Leyland: Interleague Play Unfair With No DH
Tomorrow, Jim Leyland’s Tigers will commence their interleague play this year with a visit to Pittsburgh, Leyland’s old employer. And Leyland doesn’t want any part of it. He doesn’t have any use for AL-NL games any more, and the reason he gives is a 38-year old elephant in the room. Baseball’s two leagues have different rules, and teams built to take advantage of different rules — yet teams in each league play games against each other, playing 15-18 games a year by a different rulebook than they play the other 140-odd games of the season. Leyland is quite vehement:
I think this was something that was certainly a brilliant idea to start with. But I think it has run its course… It’s not really doing what it was supposed to — there’s no rivalries for most of the teams…
We play with the DH rules. The American League gets penalized, even though the record’s been decent over the years. We get penalized. Their pitchers are hitting and bunting all year, and they get the advantage of letting their pitchers rest and using the DH when they come here, and we gotta use guys six straight days without Victor Martinez or Alex Avila or somebody. That’s ridiculous. Totally ridiculous, and they ought to look into it…
At some point, I don’t know if I’ll be around to see it, but at some point you’ve got to get baseball back to the same set of rules.
Leyland’s making two separate points, one of which I agree with more than the other. First, while it is deeply strange for the leagues to have different sets of rules, it isn’t necessarily unfair. As long as every team plays the same number of games away from their comfort zone, it more or less all evens out. However, it absolutely is unfair when an NL division race can be decided by which team had to face the Red Sox and which team got to face the Royals, or an AL race can be decided by who got the Pirates and who got the Phillies.*
* In my column two weeks ago, I argued that the Pirates’ owners have been stealing revenue sharing money to line their pockets while putting a terrible team on the field for 20 years, and therefore the major leagues should consider drastic punitive action like relegation. So some readers started to accuse me of having it in for the Pirates. I don’t. I feel awful for their fans that the team has been terrible for so long. Their owners — and the general managers they hired, the dreadful Cam Bonifay and Dave Littlefield — are to blame.
Of course, it seems a bit strange for Leyland to be the one to raise the complaint. First of all, writes Baseball Nation’s Grant Brisbee, “While he makes sense, part of me wonders if he should just clam up and be thankful that he gets to play the Pirates.” Beyond that, the American League’s record in interleague play has been a lot better than just “decent over the years.” The Tigers in particular and the American League in general have dominated the National League in interleague play. Since the beginning of interleague play in 1997, the Tigers are 134-113 against National League teams, a crisp .543 winning percentage; overall, AL teams are 1806-1652, a .522 winning percentage.
Leyland’s two points raise somewhat separate concerns. The first is about rules, and the second is about fairness. Playing by different sets of rules is not inherently unfair, just as playing in different ballparks is not inherently unfair, as long as each team faces the same number of games outside of its comfort zone. A team can be built to take advantage of its home ballpark just as well as a team can be built to take advantage of the DH.
Indeed, the home ballpark can arguably be more well-tailored to the team and the specific opponent, especially in the days when infields were not as primly manicured as they are now, and teams could instruct their grounds crews to water the hell out of the dirt between first and second base to slow down someone like Maury Wills. Decades before that, teams would move the outfield walls in and out on a dime, depending on what kind of hitters were coming to town. That doesn’t happen any more. But each ballpark plays slightly differently. Baseball is the only major American sport whose leagues play by different rulebooks — but it’s also the only major American sport whose arenas are nonstandard. The DH disparity is weird, but it isn’t any weirder than having differently-shaped ballparks.
On the other hand, unbalanced schedules — of which interleague play, with its forced “rivalries,” is definitely a part — are absolutely unfair. It’s unfair for the Blue Jays to have to play nearly 55-60 games against the Red Sox, Rays, and Yankees, while the Rangers get to play 55-60 games against the Angels, Athletics, and Mariners. (It’s also unfair for the AL West teams to play in a four-team division while the NL Central teams play in a six-team division and everyone else plays in a five-team division, but that won’t get fixed without more expansion, which isn’t happening in a struggling economy — so we’ll leave that aside for now.) Frankly, it’s unfair for Leyland to get to play the Pirates while the Indians have to play the Reds.
Baseball scheduling is still more fair than other sports, like college football, in which strength of schedule is almost as much a determinant of wins and losses as strength of team. But it’s not as fair as it used to be, when there were eight teams in every league and they all played each other an equal number of times. Moreover, at least in college football, strength of schedule actually factors into consideration for the championship — in baseball, facing a tough schedule gets you no more than the smallest violin in the world.
Jim Leyland’s right that he probably won’t be around to see the end of interleague play or the DH — the former is simply worth too much money to baseball, and the latter is just too entrenched in culture. He’s also right that the current state of affairs is deeply unfair. He’s only wrong about one thing. His team is benefiting.
Mr. Leyland seems to forget that his club is paying Victor Martinez to fill most of those DH games while the majority of National League teams have a guy like Ross Gload or Matt Stairs to call on in AL lands. That, sir, is unfair.
I agree. Is there any evidence to suggest that AL teams playing away suffer more than NL teams playing away? Intuitively, it seems to me that an NL team in general not keeping a solid hitter with poor defense on their roster, to plug into the DH spot, hurts the NL team more than the AL team having their pitchers hit. Some NL team’s DHs would be utility guys who have to hit in the bottom third of the order.
It seems like a strange comment to make without any evidence. I’m not sure who actually has the advantage, but as Alex points out, it probably matters less than park factors and not at all when the “discomfort” is distributed equally.
That’s a very good question. Does anyone know where to find all-time home/away stats for interleague play?
A good place to start looking would be b-ref. You could also try posing the question to Tango.
All time record: 1,808 AL – 1,652 NL.
The NL was better 1997-2003, and then the balance shifted. I think it has more to do with the relative strengths of the leagues more than with the fairness of the rules.
1997 – 2003: 863 NL – 833 AL.
2004 – 2010: 975 AL – 789 NL.
Defense is important here, though. You are allowed to put whoever you please in the DH spot, which allows two advantages to the National League club that they didn’t have previously. The first is that players such as Prince Fielder or Ryan Braun, who are great hitters, are allowed to take a break from defense, while someone on the bench (who is probably on the bench due to their defensive and/or baserunning skills) is allowed to play defense in their place. The second is that you are able to rest your star players. If anything, it puts the AL and NL on even footing when the American League is the home team….Separate from the DH issue is that starting pitchers are now able to stay in the game longer because they don’t have to be pinch hit for, further evening things out….
Whether or not there is a huge advantage for the National League club when they are at home, I don’t know…
According to this:
http://www.platoonadvantage.com/2010/11/no-american-league-just-really-has-been.html
AL is .470 in NL parks, but .519 from 2006-2010. He has some interesting points about what baseline is for road team (ie, AL vs. AL). Hope that answers the question about whether the inequality is more about when the pitchers hit or when there’s a DH.
You mean it’s unfair that an AL team has to pay salary for another starter that an NL team doesn’t have to, right?
i guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
i can’t agree to that. me either.
Not really.
NL teams don’t carry guys like David Ortiz, Jim Thome, or Vladimir Guerrero on their rosters for the obvious reason that everyone in the NL has to play the field. Yet these type players are integral parts of AL teams and the strategies these teams use to build their ballclubs.
