Commissioner Bud Selig told Chris Russo on SiriusXM’s Mad Dog Radio that he’s confident in the Mets, not considering contraction and open to realignment and expanding the playoffs. Here are the details and other highlights:
- The Mets asked for and obtained a loan from MLB, but they have not asked for a second loan, despite reports to the contrary.
- Though Selig did not tell Mets owner Fred Wilpon to hire new GM Sandy Alderson, he encouraged the Mets to hire his longtime friend. “He’s very competent," Selig said of Alderson. "Very, very, very smart.”
- MLB has “not discussed contraction at all.”
- However, Selig is open to changing the structure of baseball's leagues and divisions. “Realignment is something that in the future I really want to look at particularly before I leave.” It’s not currently a priority for Selig, who likes some geographical realignment.
- MLB is “working on” adding two teams to the playoffs and we could see changes as soon as 2012.
“MLB is “working on” adding two teams to the playoffs and we could see changes as soon as 2012.”
Why?
money
How are they going to add more teams when the season is long enough as it is. We started in March this year and will be done just before November. Adding more teams extends the season even longer. I have loved going to Phillies playoff games the past few years, but it has been extremely cold at a few of them. I am not looking forward to a snow delay.
Only a few teams making it makes it much more special. Basketball and Hockey let (seemingly) everyone in and it is just dumb. I went a very long time without seeing the Phillies in the playoffs and when they finally did, I felt like we accomplished something.
They’ll probably shorten the regular season, say 2 games, and maybe add a 3 game playoff series.
Maybe the way it would only work is by adding 2 more roster openings or even 3…and then actually schedule DH. But that could also turn into a mess with rainouts….and of course the important $$$ that the owners lose with a DH, in their eyes.
I don’t like it…and I liked the 3 Division alignment. I agree that Houston going to the AL West makes sense. Never liked the changing of leagues but with MIL going to NL….might as well fix the Houston in Central deal.
If you are going to have 2 extra teams it might be best of 3..I would imagine. Maybe less days off obviously in between series. I just don;t like the smell of it. Let Hockey and Basketball bastardize their sports. Baseball does not have to keep catering to trying to be like the other sports to remain popular. You have been trying to fix the pace of game, getting rid of the PED….fixing the draft? (I hope) So that teams who need the help do not pick players only based on sign ability.
I wish the fans could vote on these issues. The only people I know of that are in favor of expanding playoffs are league officials, players, and coaches. I haven’t heard one FAN say they want the playoffs to be expanded. Gee, I wonder why…
It’s the tip of the iceberg. Soon, baseball will just be like basketball and hockey and the regular season won’t even be worth watching.
As a Jays fan adding teams obviously has a nice ring to it. But at the same time, it kind of feels like a potentially cheap way in… But Raygunpunx is right.. teams make the play offs, fans fill the seats.
Unless you are the Rays
I believe it’s to make a difference between those teams that win their divisional pennant and those that win the wild cards. I believe the two extra teams will be two extra league wildcard slots. The wildcards of each league would have a three-game (or possibly one game) series to see who plays the first seed of the LDS.
Even after winning the wildcard series, all of the division leaders will have had a couple days extra rest.
As a Blue Jays fan I love the terms, “realignment” and “expanded playoffs”
Radical Realignment
If you want to (1) blow it up and start over by (2) focusing on rivalries which (3) saves travel time and expenses or (4) just start arguments on MLB Trade Rumors:
AL WEST > Dodgers – Angels – Oakland – San Francisco – Seattle
AL CENTRAL > White Sox – Cubs – St. Louis – Kansas City – Milwaukee
AL EAST > Yankees – Mets – Boston – Philadelphia – Pittsburgh
NL WEST > San Diego – Arizona – Colorado – Houston – Texas
NL CENTRAL > Minnesota – Detroit – Cleveland – Cincinnati – Toronto
NL EAST > Atlanta – Florida – Tampa Bay – Baltimore – Washington
Chicago would burn if The White Sox and the Cubs were division rivals. Terrible idea, you know how hard baseball season is already? ps I am kidding around.
That actually makes a ton of sense but I don’t see the league making that radical of a shake up. I don’t see many if any teams changing leagues.
No one ever seems to remember that Selig proposed something very much like this in the 90s.
I too would like to see his outlines proposal. I also was watching teletoon and ytv throughout most of the 90’s so I wasn’t keeping up on my baseball back then.
I like everything except the AL East. Pittsburgh in with 4 of (maybe even the top 4?) the highest spenders in the game? I’m pretty sure even the most diehard Pirates fan would just want to be contracted.
