how about an unbalanced schedule Topic

jimmystick
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And wait a minute...... Hamilton?   I've never played in that world.  You've got me confused with somebody else.  Get your story straight before you start spewing words from your punch-me mouth on your punch-me internet face.
12/17/2010 11:36 AM
MikeT23
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Haha, you're right.   I guess all jimmys are dumb.

I'd love to see you design a schedule with 14 sets of 3 interleague games.    Imagine the thrill of the Yanks/Pirates and Sux/Marlins in September.
12/17/2010 11:48 AM
csherwood
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Let's take jimmytard's analysis a step further - why not just get rid of leagues and divisions, play each team 3 home and 3 road games, and take the top 8 teams at the end of the season into the playoffs? Other than the fact that it would kill rivalries and kkill revenues, at least you would have a completely balanced playoff. If you are going togo as far as he goes, go all the way and do it like this. Oterwise, leave it al alone - if the system ain't broke, don't fix it.
12/17/2010 12:01 PM
jimmystick
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It is broke.  The NHL and NBA play every team in the opposite conference at least once a year.  The NFL can't do this because it's only a 16 game schedule, but 25% of their games are vs the opposite conference. 

I'm a White Sox fan, I'm sick of playing what feels like 19,000 games a year vs the Indians and Tigers.  I'd love to Ryan Howard, Jose Reyes, Albert Pujols, Tim Lincecum, and Prince Fielder face the Sox every year.  Those games are no more meaningless than the Indians and Royals or Nationals and Mets playing 7 times in September.

It wouldn't kill rivalries or revenues.  If the Big 10 can put Ohio State and Michigan in seperate divisions then MLB can surely play a balanced schedule with interleague play.
12/17/2010 12:25 PM
tecwrg
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And your "proof" that MLB is broke is . . . ?

The only thing I'm hearing you say is that your tired of seeing the White Sox play the sucky teams in their division.

Yet for every game you end up playing against the Phillies or the Giants, you also will get to see such gems as the Pirates and the Astros and the D-Backs.

And for the record . . . it may not "kill" rivalries or revenues, but it would certainly have an adverse effect on them.
12/17/2010 12:34 PM
MikeT23
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Actually revenue would take a hit.  A rather substantial one.   Baseball isn't like the NFL in that they play 10 times as many games.   It isn't like the NBA/NHL in that their stadiums are 3-5 times as large(and they still play twice as many games).   Yankees/Red Sox would sell out on a Tuesday afternoon.   Yankees/ Pirates struggle to fill half the stadium at any time.   More games vs. the Pirates and less against Boston would result in a pretty substantial gate hit. 

12/17/2010 12:42 PM
csherwood
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Posted by jimmystick on 12/17/2010 12:25:00 PM (view original):
It is broke.  The NHL and NBA play every team in the opposite conference at least once a year.  The NFL can't do this because it's only a 16 game schedule, but 25% of their games are vs the opposite conference. 

I'm a White Sox fan, I'm sick of playing what feels like 19,000 games a year vs the Indians and Tigers.  I'd love to Ryan Howard, Jose Reyes, Albert Pujols, Tim Lincecum, and Prince Fielder face the Sox every year.  Those games are no more meaningless than the Indians and Royals or Nationals and Mets playing 7 times in September.

It wouldn't kill rivalries or revenues.  If the Big 10 can put Ohio State and Michigan in seperate divisions then MLB can surely play a balanced schedule with interleague play.
There is your problem. You are a White Sux fan.
12/17/2010 1:50 PM
csherwood
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And your NFL analogy is seriously flawed. Close to 40% of each teams schedule (6 of 16 games) are within your division.
12/17/2010 1:53 PM
AlCheez
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Posted by MikeT23 on 12/17/2010 11:49:00 AM (view original):
Haha, you're right.   I guess all jimmys are dumb.

I'd love to see you design a schedule with 14 sets of 3 interleague games.    Imagine the thrill of the Yanks/Pirates and Sux/Marlins in September.
Combining that with the 8 games you have to get in against all the other teams in the league would be awesome as well. The 2 game series rules!
12/17/2010 2:16 PM
AlCheez
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Posted by jimmystick on 12/17/2010 12:25:00 PM (view original):
It is broke.  The NHL and NBA play every team in the opposite conference at least once a year.  The NFL can't do this because it's only a 16 game schedule, but 25% of their games are vs the opposite conference. 

I'm a White Sox fan, I'm sick of playing what feels like 19,000 games a year vs the Indians and Tigers.  I'd love to Ryan Howard, Jose Reyes, Albert Pujols, Tim Lincecum, and Prince Fielder face the Sox every year.  Those games are no more meaningless than the Indians and Royals or Nationals and Mets playing 7 times in September.

It wouldn't kill rivalries or revenues.  If the Big 10 can put Ohio State and Michigan in seperate divisions then MLB can surely play a balanced schedule with interleague play.
Why does the Big 10 have any relevancy here? OSU-Michigan is a protected crossover game, which means putting them in different divisions made it possible for them to play more often than they do now, not less.
12/17/2010 2:18 PM
asher413
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In my opinion- the balanced schedule makes the division championships silly.  I support unbalanced if it makes winning a division a feat, instead of happening to be with 3 teams worse than you out of the 16 that played VERY similar schedules.
12/17/2010 2:18 PM
jimmystick
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I actually think division winners should get automatic playoff bids, but the teams should be re-seeded.  I heard recently the NFL would consider doing this due to the crazy NFC West and the possibility of an 8-8 team hosting a home playoff game and a 10-6 team missing the playoffs altogether.  I think in the NFL and MLB, the division winners should make the playoffs, but if a wild card has a better record, they should get the higher playoff seed.