Therefore NL teams are at a disadvantage in the AL parks, AL teams are at a disadvantage in the NL parks because of how the teams are constructed in light of the rules by which they play. Yet given that every team (save a few NL teams every year, who end up playing against NL opponents while everyone else is off playing interleague) plays the same amount of interleague games, everyone faces the same rule-based ‘inequalities’.
The real ‘inequality’ issue, if I’m not mistaken, is that teams don’t play the same opponents the same amount of games. Highlighted in the example above, the Tigers play the Pirates while the Indians play the Reds. This is unfair because the Tigers don’t play the Reds this year and the Indians don’t play the Pirates or whatever. Expand that across the league, and one team is going to benefit from a ‘weaker schedule’ than another team. Like NCAA football, there’s a ‘strength of schedule factor’.
While I’m not a fan of cr*pping on a particular team just because they’re bad presently, it is true that the Tigers have the advantage this year. Over the long run though (say two decades), this should average out and ‘strength of schedule’ really shouldn’t be a factor. The Reds are a better team than the Pirates. Although, as any baseball fan knows, any team can win on any day, so don’t assume the Tigers are going to manhandle the Pirates and the Reds will play the Indians tough (especially seeing as how the Pirates just swept a 2 game series in Cinci).
If this is a topic to whine about, there have to be many others as well. Playing in Wrigley in April is very different than playing in Wrigley in July. So a team that plays Wrigley away games at a certain time of year can gripe and moan too about ‘inequalities’ in their schedule but at the end of the day… hot air.
Is it also true that, since AL teams pay salary for an extra starter, NL teams can increase the amount of money they pay to their starters, thus providing them with a theoretical advantage? In other words, an NL team and an AL team pay the same amount of money for their starters but, because the AL teams have to pay 1 more starter, the NL pays more per starter, thus giving them better starters than the AL teams have.
I don’t know if this is true (aside from the Red Sox and Yankees, of course) but it’s something worth looking at.
Not 100% true… the NL would probably have a higher % of their team salary go toward bullpen and bench guys, because they are used more (more pinch hitting, double switches needed for when the pitcher’s order spot comes up.)
So, while true they aren’t spending $3-10MM a year on a DH, they do have other positions that get relied on more.
I’m not sure the AL’s disadvantage in losing the DH in NL parks is any greater than the NL’s disadvantage in having to field one in AL parks. NL teams end up plugging a bench-quality hitter into their lineups instead of a no-glove slugger. AL and NL teams are just built a little differently.
Most teams in the AL only employ bench-quality DH’s.
Average production from the DH spot in the AL is .260/.340/.399 this year.
What’s the average production from an NL team’s 9th best hitter?
I’ll bet it’s not league average production.
Well 9th would be the pitcher, that doesn’t really count, lets check some more numbers…
NL 6 – .265/.332/.435/.767
NL 7 – .251/.315/.385/.699
NL 8 – .251/.325/.370/.694
AL 6 – .245/.312/.375/.687
AL 7 – .228/.298/.348/.646
AL 8 – .233/.304/.379/.682
AL 9 – .245/.306/.359/.664
AL DH – .261/.340/.401/.741
Looks like the NL needs to come up with some new excuses this year, as they are (to this point this year anyway) fielding deeper and more productive lineups.
No, the NL doesnt lose a “bench quality hitter”, they lose their top PH who in all likelyhood becomes the DH, unless you put in a defensive substitute for a poor fielding slugger type (so he can dh instead). Or, put another way, the NL gets to put in another very regular hitting bat into the lineup. And, given the high need for positional flexibility due to NL pitcher/ph substitutions, they can play D somewhere too.
A PH gets one at-bat per game, tops, while an AL DH reaches the plate 4-5 times per game. How is that a very regular hitting bat??
-C
Leyland never struck me as a crybaby when he was toiling in the NL, but I guess the AL softens you up. Love how he glosses the penalty to NL teams, i.e. their rosters typically aren’t build with a place for good hit, no glove guys. Best case, they have to play their top pinch hitter as DH in road games. Of course, he is right about the unfairness of the divisional matchups…the same kind of unfairness that allows the Tigers to play 90 games in the AL Central instead of the AL East.
So you are saying the NL clubs are actually better off, because they don’t employ players that can only play half the game? I think you severely overestimate what most AL clubs get from their DH and who is actually employed in those roles.
Not what I’m saying at all. I think that AL rosters are typically stronger in large part because an AL team can afford to roster a player or two to do nothing but hit, whereas NL teams have to roster a utility player or two to allow the manager the flexibility needed to double switch and to shift positions, and these players aren’t typically so good as their AL hit-only counterparts. Also, of course, even when the pore ole AL manager can’t start his DH, he still has him available as a bench bat.
But what you fail to mention that NL teams can do is put a good hit, weak glove guy (Andre Ethier, Ryan Braun, etc.) at DH — and put a no hit, good glove guy in the field in their place. That’s a fairly large net plus for the NL team.
Yes but a player who does not regularly DH will not hit as well as he usually does when DHing. So many studies have shown that being a PH or DH hurts the players ability to enter the game with the necessary amount of adrenaline to hit a ML quality pitch. Guys who are professional DHs get better at getting themselves energized enough to be useful, but never as well as a regular player who gets to field. If you need proof consult the hitting numbers of ADAM DUNN as a DH vs as any a player in the field.
I think the advantage goes to the American league, since having a regular DH is more important than having a pitcher than knows how to bunt.
It’s a big adjustment going from fielding and hitting to going to sitting and hitting.
The NL is at an extreme disadvantage the rest of the season so hard to complain about interleague. Every year a dozen or more pitchers go down with injuries caused by hitting and eats away at the NL talent. I just wish they would put the DH in everywhere and be done with it.
Interleague does have to go though, the lopsided schedules just aren’t fair at all for a lot of teams, when one team has a natural rival of some .400 team and another has one of a .600 team it just isn’t a fair situation.
I agree with you Mr. Wiggin.
His last name could also be Chavez.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=chavez001end
The NL teams are also at a disadvantage b/c they have to compete w/ 2 additional teams for playoff spots. On the other hand, the AL teams must compete w/ the Red Sox and Yankees.
It seems to me that the unfairness is maximized in the World Series, where the advantage the AL team has in having a real DH vs. the bench-warmer DH the NL team trots out typically exceeds in magnitude the advantage the NL team has in having pitchers who bat all season long vs. AL pitchers who don’t.
For one thing, AL pitchers may have previously been NL pitchers (who batted), and NL pitchers might be new to batting (if they were previously AL pitchers). More to the point, nearly all pitchers suck at hitting, no matter how much batting experience they’ve had.
Didn’t the Dodgers trade for Jim Thome in 2009 for the sole purpose of DHing in the World Series? They claimed him off waivers and gave up nothing for him. Why don’t more teams utilize this strategy?
Because roster spots are valuable and you don’t want to carry a DH for a few months just in case you make it to the world series.
Yeah, it’s hard to part with that 12th or 13th (!) pitcher…
Teams carry guys like Matt Stairs and Jason Giambi for an entire year, just to pinch hit for a pitcher once or twice a week. Why not pick up a more valuable hitter to pinch hit during the season, and get 4-5 AB’s in a World Series game instead of trotting out Ross Gload to DH
Leyland does kinda have a point though. I know all pitchers are terrible hitters but last year 31 NL pitchers that had 10ABs or more had a wOBA of .200 or higher and 9 with a .300 or higher where as 70 out of the 96 pitchers listed on here that hit in the AL didn’t even get on base a single time. So even though NL pitchers suck a hitting there is atleast about a 20% chance they’ll do something positive where as AL pitchers are as close to automatic outs as you can get. Not to mention those DHs that the AL have are generally terrible fielders so that hurts them there too. Bottom line I just think people tend to downplay the difference in hitting between the pitchers.