There’s also the issue of having an odd number of teams in each league. Either there’s always an interleague, or maybe put the Pirates in the NL East? Or there’s expansion.
Should it be desirable to keep six divisions of 5 teams, I think it would be fairer to put, say, Washington in the AL East. Their owner seems much more willing to spend. It would break up a “rivalry” between Baltimore and Washington though, and rivalries are a major part of your alignment.
As a whole, it seems like in an economic/payroll sense that this is a very fair alignment, with the exception of Pittsburgh. Cleveland might be at a disadvantage payroll-wise in their division, but two of those teams are already in their division in the current format.
At the last second, I flipped Pittsburgh and Toronto because Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are in the same state. Maybe I should have left it as is.
One obvious flaw in my realignment is placing four big market teams – Yankees, Mets, Boston and Philadelphia – in the same division. Under the current playoff structure, at least two of these teams would always miss the playoffs. I don’t believe either MLB or the TV networks would go for this.
I actually loved having the 4 big markets in one division. It may affect the post-season ratings, but I think it would cause a huge increase in regular-season ratings. Imagine if MLB scheduled plenty of inter-division games in September, and all 4 teams are in the race for the playoffs. Those ratings would be massive. I’d say it would indirectly increase ratings everywhere else as well. Imagine the intensity of the games in the other divisions as they try to beat out someone in the East for the wildcard.
Toronto would have more potential to compete in this new AL East, but I liked them as a central team. Payroll-wise they fit in quite nicely. Of course, as a Blue Jays fan, I’m a bit biased and would love to have them out of the AL East.
I think one way to appease the TV networks is the oft-discussed addition of two wildcards. That’d give three of the teams in the AL East the potential to make the playoffs. I’d also think the ratings would be massive if the two wild cards do a single game play-in if both are from the AL East. A three game series would be have huge ratings as well. I do agree though, that the current playoff format would be a nagative for ratings.
If you put all the massive market teams in the same division, all the other divisions would suffer. Teams from big markets have fans all over the country and they come out to (their city’s team) games just to see the incoming powerhouses.
Putting teams from the same city in the same division will shut out a lot of those “out of market” fans – something that can’t possibly be good for baseball…
I’m honestly shocked at how much I like this idea. Honestly, someone brought up interleague all year and I think that’s a consideration that I’d be for. No other sport really adheres to something like that and a regional schedule would really cut down on travel days, which benefits the players.
Not to mention you’ve got most of the biggest markets slugging it out with each other which would likely only increase parity, though at the expense of playoff ratings (Which would likely be made up for with the additional rivalry games).
It’s got its problems, but so does the current system.
Well that is radical. Like crazy radical.
Toronto in the NL Central? Pitt in the AL east? Might as well contract them then….and do what they did in football in the 40’s…when they combined 2 teams together beacuse one was so bad and they both had money problems. Philly and Pitt could be one.
To be fair, if professional baseball worked the same as professional European football, the Pirates would be stuck in AAA.
As an Uruguayan who had a great time enjoying this World Cup and starting to watch Suarez in Liverpool and Cavani in Napoli…after not paying attention to soccer for years…I can say I do not understand how these leagues wprk at all. Especially trades…or players on loan? Window for moving? And like you point out…a team could be dropped from the top league and be sent down? Crazy stuff. My father, who was 6 when Uruguay beat Brazil in 1950 and heard it on the radio….does not even understand it all and he watches and follows all the games.
Having two teams from one city constantly play in the same division (hence, the same opponents) would ruin baseball. There’s a reason why teams from the same localities are in different leagues – it widens the fanbase…
Not bad. I would switch the AL Central teams with the NL Central teams and I’d switch Seattle and San Diego.
So Atlanta wins the NL East for at least the next 5 straight years.
I’d take that, but you have the Central backwards. Should be:
NL CENTRAL > White Sox – Cubs – St. Louis – Kansas City – Milwaukee
AL CENTRAL > Minnesota – Detroit – Cleveland – Cincinnati – Toronto
If I would realign divisions, i would make it more like either the old time baseball standings (scrap divisions, the rivalries can still play as much as they normally do) or do it like the NBA (not as logical because of how few playoff teams there are, but at least there can be 3 teams from one division in the playoffs, and not be bound to having divisional rivals be barred from playing in round 1)
There needs to be no realignment, just revert to no divisions and let every team play each other equal times at home and road, and the best 4-6 records play in the playoffs. Easy.
