Should baseball abandon interleague play?

[Chimi]

I think we'll see the DH in both leagues coming soon.  And I look forward to the day.

[Guest]

Yeah, I don't mind inter-league at all, I can't stand the difference in rules.  At the same time, I hate the imbalanced schedule -- wish they could find a way to altger the number of divisional games and even out everything else.

 I can understand having the schedule be somewhat imbalanced due to travel and trying to generate divisional championship races, but 19 games against division rivals and only 6-7 against teams from other divisions (including one division from the other league) is ridiculous.  I'd like to see the schedule be closer to balanced and interleague reduced.

 

12 games against division rivals and 9 against intraleague teams and 4 per interleague team (a whole division + natural rival) would be a better way to go. 

 

For intraleague teams that would mean 2 home series and 1 away, but those could be flipped every other year (ie, Angels host Tigers 2x in 2015, Tigers host Angels 2x in 2016) 

 

12*4 + 9*10 + 4*6 = 162

Edited April 22, 2014 by ScottLux

[xboom28x]

I agree on fewer divisional games. With 19 of them currently, the first 6 don't really matter. You want to make April seem more important? Have 12 divisional games. 3 home, 3 road in April vs each team. Don't face them again until September where you repeat the April schedule.

[HaloFan85]

I didn't like it at first because of one of the reasons mentioned earlier in the thread - it made the World Series and All-Star games less intriguing.  But if you think about, it's only 20 games a year (lesser percentage of its total games than NBA, NHL, or NFL) and aside from crosstown rivalry week, it's just like the NFL in that all games are played against 1 division and the divisions will just rotate each year.

 

Keep the DH exclusive to the AL, and I can live with interleague play.

[dimitrig]

I agree on fewer divisional games. With 19 of them currently, the first 6 don't really matter. You want to make April seem more important? Have 12 divisional games. 3 home, 3 road in April vs each team. Don't face them again until September where you repeat the April schedule.

 

I agree, too. There are too many games against Oakland, Texas, Seattle, and Houston and not enough against the East and Central. 

[Inside Pitch]

 I can understand having the schedule be somewhat imbalanced due to travel and trying to generate divisional championship races, but 19 games against division rivals and only 6-7 against teams from other divisions (including one division from the other league) is ridiculous.  I'd like to see the schedule be closer to balanced and interleague reduced.

 

12 games against division rivals and 9 against intraleague teams and 4 per interleague team (a whole division + natural rival) would be a better way to go. 

 

For intraleague teams that would mean 2 home series and 1 away, but those could be flipped every other year (ie, Angels host Tigers 2x in 2015, Tigers host Angels 2x in 2016) 

 

12*4 + 9*10 + 4*6 = 162

 

 

 

 

Id prefer anything other than the current system where one team may get stuck facing a cut-throat division vs another facing a bunch of weak sisters.

[AngelsFaninGA]

Also, I think "rivalry series" should be done away with. It's pretty annoying when you have to play 6 games against a team that's a perennial contender while your division rival gets to play 6 games against a cellar-dwellar (see: Rangers-Astros vs. Angels-Dodgers or A's-Giants). 

[Mauch Won]

Keep interleague.   Realign into 3 leagues of 10 (National in the east, American in the central, and Pacific for the west) with the teams being arranged geographically.  

 

6 home and 6 away against the other nine teams within your league for 108 games.

 

3 home or away games against the teams in the other leagues for an additional 60 games. 168 game season.   Alternate the home and away games against the other leagues so that fans can see every team within a two year span. 

 

Eliminate the All Star Game but have a two day break in the middle of the season.   League champs and best five teams go to the playoffs which is seeded into an 8 team bracket. 

 

The realignment reduces travel which causes wear and tear on the players.  It also increases games in the teams time zone (except for Texas and Houston which would stay wit the west coast teams.) which is good for revenue.  Natural local rivalries have some teeth.  If the Angels and Dodgers don't like sharing SoCal now, what happens when they play 12 games against each other a season and a spot in the playoffs is on the line?

Edited April 22, 2014 by Mauch Won

[EDinTUSTIN]

no. inter-league play is fine.

 

NFL does it, NHL does it, NBA does it.....

The NBA, NHL, and the NFL do not have seperate leagues. They are split into conferences. There are no rule or procedural differences between conferences. The AL and NL in MLB are separate leagues - the AL using a DH and the NL having the pitchers hit.

[EDinTUSTIN]

I think we'll see the DH in both leagues coming soon.  And I look forward to the day.

Then there is no reason to have two separate leagues.

[Hubs]

Keep interleague.   Realign into 3 leagues of 10 (National in the east, American in the central, and Pacific for the west) with the teams being arranged geographically.  

 

6 home and 6 away against the other nine teams within your league for 108 games.

 

3 home or away games against the teams in the other leagues for an additional 60 games. 168 game season.   Alternate the home and away games against the other leagues so that fans can see every team within a two year span. 