Interleague play results in schedules in radically different difficulties due to “Natural Rivalries”. Yeah it’s cool and all for cities with teams in both leagues, but how often are all the teams equally matched? It sucks that the Indians have to play the Reds, but the Rays also have to play the Marlins…while the Yankees get to play the Mets. The Rays by default have a harder schedule than a rival within their division
Especially since some of those rivalries are forced. I am a White Sox fan and the White Sox had to play the Cubs six times while Detroit got Cinncinnati and Minnesota got Milwaukee. In most of the last 10 years that was a disadvantage for the White Sox when compared to at least one of those teams. This year it is probably an advantage but then you get Cleveland playing Pittsburgh. I also think that the “true” natural rivalries are harder games than the trumped up one. The Cubs/Sox games always sell out and it seems like even in years when one team is very good and the other is very bad the series is rarely more lopsided than 4 – 2 and most often 3 – 3. It is a small sample but the players do seem to get up for those games a little more which would be natural since the press pays more attention and the stadium is a little louder. The term “playoff atmosphere” is used and it’s not quite like that but there is much more energy in the stands for a game against the Cubs than against the Royals. I don’t know if the same is true for Cleveland – Pittsburgh.
Teams like Detroit don’t have a natural NL rivalry like Chicago/NY/LA. Thus making Interleague play even stupider, it tries to create these rivalries that simply aren’t there. Also, I have to watch Justin Verlander take half assed swings against breaking balls instead of an additional series against a REAL division rival
Or how about the Mariners… who for whatever reason get their “natural rivalry” fix with the Padres for some reason.
Boy, I tell you what . . . I really despise those Padres! My Mariner-loving soul boils with pure hatred when we have to play those bastards. Just thinking about it gets me all fired up. I hope it takes you longer than us to rebuild, Padres! And stay out of Peoria! Yeah! You heard me!
You Seattle people are just jealous of San Diego’s weather.
I swear, the entire reason the Padres are our rival is because we share a spring training complex. You know, training together in the springing really leads to developing lots of animosity.
“Their pitchers are hitting and bunting all year, and they get the advantage of letting their pitchers rest and using the DH when they come here”
Um, so it’s unfair that the NL pitchers get to rest? By “rest,” does he mean “not bating/bunting?” Isn’t that what AL pitchers do all the time? Does anyone actually think taking 3 ABs has an impact on a pitcher’s abilities?
What’s that line about having and eating cake…
Running the bases can have an impact on pitchers’ abilities. Kyle Lohse was hurt for the better part of 2 years partly based on the fact that he was hit in the forearm with a pitch.
Baseball, and pitching especially, is an activity with a high likelihood of injury. Kyle Lohse is very susceptible to arm injury just because of what he does for a paycheck.
The AL teams have to pay for that DH…the aging slugger doesn’t show up for free. Whereas finding that uber-versatile bench guy who can play 14 positions (ie. Don Kelly) will generally play for food money. So, the AL teams end up wasting 10% of their salary tied up in a DH because of these games…I clearly think that it hurts the AL more, at least from a perspective of appropriate allocation of funds.
True, yet a bit wide of the mark with regards to the article.
10% ???
I don’t know for sure but I would guess maybe only 1 or 2 teams pay a DH that much. And if they do, he is probably a superstar and they don’t mind paying him.
Also, as I stated before, the NL will typically have “bench guys” getting more playing time (being inserted to PH, more RP innings). The SP can’t just go as long as they’d like- they are often taken out earlier when their spot in the rotation comes up.
This only comes up when AL teams go to an NL park, though. I’d prefer that the DH is always used when your opponent is an AL team. This would have implications for the WS, more importantly.
I prefer having the home team decide if there is a DH prior to every game, no matter if it is NL, AL or IL. Then each team has to bank for either situation.
This all seems relatively minor if you consider the MOST unfair thing in all of sports, namely, the fact that the NL has 2 more teams than the AL. The fact that, on Opening Day of any given season, a team in the AL West already has a 50% greater likelihood of making the playoffs than does a team in the NL Central is just patently ridiculous.
That’s true but unless you ran interleague play all season you really have no choice but to have it like that because if there were 15 in each league one team wouldn’t have an opponent every series.
What in the world is wrong with interleague games being spread over the year.
AFAICT That’s how every other sport in the world with a conference split does it.
Baseball insists on scheduling all interleague at once, and many commentatiors insist that this means you “can’t” have ballanced leagues. But I have NEVER heard anyone actually defend the idea that the interleague games can’t be spread over the year. I have no idea what the argument in favor of concentrating interleague in a few weeks is because I’ve never seen it. I’ve looked, but it’s a mystery.
So the reason for having unequal leagues is to preserve something that AFAICT there is actually NO ARGUMENT in favor of, to wit, not spreading out interleague. This is wierd. I mean, it’s like half an argument, and then people stop like the other half is obvious. Yet posts suggesting to spread them out are common, the other half isn’t obvious, and I’m not alone in thinking that it isn’t.
This also assumes that every series has to start on the same days. If MLB were willing to have teams have off days on weekends or Fridays you could make a schedule with a floating rest day without having IL all year too. Although that is a more difficult schedule to make and doesn’t have teams playing on days that produce the most revenue.
interleague took the time period when games were the least popular and made them the next most popular to opening day/week on average. In other words, spreading out interleague would result in lower ticket sales on average for teams.
For example, whenever any team plays the Yankees or Red sox they get to have a sell out. If you schedule a yankee game into slot that a game versus the Philles would have drawn less than a sell out, then you have improved ticket sales. Every opening day is usually a sellout for nearly every team, so scheduling a yankee game for that day rather than a phillie game does not increase ticket sales.
If you get rid of the DH then you can balance divisions out and have constant inter-league games and it wouldn’t bother anyone.
Or if you put the DH in the NL. There is, basically, no league structure in baseball and hasn’t been since it was decreed in the NL expansion that brought in Florida and Colorado that the AL teams would have to contribute players to the expansion draft, even though the NL had not contributed to the 1977 AL expansion. The league offices and presidencies don’t exist anymore; there is only one pool of umpires. The Brewers switched leagues. So why is there a different rule in the NL than in the rest of organized baseball, worldwide? The question is not getting rid of the DH, it is getting the National League to follow the rules that all other baseball teams play.
AL teams also have to contend with the Yankees and Red Sox for playoff spots. This reduces each team’s likelihood of making the playoffs. I’m not sure it balances out, but it’s not nothing either.
“It’s also unfair for the AL West teams to play in a four-team division while the NL Central teams play in a six-team division and everyone else plays in a five-team division, but that won’t get fixed without more expansion”
Simple. Move the Padres to the AL West, then move the Astros to the NL West. Solved.
Angels/Padres could be a decent rivalry, and Rangers/Astros would be even better.