Divisional baseball has been a massive failure in terms of logic. It wasn’t as apparent before the 90s switch, but it certainly has made MLB a complete joke (logically) over the last 20 years or so. Unbalancing the schedule = a terrible, disgusting, classless move that lets average teams feast on lesser opponents and not play good ones, thus creating “fake” good teams. Bud, you have screwed this game so badly, please, I beg of you, fix what you broke.
They are already GEOGRAPHICALLY aligned, so what the hell is selig talking about???
Who is closer New York and New York or Toronto and Tampa Bay? They are geographically aligned by longitude but I imagine they will realign due to actual closeness one team is to another.
I don’t think that they will put both New York or Chicago teams in the same division!!!
I wouldn’t either, I was just throwing it out there to make a point. If they do realign the teams it will be closeness together not east, west, central. The northeast region will have plenty enough teams to not put the Mets and Yankees or the White Sox and Cubs in the same division.
Pittsburgh.. wha..
it cant be perfect, and some sports are or were worse (N.O. saints in the NFL were in the west etc)
but how is PITT a central team, HOU is almost in the gulf, how is it a central team?
the problem is you cant have more than 10 teams in “the east”, right?; unless….
Houston is in the Central time zone. That’s why it’s in the Central division.
Then why is Texas Rangers in the West coast?
Because they are more west than Kansas City and Minneapolis (both the western most cities in the Central division).
A better question is why the Dallas Cowboys are in the NFC East.
Being as how I don’t watch football nor follow it I couldn’t answer anything about football. There shouldn’t be 6 teams in the NL Central and 4 in the AL West. Somethings gotta give there. But Texas also shouldn’t be put in the West when that entire state is considered central when you look at a map.
It was a rhetorical question.
But it doesn’t matter if a division has different number of teams. And making the AL and NL 15 teams each would require regular interleague matchups.
Having a division with a different amount of teams in it does make a difference. If one division has 6 teams and another has 4, then the division that has 4 teams in it only has to compete with 3 other teams for 1st place making it that much easier to obtain 1st place in that division and go to the playoffs while the division with 6 teams has 6 teams fighting for a division leader. You wouldn’t need regular interleague matchups as well. Not every team plays every team the same amount of times in a season. They could just play the teams they don’t play that much maybe 1 or 2 more series and that’s not that much, what 6 or 7 games max
You would need at least one interleague series going on at all times. If you have 15 teams in each league, they can’t all be playing another team in their league on the same day.
As I stated to another individual, there would be an odd number of teams with 15 teams each league. So 1 team in each league would have 3 days off, and that team would constantly rotate.
Please explain how 15 teams can all play against each other everyday. Unless one team plays a doubleheader against 2 different teams, it’s not possible. You would HAVE to have regular interleague matchups all year. I think MLB would prefer to have Interleague remain as it is (a weekend in May and most of June) so they can hype it.
If baseball goes ahead and adds another wild card spot for both leagues, then it makes divisional standings (thus number of teams in each division) even less relevant.
As I stated to another individual, there would be an odd number of teams with 15 teams each league. So 1 team in each league would have 3 days off, and that team would constantly rotate.
Adding another Wild Card spot is just stupid to begin with, so then what we have 5 teams in the playoffs. What happens then? Are they going to allow the team with the best record have a bye in terms of the bracket? Then that’s not fair to the rest of the other teams because then the best team (record wise) gets a nice 6-8 days off and become very well rested which could be good for them or they could be overly rested and make so many mistakes in their 1st series.
I don’t think having 3 days off would be a good solution. First, baseball isn’t really a sport that benefits from a lot of downtime. It’s better for hitters to keep hitting everyday (nothing is a substitute for real games) and starting pitchers to keep pitching every 5 days. Second, the off days would mess with rotations. A team with a strong top 2 or 3 pitchers would have a much greater advantage over a team with 4-5 quality pitchers. It would cause too much issues with keeping everyone on their turn while still playing your best pitchers. Third, there would have to be a point in the year where a team has a weekend off. That would really hurt the team’s income since weekends, especially during the summer, generate so much revenue. Owners don’t want to see an empty stadium on a weekend in July because their team has no one to play.
They can do a playoff between the 2 wild card teams.
But you act as if when I said have 3 days off would come every single week or so. The team would constantly rotate, so it wouldn’t hurt nor would it be a great advantage as you would tihnk. Your points are valid but I’m not saying what I said was a fool proof plan and would work perfectly as it’s just something I thought of off the top of my head. I’m sure if it gets tweeked it could be interesting.