I don't think my idea would lower revenues or mitigate rivalries at all.  In fact, I am doubtless that in the shorterm it would INCREASE revenues.  It is a proven fact that there are higher attendances for interleague games than intraleague games in MLB.  In the longterm, new rivalries would likely form, and the existing ones will not likely diminish.  Red Sox-Yankees, Cubs-Cardinals, Dogers-Giants.... these will NEVER EVER go away.  More interleague games, in addition to balancing the schedules and making everything fair for all teams, can also create new rivalries and amplify the ones that we sort of in development now.  Several years back the White Sox and Brewers had a great rivalry.  

In fact, if ESPN only showed 8 Sox/Yanks games per year instead of 18 or 19 or whatever it is now, aren't the games even MORE meaningful?  There's even more on the line because you have fewer opportunities to get even or move ahead if you fall behind in the series early. 

tec my "proof" that the scheduling is broke is because it's BOOOOOORING.  Like I said, I get sick of seeing the same two teams play over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, year after year after year after year after year after year after year.  Mix it up a little!  Throw me a curveball!  Surprise me with something else!  And csher, it isn't that I'm sick of playing sucky teams in my division and want to play sucky teams in other divisions.  Yes, that's a byproduct of a balanced schedule.  No, it's that that teams in opoosite league are better or worse than the ones I see now.... It's, quite simply, that they are DIFFERENT TEAMS, than the ones I see now.

Nobody can present a logical reason why this schedule wouldn't work.  All anybody has said is my 3 problems are I'm a tard, I know nothing about baseball, and I'm a White Sux fan.  The first two are simply not true, and the 3rd is irrelevant. 
12/17/2010 7:36 PM
AlCheez
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I'm pretty sure it won't work because it literally won't work.   First of all, in your scenario, there's 15 teams in the opposite league, not 14, so you'd need 157 games - that makes it impossible to give teams an equal number of home and away games - and your interleague scenario would actually mean that every year half the teams would have 3 more home games than the other half - unless you tried to make up for it somehow by spliting some of the 8 game intraleague sets unevenly.

But even setting that aside, your setup puts a ton of constraints on the schedule that I think would be next to impossible, if not literally impossible, to meet.  First, you have to have interleague play at all times, which as an underlying constraint is more of a complicated issue than you're allowing.   Secondly, having 8 games against teams in your league makes it impossible to play any 3 game sets in intraleague play - unless you want to start playing a bunch of single game series.   Weeks where teams play 3 teams would have to a norm, and I can assure you the players aren't going to sign off on scenarios where they are potentially traveling after every other game on any kind of regular basis.

I would actually be in favor of bring more (though not complete) balance back to the intraleague schedules, but I don't think full interleague play would ever be particularly feasible for baseball - scheduling is a much different animal when you have to play virtually every day as opposed to only half of the days like the NBA/NHL.
12/17/2010 9:45 PM
grivfmd1
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Posted by grivfmd1 on 12/12/2010 12:03:00 PM (view original):
I know this is not the 1st comment on the present schedule but I don't think I have seen a specific alternative - so here is an option

division titles do not mean much when the schedule is balanced at 10 games per league opponent and 3 per non-league opponent - at present this is 18.52% of games

How about:
                  18 games against 3 divisional opponent  =  54
         8 games against 12 other league opponents  =   96
               3 games against 4 non- league opponent  =   12
                                                                        total games  162        this would be 1/3 of a teams games

Make the divisional title MEAN something
since my intent was only to make the division title MEAN SOMETHING and not balance the whole schedule (or accoount for bad divisions/tanking which should be dealt with on a league basis) I am going to repropose my original schedule which would be reasonably simple to implement:

the interleague remains unchanged rotating through the 4 divisions - total 12 games
the intraleague out of division games are played as home/away 4 game series = 8 per opponent - 96 total
the intradivisional are played as 3, 3 game home/away series totaling 18 per opponent - 54 total (33.3% of the games instead of 18.5%)

this fits the 162 game schedule - and the division title should mean that you are the best in the division
12/18/2010 8:40 AM
tecwrg
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@jimmy - the fact that YOU think the current unbalanced schedule in MLB is "boring" is hardly proof that it it "broke".  I can say that I don't like the DH rule (I don't), and because of it baseball is "broken".  That doesn't make it true, and in fact is a pretty silly argument.

As the unbalanced schedule in HBD: as much as I would love it, because I do think that it makes the division rivalries more interesting and important, I just think it's not practical due to the reasons already stated . . . tanking/abandoned teams in some divisions can completely throw off the integrity of playoff races.  Unfortunately, the current balanced schedule is the only way to mitigate that.

Some high-quality competetive worlds could tolerate and thrive with an unbalanced schedule, but I can't think of a way for a "one size fits all" scheduling solution to fit all worlds.
12/18/2010 9:24 AM
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