The Astros/ Rangers “rivalry” demonstrates the whole problem with interleague play. Those teams have never been good at the same time. The Astros of the late 90′s early 2000′s were awesome while the Rangers during that same period were probably the worst team in the AL. Last
year, the Rangers easily swept the 8 game series
The late 90s rangers were pretty darn good too. They won pennants 3 of 4 years from 96-99.
The main problem with having 15 teams in each league is that then there has to be an interleague series going every day for the entire season..
Which Matt just said above. Sorry for the redundancy (and now I’ve made 2 useless posts instead of one!)
What Doug said in response.
The biggest thing that people don’t realize with 15 teams in each division is that this forces one of two things (and one of them has already been mentioned above):
1. At least one team from each league would need to have an off day every single day.
2. A team from each league would have to play an interleague series every couple days.
False. 14 teams in each league can play another team in their own league, while the two oddballs play each other. That’s the complaint — you are forced to have interleague games every day. Doesn’t seem like a big deal to me, but I don’t think interleague play adds much to the game.
Didn’t you just repeat exactly what my #2 point was?
If you combine a little bit of #1 and a little bit of #2, what’s the problem?
Spread out interleague play throughout the whole season, spread the off-days out more evenly (currently, there are a lot of days where almost every team in one league or another has a day off), and add in a few more interleague games. Voila.
It isn’t that easy because then you have 15 teams in both leagues and then you are forced with even more interleague or two teams would have a 3 or so day layoff and the season would go longer unless you reduce the schedule
each team plays, what, 15 interleague games?
15 games/team * 15 teams/league = 225 games/league
Or, enough to have an interleague game every day of the season, thus no necessity to have an off day for one team/league every day
Beyond what I said:
Lose the interleague games and go back to a balanced schedule.
I came up with moving the Rockies to the AL West and the Astros to the NL West, but you could come up with a few scenarios for moving the 6th NL Central team to the AL West.
Contract by 2 teams, go back to 7 team divisions, and take the 2 division winners along with the 4 best records after that.
6 teams out of 14 from each league make the playoffs with the 2 division winners get a 1st round bye.
“Contract by 2 teams”
Total non-starter.
I’m going to get this out of the way:
If you root for an AL team primarily, you likely prefer a DH.
If you root for an NL team primarily, you likely prefer no DH.
We’ve all heard the arguments for both sides 1000+ times, so please save yourselves the key strokes.
The rivalry thing is annoying for the unbalanced schedule it creates, but let’s remember that the rest of the Interleague schedule isn’t remotely balanced either. At least the rivalry thing ebbs and flows: 3-4 years ago the Yankees “had” to play the Mets, while the [Devil] Rays “got” to play the Marlins, to use an example from an above comment. The fact that the entire schedule is just wonky for each time year to year is strange. They can’t make a balanced schedule without a lot more interleague games, so I think they should just scratch it entirely.
Thanks for “getting this out of the way,” because you’re exactly right. You can just about tell whether a fan roots for an NL team or an AL team by his/her position on this one. This said, and cheerfully admitting that I’m a fan of an NL team with the predictable attitude toward the DH, I’d be very interested to see an analysis of just who’s the ninth position player (not just the DH, but rather, the guy who wouldn’t play at all when the pitcher bats) for NL teams in interleague play, and how their performance stacks up to that of AL DHs. I rather suspect the performance gap, measured in OPS or WAR or whatever, will be significantly wider than the offensive gap between AL and NL pitchers.
No getting around the schedule part of the discussion, though.
I’m an NL fan and I prefer the DH somewhat when I think about it rationally. But that sure is hard to do! It’s much easier to default towards being against the DH.
This is actually a perfect example of status quo bias and the endowment effect.
I wonder how they managed to get support for adopting the DH in the first place.
It was a curious moment of opportunity in a time of offensive stagnation in the weaker league. Here’s an excerpt of a SABR article from 1983:
“Batting in the 1960s reached a low level of achievement. We are reminded that in 1968 the American League almost finished the season with a batting leader hitting under .300. Fortunately, Carl Yastrzemski was able to pull himself up to .301 by the time the curtain fell.
Because of the general deterioration in hitting and the painfully small contribution made by pitchers, the International League in 1969 experimented with a system whereby a team could designate another player to hit for the pitcher. Some managers claimed they disliked the idea but, even though the DH was optional, they all used it. Based on the minor league experiments, discussion then centered on possible adoption of this rule change at the major league level. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, who for several years had insisted that batting averages ought to be higher, favored adoption of the DH. The National League refused to go along with the idea, but the American League decided at its winter meeting in December 1972 to adopt it on an experimental basis starting with the 1973 season.
There was much speculation at the time about whether all clubs would use this opportunity to beef up their attack or would still go with some of their better hitting hurlers. As it turned out,
AL managers essentially accepted the DH concept from the first day of the 1973 season when Ron Blomberg of the Yankees made it into the trivia books as the first DH on April 7. With the bases loaded in the first inning, he was walked by pitcher Luis Tiant of the Red Sox.”
http://research.sabr.org/journals/ten-years-of-designated-hitters
“I wonder how they managed to get support for adopting the DH in the first place.”
If it was handled back then anything like it is now under Commissioner Budrick, then it was just adopted by fiat and little thought was given to how popular/unpopular the decision would be with Joe Sixpack.
Does it matter if the AL or the NL has a systematic advantage in IL play? It matters for the WS, but since playoff spots are league-specific, you’re only competing with the other teams in your league. As long as you all play the same number of IL games, it shouldn’t matter whether having a DH or good hitting pitchers is more of an advantage.
To take an extreme example, if the NL always won every IL game, all AL teams would be in the same boat (assuming they played the same number of games vs. the NL).
Of course, it’s pretty unfair that teams play different strength opponents in IL. But it’s not unfair that one league has a systematic advantage over the other (if indeed that’s the case).
Alex, it’s not that we think you have it in for the Pirates, it’s that you can’t even understand the difference between an owner pocketing money and an owner who doesn’t put a penny from the team into his pocket in a year he is accused of pocketing money… The Pirates books were revealed and it was shown that all the profit taken from the team was used to pay taxes in a year when people were saying that the owners’ were “pocketing” money, (the profit was also quite a bit less than the Forbes estimates by the way). You also single out Bonifay by name and not Creech, and you should probably mention him as a reason for the Pirates ineptitude. Your reputation Alex, I’d say is probably weaker than Dave’s and Eno’s and Jonah’s due to stuff like this. Research stuff, it’s the fangraphs way.
I have never seen any full vindication of the Pirates’ owners anywhere. Everything I’ve read about the Pirates’ books has left open the possibility or provided a very strong hint that Nutting, McClatchy, and their predecessors were pocketing proceeds and not putting every dollar on the field, and many writers before me have accused the owners of the exact same thing. Since you clearly believe that I’m wrong, can you link me to the evidence that fully exonerates the Pirates’ owners?
I don’t know very much about Creech. When I blame Littlefield and Bonifay, I’m not trying to say that they were the only incompetent people in the front office. But ultimately they headed the front office, and assembled the front office, and signed their name to every decision made by the front office, from drafting and development to free agency, from drafting John Van Benschoten to giving free agent contracts to Matt Morris and Derek “Operation Shutdown” Bell.
I deserve to have a weaker reputation than Dave Cameron, Jonah Keri, and Eno Sarris; they’re three of my favorite baseball writers, three of the smartest baseball minds around, and three reasons that I’m incredibly proud to work here. I’d like to live up to their example. I have a ways to go. But I have studied the Pirates’ financial situation as best I can, and I have never read anything that led me to question the argument that the Pirates’ owners have intentionally impoverished the team.
