San Francisco 91-71 Chicago 89-73 San Diego 87-75 Arizona 68-94 Colorado 51-111
Arizona and Colorado have no hope no matter what division they’re in, and St. Louis walks away with the pennant easily. But there’s a four-team scrum for second and third place, with San Diego still kind-of-sort-of in the mix as well. That’s pretty exciting.
Of course, no system is perfect, and if there’s one team the system would screw, it has to be the formerly tortured Giants, right? The proposed NL West would have been incredibly strong in 2001, with the 93-win Astros taking the pennant, and the 93-win Cardinals and 92-win D’Backs nabbing the two Wild Card spots, leaving the 90-win Giants to whine that the 88-win Braves (again with the Braves!) didn’t deserve their NL East crown.
I’ll be back after the weekend to respond to prognosticate about how things would look in 2011 and beyond.
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Well thank heavans the Yankees would have gotten another shot at the post season. Those poor guys just never seem to get a chance.
I may have missed something, but it appears that the Yankees would’ve gotten in in 2008, but missed in 2000.
oops, my bad. Sorry.
Well, never let the facts get in the way of a little good snark.
I’m sorry, but I regard this whole thing as a facile analysis. I don’t accept your assumption that records would have been the same had scheduling been different under a 2 division format, so that nullifies all of the rest of the results. I definitely think records would have been different just based on the fact that you would have had to have played different teams at different times, and so much depends on pitching matchups, injuries, travel, weather, etc. Teams’ records are totally dependent on their schedule.
But beyond that, having more divisions is a counterweight to baseball not having a salary cap. Because it is virtually impossible for a sport to allocate its franchises equitably, creating more postseason opportunities for lower value franchises is, in my opinion, good for the sport because it broadens the appeal to a wider fan base.
But that’s just my rant.
I agree with Craig, mostly. Use an Excel sheet to simulate the season(someone did something similar last year on this site) to back into team quality based on their record from their schedule, then take the the teams with the four highest “team quality” rankings from each league (with one from each division).
This.
Given that the divisions are unbalanced in talent from year to year and the schedules are by design unbalanced to have you play more games in your division, isn’t it SLIGHTLY possible that the records would be entirely different? You betcha.
Your formatting sucks b@lls — the article was interesting and was enjoyed more than the formatting.
Excellent series.
As I posted in the other thread, it will take some outside impetus, such as expansion, to cause MLB to actually change the divisions.
And I think I agree with some other posters that Milwaukee in the West and Houston in the East would be a little better. Houston complained about west coast TV start times for road games the last time a re-alignment was proposed.
Would’ve been nice to see how Expos fans would’ve reacted to a pennant race in 1996.
“formerly tortured Giants”
Best. Phrase. Ever.
This is intriguing… but I’m not sure I’m sold. I do think that having 3 divisions is better because of the time difference, however; I’m always for the best teams making it to the playoffs. I just don’t want there to be more playoff teams. I want the regular season to matter.
But, if we want to keep baseball out of November; it seems we could do that if homefield advantage was for the full series… 5 games; no days off; and then 7 games, no days off. That’d make starting pitching depth even more critical as well.
but postseason games get huge revenue for the home stadium, so it wouldn’t be fair to the team that has to be away for the whole series.
It’s interesting discussion, but as other have pointed out … ultimately a waste of time.
MLB will change format when expansion occurs again (I would prefer contraction), and then the new format will resemble the NFL, 4 division leagues, 4-teams per division.
At least each playoff team will be a division winner, but I would prefer 2-division leagues, eliminating the wild card round, and just getting right to the 7-game series between the best team from each division.
Why do I want or need to see Team A play Team B in the LCS, when team A already won the division ahead of Team B?
Again, this isn’t a short season sport. 162 games is enough to sort the teams.
I think baseball in November is a horrible thing, and I’m basically a one sport guy. We take our summer past time, and place the most important games and place them in late fall. Seriously, snow in playoffs games is something that should never happen in baseball.
The good thing is that we never have to worry about an LCS or WS in outdoor MIN, as long as NYY keeps making the playoffs.
All I want from Bud is less divisions and a balanced schedule. Interleague is a pointless activity and should not exist. As of now, we are not finding out who is truly the best team because the schedule is so terrible. Every team should play each other an equal amount of times at home and away or else you are getting “fake” good teams.
Going back to 2 leagues with no divisions and having the best 6 teams make the playoffs is a fantastic idea to combat the complete nonsense that has taken over the Selig-era.
None of this makes any sense. If the goal is to maximize TV revenue, teams need to play most of their games in the same time zone. Hence the West-Central-East format we have now. If the goal is competitive fairness, the only perfect format is 30 teams playing a round robin over 162 games. Anything else, including the pre-1969 format, will sometimes result in the 3rd or 4th best team winning a world championship while the 2nd best team goes home at the end of the regular season. And fro
a purely competitive standpoint, having wild cards is always unfair to the teams that proved themselves superior during the long season.
The format MLB has now is fine. My only quibble is that one NL team should be forced into the AL West, so that all six divisions have 5 teams. Makes an easier schedule, and it would be fairer.
God, not again!
I first wrote an article “Return of the Two-Division Format in NBA” way back in ’79 for espn.com, then I have been updating it every year since then.
And, you guys copy my idea again!..sniff.
There is no honor in internet.
You can not do that comparison as the schedule makes a huge difference in teams wins and losses. The interleague schedule alone is not fair to teams within conference as some teams play interstate rivals more frequently and gives other teams an advantage or disadvantage depending on the rival. For example the Reds played the Tribe in a home and away series as the Cubs had to play the White Sox in that same home and away series. That gave the Reds a huge advantage.
Unless a comparison can be done where the teams play the same schedule throughout the year, making any type of assumption would be unfair. I am sure if the Yankees played the KC Royals, the Twins in 2000 as opposed to the Blue Jays and Red Sox that year the Yankees would have still been the winner and not the Tribe.
The current schedule is a problem, not only because interleague “rivalries” screw it up but also because teams in the same division play different numbers of games against opponents even in the same league. In any particular year, the Phillies might play 8 against the Pirates and Astros and 6 against each other NL Central team, while the Braves might get 8 against the Reds and Cardinals.
But that problem, along with most of the interleague unfairness, can be solved by going to 6 5-team divisions. Your team would play 18 against each division rival, 9 against each team in the other two divisions in your league.
6 5-team divisions is a scheduling nightmare and will not happen. It becomes impossible if you simultaneously eliminate interleague play.
An odd number of teams in each league means one team cannot play on any given day except when interleague play is occurring. With expanded interleague play, 6 5-team divisions might be possible. Without it, you cannot have a schedule that actually functions.
The real problem is that having 30 teams is stupid. 32 can work. 28 would’ve worked. 30 is a disaster. Unfortunately, to make a 6 division league work, you would need either 24 or 36 teams, neither of which is realistic anytime soon. 32 teams and either 4 or 8 divisions is what MLB needs to sort out the nightmare that Selig has created out of the MLB schedule. 28 teams and 4 divisions would work, but contraction isn’t a realistic option.