It’s difficult to really conceptualize the 3 off day solution since I’m guessing schedule making is a complicated process without the information MLB has when they do it.
It’s a difficult situation for MLB. Expansion is pretty much impossible at this time given the economy (finding suitable cities was difficult even when it wasn’t in bad shape) and they seem adamant against contraction (which is really what should happen).
I completely agree that it’s hard to see it happening with what we have to go off of. MLB probably makes the schedule during the season prior or right when the season ends and I’m sure it’s not easy. The teams that don’t get fans in the seats could be considered expendable. I don’t understand how the Rays make the playoffs and seats were still empty, I know times are rough in this economy right now but if you’re a Rays fan then tell me why no one goes to the games when they have a very small budget and still compete in that difficult AL East
I would like to see Arizona get flipped to the AL and Houston moved to the NL West so that all the divisions and the leagues have the same number of teams.
For scheduling purposes it would be nice to actually add two teams so that each league had 16 teams, and then move to an eight division format like the nfl. The nfl playoff format would work well too in that setup.
Even though Selig denies it, I see the league contracting before it expands. Since there are too many teams that aren’t doing well, they aren’t going to put more teams in the league.
exactly! half the ballparks are half-empty!
no way they expand, not now!
they may relocate, if anything
easy solution: combine the markets to have a filled stadium so we can have the Cleveland Indians of Pittsburgh or whatever haha
contract the mets.
Expand your mind.
All the small market teams that collect revenue sharing would be sad.
the only realignment needed is budt selling’s greedy brain
One of the jobs of every commissioner of every sport is to increase revenues in their sport. The head of any corporation would try to do the same.
Selig has his faults, but following Gordon Gecco’s “Greed is good …” motto isn’t one of them.
Instead of doing all that Bud, how about looking at ways to make the schedule a bit more balanced? It just doesn’t make sense that the 4th and 5th place teams in the toughest division in baseball play one of the harder schedules in baseball.
I know MLB has a ton more games than the NFL and it would be a logistical nightmare but I believe there has to be a way to make it work. Figure it out and you never have to worry about realignment.
Adding playoff teams, REALLY DUMB.
Its terrible and if it happens, whats the point of playing 162 games? Yeah, grind an entire season out too see potentially the 2nd and 3rd place teams in a division make the playoffs.. Sounds super exciting.
The only way it would work if they adopt MiLB playoff format.. The whole thing makes me sick.
Its all about the money. The commissioner of a league has to look at any way possible to make the league more money. Adding more playoff games add more TV dollars and more ticket sales. Is it smart in general? That is up for debate. Is it smart for the league and the owners? 100% it is.
My idea for radical realignment, barring expansion
5 Divisions of 6 teams.
WL: LA, SD, SF, ANA, SEA, OAK
ML: ARZ, COL, HOU, TEX, KC, STL
NL: ATL, PHI, WAS, FLA, NYM, PIT
AL: NYY, BAL, BOS, TB, TOR, DET
CL: CIN, CHC, CHW, MIL, MIN, CLE
Playoffs, top 2 in each division get 1. Division winners and top 2nd place team seeded 1-6, other 2nd place teams play a 1 game playoff for 7th/8th seed.
32 team setup:
4 leagues of 8 teams. Play teams in your own league 14 times, play another league 8 times (leagues rotate year to year).
Playoffs would be Japanese style playoffs.
Northeast Mets,Yankees,Red Sox,Blue Jays
Altantic Phils,Pirates,Nats,Oroiles
Southeast Altanta,Miami,Tampa Bay
Midwest Houston,Texas,KC,St. Louis,Colorado
North Central Twins,Brewers,White Sox,Cubs
Central Indians,Reds,Tigers
California,Angels,Dodgers,Giants,Padres,A’s
West Seattle,Arizona
10 man Lineup with DH and Pitcher in it and Inter League play all year round.
NFL is not really geographically because their should be one Division of each area and a Midwest and Alantic one added. In NBA New Orleans belongs in Southeast,Denver in Midwest and Minnesota in Central. NHL has no Midwest Division.
Selig is talking about realignment, contraction, which are essentially non-issues while neither talking nor doing anything about the massive and ridiculous disparities in revenue among clubs, which is the main factor keeping the Jays, Orioles, Pirates, et al in a position of perpetual non-competitiveness. This is par for the course for bumbling Uncle Bud.
6 teams make the Playoffs in each League with lets say the Rangers are the top team in AL they would face the worst team out of the six even if its from the West.