What evidence have you seen that has shown the Pirates are “stealing” revenue sharing money?
“The Pirates have been so profitable that they’ve created substantial income tax liabilities for their investors. The Pirates’ solution to this problem has been to transfer a portion of its profits to these investors to cover their tax costs…
David Berri, one of the economists I cited here on Monday, put it this way: “ Teams have a choice. They can seek to maximize winning, what the Yankees do, or you can be the Pirates and make as much money as you can in your market. The Pirates aren’t trying to win.””
http://itsaboutthemoney.net/archives/2010/08/27/revenue-sharing-is-dead/
I feel that there should be more interleague games. Out of all major sports, MLB has the fewest “interleague” games, despite playing the most games in a regular season schedule. However, that would mean taking games away from playing your teams in the same league, and I don’t think many people would like that.
As for the pitchers batting vs. DHs, I like how it is right now. Having different rules adds a nice little quirk to the sport.
” Out of all major sports, MLB has the fewest “interleague” games, despite playing the most games in a regular season schedule. ”
Not true. NFL only has 4 interleague games. Smaller % sure, but not less games (and you try and say less interleague games v more total games which would indicate you’re not talking % anyway)
Am I the only person who thinks we should just go to 8-man lineups where neither a DH is used or a pitcher hits?
Probably.
I’ve said the same thing for years. I prefer to have the pitcher bat, but I’d rather see an 8-man lineup than a DH. I just don’t think someone who doesn’t take the field should be allowed to bat four or five times a game.
Alternately, if people hate the pitcher batting so much, MLB should allow managers to pinch-hit for the pitcher at any point in the game — without the pitcher being forced to leave the game. Managers would have to decide whether to waste pinch-hitters in the early innings or save them for later. It would lead to some interesting strategy.
Why not go full platoon and have 4 hitters and 9 fielders? (For you AL fans, that was supposed to a rhetorical question.)
Or why not use pitching machines? They don’t cost as much as pitchers, don’t need expensive Tommy John surgery, and Steinbrenner won’t whine about them having to risk their precious selves running the bases. You could even dress them up as the club mascot, or as the bimbo who got 80% of the words right when singing the national anthem. Hey, you could even sell ADVERTISING on them! The possibilities are endless…
My suggestion is both leagues use a DH, but once you pull your starting pitcher, you lose your DH.
The DH either has to shift to the field (and you have to remove one position player from the lineup to insert the pitcher) or the pitcher takes over the DH spot, then you need to pinch hit going forward.
It would be similar to what currently happens in the AL if the DH needs to go into the field for whatever reason.
that actually was the original rule way back when it started.
There was a pretty good back-and-forth here about a year ago where someone wrote a column defending the NL’s rules and someone else wrote one defending the DH and someone, maybe tangotiger or MGL, wrote a column discussing alternatives. I think this was one of them.
The only unfair thing about it is how it can affect a division race with one team facing vastly superior competition to one of its fellow contenders in the division. The disadvantage an AL team has in an NL park is usually offset by the vast superiority of the AL team’s DH in the AL park. Most NL pitchers are awful hitters too, and there have been AL pitchers who can actually do it pretty well (CC Sabathia being one that comes to mind).
The lack of DH in NL parks doesn’t bother me as a White Sox fan, every once in a while you get something like Mark Buehrle hitting a home run. Meanwhile at The Cell the Sox have largely fielded guys like Thome and now Dunn (let’s just ignore the Mandruw Kojones business from last year). And I’m curious if Ozzie might run the Donkey out there in the outfield in one of the interleague games at a NL park, which could be hilariously bad.
Not saying it makes it right, but it’s no different than any other sport. The West in the NBA has to grind out more games against generally tougher Western-conference competition. In 2010-11, Indiana was the 8 seed in the east with a 37-45 record while Houston missed the playoffs at 43-39. In 2009-10, OKC was the 8th seed with a 50-32 record. In 2008-09, Detroit was 8th in the east (39-43), while Utah was 8th in the west (48-34) and Phoenix (46-36) missed the playoffs entirely. Phoenix would have been 5th in the east. Etc etc.
Same with the NFL and how they rotate divisions they face each year, and teams that were worse the year before get to face other teams who were also bad the prior year. I think that factor makes it MUCH easier for a team like Tampa to bounce back to a 10-6 record like they did last year. They got to play divisional doormats like HOU and WASH rather than the top teams like IND and PHI.
You’re looking across conferences. I’m not saying it’s unfair to the NL as a whole, or for the wild card spots. I’m saying it’s unfair within a division. That’s not the case in the NFL (where 14 of the 16 games are identical and the only differences are based on where you finished last year, which is fair), nor the NBA (where your schedule is typically the same as others in your division). Talking about wild card spots is a whole other can of worms.
Also, the Tigers had a little bit of a rivalry brewing with the Cardinals, we played them every year for a bit in the mid ’00s and with the ’34, ’68, and ’06 WSs there was some history. Added to the fact its two baseball-crazy Midwestern towns going against each other. Unfortunately that has been squashed in recent years.
Get rid of the DH. Playing on only one side is an abomination.
My team has a CF who sucks at batting, can I get a DH for him? My SS isn’t so hot and my catcher can’t crack .250, why not just have all-time offense and all-time defense? I’ll tell you why, because that isn’t baseball. That’s football. In baseball, guys play both ways, that’s the way it works.
I hate the DH, too, but there are some pretty good suggestions above on how to keep the rule and baseball strategy, unfortunately, I doubt it ever happens. Crusty old baseball men are the most stubborn people in the world.
I would like to see the new Commissioner whoever he may be , to come to his senses and restore a balanced schedule. You simply cannot have fair competition for wildcard slots without it. And get rid of those silly “divisions” too. Just have east and west with eight teams each.
With the unbalanced schedule on inetrleague, if your natural rival is a good team then they make the other teams you play crap. For example, for the Mets, they have to play the Yankees 6 times, so give them series against Seattle or Kansas to even it up a bit.
Although it’s difficult to know who will be good vs. the previous year (see Cleveland), this is a great point. The league should aim to have every team’s interleague opponents’ record from the previous year add up to .500.
Baseball’s inconsistencies are a big part of what makes it my favorite sport. I like that all of the ballparks are different and that teams can tailor their rosters according to the hitting/pitching environment that they play half of their games in. I personally prefer the NL style of ball with no DH but I would absolutely hate it if the AL didn’t have the DH. Having one rule change that drastically effects the way that rosters are constructed and the strategic decisions made during a game is awesome. I feel that the presence of the DH in only one league gives baseball something that is missing from East vs West or NFC vs AFC.
Unfortunately, the unbalanced schedule is completely unfair. If I were commissioner for a day I would leave the DH rule exactly as it is for each league and continue with the practice of having a limited amount of interleague games played at the same time for all of the teams. The changes that I would make would involve contracting two teams, putting 14 teams in each league, and eliminating divisions while playing a balanced schedule. It may not be possible to perfectly balance the schedule over one season. If that were the case then I would get rid of the “natural” interleague rivalries and balance the schedules in as few seasons as logistically possible. For me, not getting Cubs vs White Sox, Angels vs Dodgers or Mets vs Yankees every season would be an acceptable trade off for the fairness that could be achieved by balancing the schedule.