 

Eliminate the All Star Game but have a two day break in the middle of the season.   League champs and best five teams go to the playoffs which is seeded into an 8 team bracket. 

 

The realignment reduces travel which causes wear and tear on the players.  It also increases games in the teams time zone (except for Texas and Houston which would stay wit the west coast teams.) which is good for revenue.  Natural local rivalries have some teeth.  If the Angels and Dodgers don't like sharing SoCal now, what happens when they play 12 games against each other a season and a spot in the playoffs is on the line?

 

 

That's too radical.

 

However, I do like the idea of reducing the number of divisions.

 

I'm all for going to 32 teams… then having two divisions of eight in each league. If they moved the Royals and the Twins to the AL West, that would be 7. If they added a team in Portland or San Antonio, that would be 8. The other 8 AL Teams could be the East.

 

In the NL, you're probably looking at the 5 NL West teams, Yet there aren't a lot of teams to add. Assuming they get the other expansion team, they still need two. If you take the Cardinals, that breaks up a bunch of rivalries. The Brewers I suppose work, but it's tough. Who else works?

 

There are points to a geographical realignment, but too much tradition to break up.

 

There are 8 teams in the Western and Mountain Time Zones. The NL West plus Angels, A's, and the Mariners.

 

There could be a Great Lakes division, with Minnesota, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Detroit, Toronto, Pittsburgh, and the two Chicago teams.

 

Then you have an Eastern Division with the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, Orioles, Nationals, and Philadelphia.  But that's only 6.

 

There are 8 teams in the South or Midwest… Royals, Cardinals, Braves, Rangers, Astros, Cincinnati Reds plus the Rays and Marlins.

 

Geographically, then, even if they added two teams in the Midwest or East or South and moved the others. Like adding San Antonio and Virginia and pushing one of the teams from the South/Midwest division to the Great Lakes and one of them to the East….still challenging set-up.

 

I can see them more likely doing four team divisions, adding two teams, one in San Antonio and one Virginia or Portland… for this set-up, Virginia works better.

 

You'd have an AL West of the Angels, A's, Mariners, and Diamondbacks or Rockies. The other four NL West teams make up the NL West.

 

You'd take the AL Central, and move the Royals out. They'd go with the Texas teams and be the AL South. The other four AL Central teams would be the AL Central. 

 

The AL East then loses Tampa and stays the same. The Rays, Marlins, Braves and new Virginia Team would be the NL South. The NL East then loses the Braves and Marlins, but picks up either the Reds or Pirates. 

 

Then you'd have four divisions of four in each league. 

 

Travel is reduced. 

 

You'd play 14 games against the three teams in your division. That's 42. Four three games sets. Against the other three divisions in your league,  6 games each minimum. That's 72 more. The 48 games left I'd do a three game set against every team in the other division. Then you've got parity. Or do 3 games against two whole opposite league divisions. That'd be 24. The final 24 games you could play against another division in your own league, doing two home and home three game series each. That would either rotate on a three year basis, or you could do it based on previous year record, ie, Angels and Mariners would be playing an extra four games against the bottom two finishers in the rest of the league in each division while the D'Backs and the A's would be playing the top two finishers. It's how the NFL does it.

[mtangelsfan]

Then there is no reason to have two separate leagues.

 

Why not?  All the other major sports have two seperate leagues and yet their rules are all the same.

[Adam]

Keep interleague play. Get rid of league play. Move the fences back 150 feet and use a golf ball instead of a baseball. And get rid of relief pitchers. 

[Angelfish]

I really liked it when it started, but it is stale now. Everybody has friends who are fans of NL teams. It was fun to see the Angels play the Mets, the Braves, the Pirates, the Reds, etc. But it's never balanced. The first nine games the Angels played against the Cardinals were in St. Louis. And what it does to intraleague play is silly. Are we playing the Red Sox three times, four times, six times or seven times this year? Before interleague play you played the AL East teams 12 times an the AL West teams 13 times. That was just about perfect. Now it's all a jumbled mess. And like someone mentioned earlier, how is it fair that the Angels have to keep playing the Dodgers every year while the Yankees get the Mets and the White Sox get the Cubs? We might lose a wild card spot to one of those teams one of these days simply because we went 2-4 against our rival and they went 6-0.

[Taylor]

I love interleague. Not sure why people don't like it.

[AngelsLakersFan]

Keep inter league play. Make the DH universal.

MLB will not be expanding to 32 teams as owners don't want to split revenues even more with teams that will inevitably be smaller market and will take the Astros approach to buildings a winner.

15 teams in each league is the new normal.

 

The players union could have a say in this. With revenues skyrocketing we are seeing player salaries reach insane levels, and yet these salaries still are lagging behind the growth in revenues. The players Union will want the usual cut of the pie, and significant increases in league minimums and potentially JOBS will be put on the table. 

 

Also I grew up loving the DH, but NL baseball is real baseball. It'd be a shame to end that tradition. There is no logical reason for the existence of the DH in the first place.