Realignment ideas from Rosenthal

[Dirty Turtles]

Re: Realignment ideas from Rosenthal

I'm in favor of realignment that gets the Pirates more games against the Phillies. It's crazy that a state with two teams in the same league play each other 6-7 times a year.

[BatsareBugs]

Re: Realignment ideas from Rosenthal

The Yankees driving up spending is pretty overblown. Despite the fact that they have the highest payroll, they've been hovering around $190-200 million a year for several years now. It's teams like Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington such who have been increasing their payroll over the past couple of years to improve through free agency or retain players, which ended driving up the price of the average free agent. We see mismanaged teams all over, but in baseball several organizations seem to understand their limitations and they build their team despite those limitations (Rays, even though they had a bunch of high draft picks because of a rough beginning, understand that a strong farm system that can consistently feed talent to the big league club will help sustain its success and help compete even against the "best teams" in the league). Most good-great players seem to develop rather quickly nowadays and six years is plenty to decide what a team will do to him. Most teams have been able to keep their star players especially in the middle markets.

[DonkeyJote]

Re: Realignment ideas from Rosenthal

The Yankees driving up spending is pretty overblown. Despite the fact that they have the highest payroll, they've been hovering around $190-200 million a year for several years now. It's teams like Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington such who have been increasing their payroll over the past couple of years to improve through free agency or retain players, which ended driving up the price of the average free agent. We see mismanaged teams all over, but in baseball several organizations seem to understand their limitations and they build their team despite those limitations (Rays, even though they had a bunch of high draft picks because of a rough beginning, understand that a strong farm system that can consistently feed talent to the big league club will help sustain its success and help compete even against the "best teams" in the league). Most good-great players seem to develop rather quickly nowadays and six years is plenty to decide what a team will do to him. Most teams have been able to keep their star players especially in the middle markets.

Exactly. Yes, the top three payrolls seemed poised to make the playoffs (Yankees, Red Sox, Philllies). But the other 5 playoff spots (if the season ended today) would go to #8, #10, #13, #15, #17, with #25 and 26 both within 2.5 games of a playoff spot. The Rays are #29, and they've done all right for themselves, even after letting a lot of their name players go this last offseason. The Pirates are 4.5 games out (now that baseball is making them spend money more) and they're #28. Heck, 5 of the 8 bottom teams in payroll are over .500.

[fugazi]

Re: Realignment ideas from Rosenthal

...... That's capitalism. ....

As a capitalist, you presumably support "competition"...

Realignment does need to break-up the Yanks and BoSox, and move their division rivals away from them...in a matter of speaking...to improve the competitive atmosphere.

2 leagues, 2 divisions per league (if not 1)... Fair field, respectively, for everybody. Balance Schedules if possible. I wanna know just how NY and Boston and others would look if they had to face tough opposition more frequently. Or, better put, Toronto and TB if they got to face more of the league. Unbalanced schedule...phooey. Sucks.

Keep it 14/16, too...who cares.

[Trevytrev11]

Re: Realignment ideas from Rosenthal

Exactly. Yes, the top three payrolls seemed poised to make the playoffs (Yankees, Red Sox, Philllies). But the other 5 playoff spots (if the season ended today) would go to #8, #10, #13, #15, #17, with #25 and 26 both within 2.5 games of a playoff spot. The Rays are #29, and they've done all right for themselves, even after letting a lot of their name players go this last offseason. The Pirates are 4.5 games out (now that baseball is making them spend money more) and they're #28. Heck, 5 of the 8 bottom teams in payroll are over .500.

My take is this.

Spending (unless done completely foolishly) is going to give you a chance almost every year. It affords you the ability to make large mistakes in free agency and still be able to recover and sustain.

The smaller teams, for them to compete every year, have to damn near be perfect in every facet of their off the field strategy. They can't afford large mistakes as they can set them back several years.

The Yankee's, Red Sox and Phillies and the like are going to be there almost every year, but you are going to see a revolving door of teams every year for those other 4 or 5 spots.

I think you see which of the other teams have the best player development because you see them much more often (Twins and Rays come to mind).

[DonkeyJote]

Re: Realignment ideas from Rosenthal

I also think how much money the teams spend isn't necessarily related to media market. San Diego has about the same number of people in it's media market as Minneapolis, yet the Twins spend nearly $80M more in payroll. Tampa and Denver are very close, yet the Rockies spend $47M more.

Every team has money. Especially with baseball's revenue sharing. They just don't spend it. Remember the report a couple years ago

And competitive balance? If you can't beat 'em, move on? That's the attitude we want to have here? Even if the Rays are in the central, they still have to go through the East to win division crowns.

Now I am in favor of ditching the unbalanced schedule. I think it makes the Wild Card races much more even, and I think it's better for the fans. I live near Seattle. I get tired of seeing the Mariners play the Rangers 19 or so times a year, and the Yankees 6 times. It's the same teams in town year after year. It's gotten dull. I want to see every team, not the same 3 teams all the time.

On another note, when it comes to a team switching the leagues, does anybody know why the Brewers aren't mentioned? I'm sure there's a reason, but it makes some sense, since they were an AL team for so long, and have strong rivalries with the other teams in the AL Central.

[BatsareBugs]

Re: Realignment ideas from Rosenthal

San Diego is a poor example. They were in the middle with payroll until the previous owner decided to screw over both his wife and the team. At the same time, MLB allowed Moorad to buy the team in installments over a period of time and until now (or so), Moores was still the majority and his divorce led to payroll being slashed completely.