By eliminating divisions and playing a balanced schedule you could keep the number of playoff teams at four per league and maintain the value of the 162 game grind that teams go through in order to reach the playoffs.
To Idiotic Fan- I don’t think the San Diego, Seattle Mariners rivalry is a farce. Both areas are home to the 2 largest naval bases on the west coast so there are naturally a lot of ties between the two cities. I myself have a lot of friends who have either lived their or have family ties to the area. It’s no NY/BOS rivalry, but I would say it’s more than just 2 teams playing each other.
Proposed fix for the DH issue in interleague.
Play the series in even numbered games, (play two or four games per loc). Play two games as NL rules, and two games as AL rules, alternating between them, (al, nl, al, nl, or nl, al, nl, al). That way, fans in the seats, get to see the variations of the game, AND the rule difference is minimized. Of course, the trick is to find scheduling room for 2 or 4 game series. Maybe the “natural rivals” interleague stretch gets the 4 games, where the rest get 2 game series.
OR, another proposal, even numbered years, play AL rules, odd numbered years, play NL rules..
OR, the truly absurd, let the winner of the All Star game determine the rules to be played !!
I think they should play NL rules in AL parks and vice versa. It doesn’t solve the issue, but it at least gives fans a chance to see how the other half lives.
This implies fans don’t watch their team’s games on TV. Lolwut?
Not only do my Blue Jays have to play the Red Sox, Yankees, and Rays, but we also get to play the Phillies and the Braves every year for some reason. If we care about rivalries so much, just give us extra games against the Tigers who we barely see anymore.
I don’t think you should get rid of interleague, make the leagues of equal teams (a lower amount of teams gives teams like the Angels with a financial advantage an even bigger advantage with less competition), then you play everyone in the other league in short 2 game series. That’d only be 32 games, so you have one month of interleague. The league with the most wins gets home field advantage in the WS, if the record is tied THEN the All Star game decides it, so not really ever.
I’ve never bought this whole “AL is better” crap, they field 9 good hitters, the NL doesn’t. Leyland is being a crybaby. I hate the DH rule, it makes a joke of the game. Fatasses like Ortiz, who I’m a better athlete than he just has better hand/eye coordination, get to play baseball. I LOVED it last year when his total lack of athleticism got him thrown out in the All Star game.
The only disadvantage, as said, is the schedule. The schedule is also unbalanced because you play your own division more than anyone. If a NL East team wins the wild card I’ll be suprised. The Braves, Phillies, and Marlins have to play against each other. 4 of the top 10 team ERA rankings are in the NL East. That’s ridiculous and if the Cardinals win the wild card after playing Houston, Pittsburgh, and Chicago, not to mention the mediocre Brewers and the 2nd or 3rd in any other division Reds, I’m going to be pretty pissed.
If leyland wants to complain, complain about the unbalanced schedule. We need a RPI like they do in College for playoffs.
Are you suggesting that Ortiz would not be playing baseball if there were not a DH rule in the AL?
I’ve seen Ortiz play first – he is far from a joke on the field – not a ton of range but he can pick it. If the DH were abolished tomorrow, he would lose his job on the Red Sox as Gonzales is a better hitter and a fantastic first baseman. But someone would give Ortiz a starting job – are the Braves, Dodgers, Nationals, A’s, Orioles happy with their current first basemen?
Dude, Ortiz is slow, but he is in the 99th percentile of athletes. All of these guys are. Let it go, you just didn’t have what it takes to make the majors.
You might take notice of the fact that the Cards, Reds, and Brewers have (or did have a couple of days ago) the top 3 offenses in the NL. So while you’re talking about all the tough pitchers the East has to face, it’s worth noting that the Central has a lot of good hitters that their pitchers have to face.
Team in each league don’t play 15-18 games per year by different rules, becuase half of the games are at home.
Also, Leyland, in this case, is a crybaby.
Fair point.
I tend to agree with Cito Gaston’s negative view on Interleague games. His reasoning was that AL pitchers are being expected to use skills 9 games/year that they would otherwise not use or practice. He was concerned about the possibility of injury. Shortly after expressing these view, Scott Downs is injured running out a batted ball.
http://aol.sportingnews.com/blog/FantasySourceFastball/entry/view/25611/injury_roundup_downs_goes_down
I would like to see the rules harmonized. Unfortunately for me, I can’t decide which set of rules, since I like both NL and AL baseball.
I also think that the line-up construction argument is valid, but there could be a simple solution if MLB allowed roster moves for just the length of interleague play, to allow an NL team to add a DH-type bat from the minors and allow the AL team to substitute a different type of player than their regular DH. Maybe instead of a substituition, the teams should simply be able to carry 26 players during interleague play.
We need a separate re-alignment thread.
Pitchers would be more prepared to hit if they had to do it in the minors. On the other hand, there wouldn’t be a DH in the minors if there wasn’t one in the AL… seems like something needs to change here…
If he’s so worried about not getting Victor into the lineup, put him at 1B and shift Miguel to 3rb base like he did back in the day. Sure it may hurt him defensively, but he won’t have to do it for many games. He’d be faced with this sort of dilemma if his team made the World Series.
I like that the two leagues are different in this one basic but big rule. It actually means there is a reason to have two different leagues! Otherwise, why should we have the AL and the NL if they were exactly the same?
But what I would like to see is a study showing if the difference in value for having an NL Pitcher/Pinch Hitter hit vs an AL Pitcher/Pinch Hitter hit in an NL Park is greater or less than the value for having the DH in the AL Park (and the subsequent defense shift that might occur).
This article takes Leyland’s comments slightly out of context. He actually spent a lot more time talking about the fact that the big rivalries are played out – Mets vs. Yankees and White Sox vs. Cubs aren’t novel any more – and that a lot of the teams don’t have any natural rivals at all.
He does think (and I agree) that the AL has a tougher time with the rule changes, since AL pitchers don’t spend any time preparing to hit, while every NL team has someone who can DH – usually, the person they usually have hit for the pitcher.
He also wasn’t nearly as negative as this makes it sound – he said he thought the idea of flipping the rules – playing no-DH in AL parks and DH in NL parks – might add some interest.
As for unifying the rules, anyone who has spent a decent amount of time talking baseball to Jim Leyland knows which league’s rules he would adopt. Hint: It isn’t the league he’s in now.
AL teams are more at risk of putting their players at risk of injury. Wang ruined his career running the bases, Beckett hurt his back swinging a bat in preparation for interleague play last year. Pitchers are being asked to do things they are not trained to do and that’s bad. Nobody gets hurt being a DH instead of playing the field or sitting on the bench. If they are going to do interleague play, every game should allow a DH. Otherwise, scrap it. I hate interleague play with a passion for this reason.
They try to manufacture rivalries, for the Red Sox for example, first the Braves and when that did not work, the Phillies, but nobody cares about these teams. There is no rivalry outside of the media hype. I would rather have another 3-4 games against AL east teams than play the NL..
This year the Red Sox get to play the Cubs, Astros, Pirates, Brewers and Padres in addition to the Phillies. Yawn. Good for our W-L though.
