MLB revamp

There's gotta be a better way

The MLB postseason has lots of problems. The main one: it is too easy for a substandard team to get hot at the right time and swipe a championship. There is no advantage for teams that compile a great record with consistent and sustained excellence over the course of a long season. In some ways they are at a disadvantage. This state of affairs requires a revamp of both the regular season and the postseason, which will generate more interest in the game.

There should be a regular season champion. It used to be a big deal to win the pennant in the National and American Leagues. A team that winning the pennant meant they would soon play in the World Series for the World’s Champeenship. But the concept of winning a pennant has been watered down with six division champions each season.

The NHL rewards the President’s Trophy to the team with the best regular season record. I love that. It’s a tangible reward for sustained excellence during the season. But I’m not sure how much teams and players covet that trophy. The Stanley Cup is the real prize. A lot of folks see winning the President’s Trophy as a curse or a kind of jinx. The President’s Trophy-Stanley Cup double as been done just eight times since the first Prez Trophy was awarded in 1986 and has not been done since the Blackhawks in the 2012-13 season. But so what if there is a curse? Finishing a long regular season with the best record is a significant achievement and should be recognized as such.

Which brings me back to baseball. Let’s not only recognize the regular season champion, but let’s also reward them. And I mean a serious reward. I’m talking about $100 million. Not a typo. MLB revenues are north of $11 Billion. They can find an amount of less than 1% to create something that will garner a ton of attention. Imagine the season winding down in September and a handful of teams are battling it out for that $100 million prize. You don’t think teams and players would battle strenuously for that? (Note: how the prize money is distributed would undoubtedly become a bone of contention in collective bargaining. Players collectively get paid roughly 55% or so of league revenues. I’d give it all to the players but that’s just me.)

With three weeks to go the Dodgers’ 86 wins currently (as of Monday) tops the majors. The Yankees, Orioles, Guardians, Phillies, Brewers, Padres, and Diamondbacks are all within just six games of that mark. The Royals and Braves are a little more back, but with a hot streak could contend for the best mark. That’s ten teams who would be ferociously fighting for a $100 million prize.

A problem with this scenario is the unbalanced schedule MLB teams play. They don’t play the same number of games against every opponent. And that means some teams strength of schedule is either too easy or too difficult. Let’s change that. Keep the divisions so we can still have six division champions every season. But change the schedule. Teams will now play every other team six times per season, three home and three away. That leads to another problem: Six games against 29 opponents works out to 174 total games. Twelve additional games would add two weeks to an already long season. Instead of adding two weeks to the calendar, we are going to have twelve double headers during the season. Players might complain, but there will be more revenue to go around this way. And when they complain I’ll remind them of the $100 million.

Another option would be to expand to forty clubs and play each opponent four times for a total of 156 games. A return to the season length of yesteryear. I’d love to see this happen but will never actually come to pass. We’ll keep it at 30 teams and add the twelve games and everybody plays everybody else six times. MLB is currently thirsting for expansion franchise fees and surely will add two more teams as soon as they have completed blackmailing/threatening various municipalities into building ever more luxurious/state-of-the art/expensive ballparks with public money. That will necessitate a change to the schedule format, but that’s a problem for another day.

So, our regular season champion has been crowned. The commissioner has presented the giant check for $100 million. What about the playoffs? Every team makes the playoffs and gets a chance to win the World Series. I know that sounds crazy but hear me out. If every MLB team has a chance to win a World Series tournament, wouldn’t that create more excitement and buzz in more towns and put more media coverage and eyeballs on the sport? Of course it would. More revenue from TV “partners”. More revenue from ticket sales, concessions, parking, and all the rest of the ways they visit our pockets. Plus it would just be plain old fun. Maybe someday we could add international teams into the mix?

What might the format be? I’m not getting into that granular level of detail here. It could look like the World Cup with group play funneling into elimination rounds of seven-game series. It could be a double or triple elimination tournament similar to the college world series. Whatever the format turns out to be it could be organized so it produces a League Championship Series in each league with the winners facing off in the Fall Classic. I am confident this could all be done in the month of October.

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