It is not the competition element of interleague play that is unfair, it is the economic element. The four in-city rivalries (NYY/NYM, CWS/CUB, LAA/LAD, OAK/SF) make a huge killing while saving their teams their entire travel cost, while the Tigers are often playing Arizona or Colorado, flying thousands of miles to play in relatively empty stadia, and the odd men out in the NL (often Pittsburgh, whose natural rival is in its own league, though not its own division, or the aforementioned Rockies or DBacks) is playing another NL team while everyone else is in Interleague. Let’s just say those games don’t appear on Sunday Night Baseball a lot. Then you have the seemingly random decision about what divisions are matched up every year, and who gets the home games with the Cubs, who draw well on the road, and who gets the home games with the Nationals, who don’t draw flies. As far as I can tell, unlike the NFL, this follows no rhyme or reason. There are still teams who have hosted other teams twice but never visited the other team’s stadium.
So I’d suggest that all interleague revenue should be shared and all the travel expenses should be shared as well.
I think it basically evens out, but I do think interleague play is ridiculous.
I root for an AL team and I’d still like to see the DH rule abolished.
I root for an AL team, and I prefer the DH rule, because I like seeing better batters at the plate as often as possible.
With that said, I’d rather have everyone play under one rule and have the DH abolished than to keep shambling on with two sets of rules.
I am an NL fan who hates the DH with a passion (not a passion, but I don’t like it) and I’m just about at this point as well. Let’s have a uniform set of rules and just move on.
I root for an NL team and hate watching pitchers (attempt to) hit. Watching bad hitters bunt simply b/c they can’t hit makes me want to hurt small animals.
Although I’m an AL guy I believe the AL has an unfair advantage in interleague play. I haven’t done the research, but the disparity between an AL DH and NL PH’s must be larger than the difference between AL and NL pitchers at the plate. I’m not a fan of interleague play due to the strength of schedule issue, but financially it seems to be beneficial to baseball.
Here’s why I think that any advantage, if there was one, would actually statistically go to the NL club in an interleague series.
Playing at NL Park: NL Club at full strength. Offense remains CONSTANT
AL Club not at full strength, replacing DH with pitcher, which
means they’re fielding a team that’s not as good as the
team they typically field. Offensive potential DECREASES
Playing at AL Park: NL Club STRONGER than normal, getting to replace pitcher
with Utility player. Offensive potential INCREASES.
AL Club at full strength. Offense remains CONSTANT
Now, you could make an argument that the AL team is better off because they invest more in their DH than an NL club typically does in a utility player (though this is not necessarily true). However, it seems obvious to me that the worst an NL club can expect is to field the team they built to win, and the best they can expect is to get extra offensive production by replacing the pitcher with a utility player. The worst an AL club can expect is to field a weaker team than the one they built, and the best they can expect is to field the team they built. So half the time the AL fields a weaker-than-normal team while half the time the NL field a stronger-than-normal team, with home games giving each team a “constant”.
I feel like the AL is simply the better league currently, especially based on NL/AL crossover struggles in free agency, which may account for the the fact that the AL, especially in recent years, has dominated interleague play.
I don’t know if I’m right, and my analysis is more logical than statistical, but I’d like to hear your thoughts…
Your analysis is, in one sense, correct, but there are more degrees of freedom for the AL team (more ways to make a good team), so they should be better overall.
I do remember in extra innings in the 1991 WS, the Twins closer had to pinch hit for the current pitcher because the reliever who was pitching had never been to batting practice and there were no more pinch hitters on the bench.
Since the lists worked so well in the Twins’ thread:
1. There is nothing inherently fair about games and schedules in general. The Twins played the Yankees earlier this year, and never faced Phil Hughes. But, other teams did. How is it fair that the Twins faced good pitchers, and their rivals didn’t?
2. The Twins are hurting right now. Anyone playing them now likely has an unfair advantage over anyone facing them later in the season. (I hope)
3. Anyone that faced the Royals pre-Hosmer has an unfair advantage over anyone facing them post-Hosmer/Moustakis.
4. Is it fair that some teams play in good weather against some opponents, and others play in bad weather?
5. The whole “the rivalries aren’t there” thing is silly. No one cares about Mariners Royals games, but they are stilled scheduled and played.
If you think about it, there is nothing inherently fair about any of this (don’t even get me started on “best” and the playoffs). So, here is what I would do:
1. Re-align the divisions so that they were all the same size. That is really unfair today.
2. Share 60% of all revenue into a pot. Divide that pot among all teams.
3. No salary floor or ceiling. The floor is an excuse to pay bad veterans instead of paying good young players. The ceiling is an excuse to artificially reduce salaries.
4. Allow trading of draft picks.
5. Make the schedule like this.
5a. 16 games in your division (that’s 64)
5b. 6 games against everyone else in your league (that’s another 60)
5c. play 1 division in the other league 6 times (that’s 30 more – and this division would rotate every year)
5d. play 2 other teams in the other league 4 times (that’s 8 more) (these teams would either rotate, or be based on last year’s record)
5e. That is 162 games. It is more balanced than today. It makes interleague just part of the game.
This is more fair than today, but not perfectly fair within a year, but more so over a period of years than today. It also balances out the intraleague play somewhat.
For the playoffs:
1. All teams make the playoffs. That’s right, every team makes the playoffs.
2. 1 game, winner take all playoffs starts the process. The three division winners and the four next best teams skip rounds 1. The remaining 8 teams in each league play on day one. The survivors play on day 3 (adding in the two worst wild card teams) (1 day for travel). You now have 8 teams left, with the three division winners, two best WC team, and three survivors. I would prefer only having 1 day of travel at this point before the next round. I would actually prefer that the playoffs from here on out be more like the regular season, with less off days. I’d like the “best” team to be not just about stars that can be rested, but about depth of staffs as well.
3. Next round is best 4 of 7, as you would expect the best record against the worst record….
4. Next round is best 4 of 7
5. Next round is best 4 of 7
6. World Series
This playoff schedule allows for the hot teams at the end, that may have stunk it up early to have a chance to keep playing. It keeps the fans of every team involved for the whole year. People will be talking about who is going to play who. Will there be advantages gained in matchups. Lots and lots of talking points, and interest compared to now, nationally.
The 5 best teams in each league get 4-5 days off, while the others play. Then it is pretty much as is now, with the addition of one round. This gives the three division winners easier teams to play against in round 1. Every team has a smidge of hope. The best teams still have a huge reward for winning the division. The battle to be one of the two best WC, and not in the next tier, would be important.
“All teams make the playoffs” I preferred it when just two teams in a league made the playoffs. Then the year meant something.
What did it mean, though? For example, if the Royals call up all of their rookies, and they are all great, but they waited until July….
who is the “best” team?
The team that won the most games all year?
The team that is the best team at the end of the year?
Look at using playoffs at all. That is partially about health and rosters at the end of the year. What if a key player or two gets hurt the last week of the season, andmisses the playoffs, but that team had the best record in baseball. Are they not the best team, by the operational definition “most wins during the year”? They may not win the playoffs, though, because of something that happened in one week.
The playoffs are not about picking the best team.
It means that you won the most games. If it is just the end of the year that matters, why play the season?
There are ups and down in the season, how does a team deal with that? That is what is so great about the season and why “everybody wins” would make me lose all interest.
So, does this playoff scenario end with game 7 of the world series on Thanksgiving? That’s fine with me, I fucking love baseball, let’s make it go on as long as possible, right?
I wasn’t really joking, there are problems with your plan, my main one is this: “This playoff schedule allows for the hot teams at the end, that may have stunk it up early to have a chance to keep playing.”
Why? Do the games in April not count? What about the teams that were hot at the beginning but cooled off, why don’t they get an advantage?
One game playoffs in baseball are pointless. It’s a crapshoot. Let’s just go by the huge amount of data we already have that spans six months.
Playoffs are a crapshoot compared to the regular season. The only reason you have playoffs is for money. Also, the one game playoffs only involve the bad teams anyway. You are mostly correct, that the regular season best record is one of the top 5 teams during the entirety of the year, probably. Your last sentence argues for no playoffs, but that is not going to happen. Zero percent chance. So, the question is, what should you do with the playoffs to:
1. attract more fans and money
2. make it more fair than today for picking the best team (though we have no operational definition of that at all)
The proposal for the playoff change is really about keeping fans and the nation involved in MLB for a month or two more than it is now. It is done to attract the non-serious baseball fan, without changing the actual games. What is changing is how you pick the WS champion (which shouldn’t be all that important to a serious baseball fan, really). Also, those bade teams aren’t likely to win a 5 or 7 game series are they? But, you’ve given their fans something to pay attention to.
Of course the early games count, that’s why the division winners and next two best teams don’t play in the elimination rounds at all. They have to play one more round of baseball than they did before, in the playoffs, yes.
You are right, my original plan for expanding the playoffs imagined a 154 game season. Take out the 8 games against the “other” league and we have an extra week or two for playoffs. I also said I want less off days during the playoffs. Under the proposal moving to 154 games, I think you get done about the same timeframe as today.
I should have just left off the playoff proposal, as it distracts from my main point that interleague play should be just like any other games, and that we should re-balance intr-league play.
“The Twins played the Yankees earlier this year, and never faced Phil Hughes. But, other teams did. How is it fair that the Twins faced good pitchers, and their rivals didn’t?”
Phil Hughes was good this year?!?!?
No, that was my point. The Twins did NOT face Hughes, but other teams did. Is that “fair” to the Twins and indicating if they are a good team or not?
There is also a lot of luck here, and umpiring also. Now, you’d hope that would wash out in 162 games, but for one team, in one year, it is certainly possible (likely, even, that it happens to a team or two) that they have more bad (or good) luck than predicted.
I think Leyland’s point about the DH is wrong because teams in AL and NL do not compete with each other for playoff spots.
The real issue is the unbalance schedule and competing teams out of one league facing different opponents in interleague play.
I think some of the ideas are interesting, btw.
I particularly find the only 8 hitters idea fascinating. I’m not sure I am in favor of it, but it is an interesting idea that should be looked at.
I personally find the 2-4 at bats in an NL game by pitchers to be super boring (Kind of like watching Drew Butera hit). Also, there isn’t that much strategy in teh NL. A HUGE percentage of the moves are always the same. If the moves are always the same, it isn’t interesting. I’d much rather watch a professional hitter hit, than watch a pitcher hit, just as I’d rather watch a professional pitcher pitch than an OFer pitch.
I like that the leagues have different rules. That’s one of the best things about baseball.
But I also think interleague play is incredibly stupid.
I like the pitcher hitting. It’s very “baseball”. Let’s say runners on 2nd and 3rd, you intentionally walk the next batter so you face the pitcher with 2 outs, he hits a Texas Leaguer for the RBI. That’s baseball. There is more strategy. If your guy is dealing, and so is the other guy, and one run could win it, runners on with 1 out, do you pinch hit your pitcher and take him out, risk using a bullpen? That’s WAAAAAY more interesting than just going with what you have on an AL team. With the AL you basically trot out your best hitters and pitchers and let them play until they aren’t effective, that’s not strategic. It’s boring.
As for the playoff discussion. I don’t think it’ll be a crap shoot once they add the extra wild card. For the people who say “just 2 teams from each league, make the regular season mean more” no, that makes it mean more for a few teams. The extra wild card makes winning your division mean more because you get a bye, plus it means more for fringe teams. The extra rounds also makes it less of a crap shoot and harder for the wild card teams that get hot to stay hot throughout the playoffs.
The interleague discussion about fairness really has nothing to do with DH/no DH as I don’t really think that matters. If a pitcher gets hurt swinging a bat, well that’s just what people who say baseball players aren’t athletes point to and it’s embarrassing. The unfairness is the scheduling. As said before, it’s always unfair.
I want to see a study if there are teams who face aces more often by chance. If so, how much worse are their records. A while back someone said that the NL Central has the best hitting teams, so my argument that the NL East having great pitching puts all those teams at a disadvantage. Ever think that the Central has better hitting numbers because they face awful pitching? Everything in baseball is relative. You’ll never get it totally fair. The fields have different dimensions. I mean, Robinson Cano hits in the middle of the best lineup in one of the most hitter friendly parks in a league and a division that doesn’t exactly have a surplus of pitching. How much worse would his numbers be if he played in a pitchers park on a bad team in a pitching rich division? Everything in baseball is unfair.
Seriously, I don’t need to see a .200 wOBA guy at the plate, at the major league level, ever. Ever. That’s not baseball.
That’s pretty much the exact opposite of baseball, if we center baseball around the “pitcher-batter confrontation”. Having pitchers hit is like having a major league pitcher face a high school batter. That’s not baseball.
I don’t want to see Jayson Werth pitch either.
Making the playoffs > Getting a 1st round bye.
The two ideas you listed in the quote contradict each other.
If there is no wildcard, then winning your division is paramount. There’s no way that can be anything but greater than the playoff scenarios utilizing the wildcard.
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I think the playoffs are already a crapshoot, in terms of the best team doesn;t always win.
But at least with just 2 playoff teams, the “crapshoot” results in either the #1 or #2 team going to the world series. If you have 6 playoff teams per league, then the “crapshoot” could literally, result in a world series that features the 6th best teams in each league.
If MLB is going to continue to add playoff teams, I’d rather just go to one league, and have an 8-team playoff, seeding the teams 1-8.
Baseball is inching its way toward the NHL, NBA, and NFL where 50% of the teams make the playoffs. Baseball had something meaningful and unique, and is now settling for just doing whatever milks more money out of the games. But, that’s business.
To get around the scheduling issue, I think we should use a system where the baseball writers rank all the teams every week. Then when the season is over the #1 ranked team simply plays the #2 ranked team in a 7 game series. Mean while the #3 plays the #4. However, should the team that wins the first series barely win and the team winning the second series wins by a landslide, the writers should be allowed to decide who the final winner is by vote. We could sell the name rites to each series and play them in neutral parks where tickets are easy to sell like NYC and LA.
“Frankly, it’s unfair for Leyland to get to play the Pirates while the Indians have to play the Reds.”
Good call.
It has always been my opinion that the unbalanced schedule and the wild card don’t make sense together. Because of the unbalanced schedule, wild-card standings (in particular) compare apples and oranges.
Interleague play, I suspect, has less effect on strength of schedule than playing nearly half your games against one division (your own). Props to Zito Fan and AJS, though – the idea of aiming for an aggregate .500 record among a team’s interleague opponents is clever. Like probably everyone else here, I have my own scheme for choosing interleague matchups (if you’re curious, see my blog, my name is the link).
It was interesting watching this discussion split into 4 threads – playoffs, realignment, DH, and interleague play. I regard the DH as a separate issue, but the other 3 are interrelated and I’ve been thinking about them a lot lately.