Tanking and MLB

Yelling At Clouds

Post-darwinian
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Apparently some owners seem to think tanking is a problem, citing the drastic rebuilding efforts by Atlanta, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia - and the turnarounds in recent years by Houston and the Cubs - as being somehow bad for the sport. Tony Clark, president of MLBPA, suggested a lottery as a way of disincentivizing losing.

I don't really buy any of this - that teams are "losing on purpose" to improve their draft position, that a lottery would help, or that this is even a real problem for baseball - but I think there might be discussion to be had here.
 

Bozo Texino

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I'm with you. I can buy tanking over a 16 game season. I can buy tanking over an 82 game season. But 162 games? In a sport in which the draft is even more of a crapshoot than other sports? C'mon.

I feel like it's really more an example of lousy teams STAYING lousy until help can arrive from the minors. I vaguely recall a Gammons quote in which he chided the Astros for their poor performance. What were the pre-2015 Astros supposed to do? Waste valuable payroll space on big ticket free agents in order to finish third in the AL West?

EDIT: Spelling
 

FL4WL3SS

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Agreed, this discussion is ridiculous.

In other sports, you get an immediate return on your (tanking) investment. In baseball, you're likely 2-4 years away from seeing the fruits of that labor and even then, it's just one guy on an otherwise crappy team that fields 8 (or 9 in the AL) other guys. Teams stay bad for multiple years because even if you get the #1 draft pick 3 years in a row, you won't start seeing results for 3-6 years from that first draft - and even longer for all of those picks to make an impact together on the roster.

Tanking isn't really an issue in the NFL either because there are so many players on the field that the impact of a single player isn't worth the investment in tanking. It happens in years with generational QBs, but it rarely happens.

I think tanking is only an issue in the NBA and, to a lesser extent, the NHL, where impact players can have an immediate and pronounced impact.
 

Snoop Soxy Dogg

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Apparently some owners seem to think tanking is a problem, citing the drastic rebuilding efforts by Atlanta, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia - and the turnarounds in recent years by Houston and the Cubs - as being somehow bad for the sport. Tony Clark, president of MLBPA, suggested a lottery as a way of disincentivizing losing.

I don't really buy any of this - that teams are "losing on purpose" to improve their draft position, that a lottery would help, or that this is even a real problem for baseball - but I think there might be discussion to be had here.
I think this overstates things a bit - as does the term "tanking". Of course nobody's trying to lose games on purpose, not in the strict sense at least. Once the games start, the managers will put up the best teams possible, the pitchers will try to get guys out and the hitters will try to get on base.

But I think it's fair to say a lot of teams are not doing their utmost to build teams that would maximize win totals. There's a difference between the two, and the problem is really more the latter rather than the former.

Now, I'm not arguing the merits of the approach - if I were the GM of the Brewers or the Reds, I'd probably do the same. But at a broader level, I'm not sure it's good for baseball to have half of the entire NL looking pretty much non-competitive before spring training starts. There are competitive balance issues, entertainment issues, revenue sharing issues, labor issues - I mean it's February, and you have 40-50 relatively solid free agents sitting at home with no teams. I mean, you're always going to have a few teams that suck. MLB has to be worried about it. Tony Clark has got to be worried. As does Steinbrenner who's sending money to the Brewers. Scott Boras, etc.

At a macro level, I think this has got to be a worrying trend.
 

finnVT

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A lottery helps when the difference between picking 1 vs 4, say, is huge, but that seems less true in baseball than just about any other sport. As mentioned, the way teams do this in baseball isn't to pick #1 every year, but to have a bunch of years in a row with a high (top-5 or top-10) pick. That gives you a wave of talent that arrives together, at a time when salary is low allowing you to pick up big $ FAs right when the young talent is reaching the majors (and cheaply). The Cubs were a perfect example here, adding Lester, Heyward, et al, just as their slew of prospects are breaking out.

To the extent this is a problem, I think the more effective solution would be to make it so teams can't pick in the top 10 more than 2 consecutive years-- 3rd time it happens, everyone else bumps up a spot until you fall to 11. That way it's an unprotected pick, so adding those FAs becomes more painful, and you make it harder to produce a "golden generation" through many consecutive high picks.

I still don't think this would help that much. I think the main driver is if teams know they're not going to be that good, they don't want to spend on salary just to be slightly less bad. Having a much higher salary floor would, I think, be vastly more effective.
 

dynomite

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I don't really buy any of this - that teams are "losing on purpose" to improve their draft position, that a lottery would help, or that this is even a real problem for baseball - but I think there might be discussion to be had here.
I do think it's an interesting discussion, and I don't think it's ridiculous.

Take the 2013 the Houston Astros. Their opening day payroll was $22,062,600. The team went 51-111.

Clearly that team was at the very least not trying to win. On one hand, who cares? They're good now and skipped some meaningless 70-win seasons in between.

But think about it from the perspective of another owner, or a players union, or even from the local fan base. Instead of fielding a major league roster, the Astros just played their AAA team and collected their rewards: not only the #1 pick in the draft, but also a season worth of merchandise sales and TV revenue and gate receipts (attendance was 1.6M) for -- essentially -- free.

They didn't sign free agents, impacting that market.

They didn't attempt to present a worthy product on the field, a quasi-legal bargain offered in return for the long-term commitments entered into by TV networks and season ticket holders.

And they gave a clear competitive advantage to the other teams in the AL West, like the 96-win Oakland A's (who went 15-4 against them and came a game short of the Sox for the #1 seed) and the 91-win Texas Rangers (who went 17-2 (!) against them and came a game short of the 2 AL Wild Card teams).

Now, I'm not arguing any of that should be illegal, or that the league should necessarily change the rules to prevent it.

But I do understand the league's concern, especially as the Phillies, Brewers, and Reds enter seasons where they do not appear to be trying to contend.

I think this states it really well:

Now, I'm not arguing the merits of the approach - if I were the GM of the Brewers or the Reds, I'd probably do the same. But at a broader level, I'm not sure it's good for baseball to have half of the entire NL looking pretty much non-competitive before spring training starts. There are competitive balance issues, entertainment issues, revenue sharing issues, labor issues - I mean it's February, and you have 40-50 relatively solid free agents sitting at home with no teams. I mean, you're always going to have a few teams that suck. MLB has to be worried about it. Tony Clark has got to be worried. As does Steinbrenner who's sending money to the Brewers. Scott Boras, etc.
Again, perhaps this is fair play and shrewd strategy. But in a system of revenue sharing and guaranteed TV contracts and $100 tickets and publically financed stadiums, I can understand why people are uncomfortable with owners deciding to go "Major League" for a season or two.
 
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Yelling At Clouds

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I think this overstates things a bit - as does the term "tanking". Of course nobody's trying to lose games on purpose, not in the strict sense at least. Once the games start, the managers will put up the best teams possible, the pitchers will try to get guys out and the hitters will try to get on base.

But I think it's fair to say a lot of teams are not doing their utmost to build teams that would maximize win totals. There's a difference between the two, and the problem is really more the latter rather than the former.

Now, I'm not arguing the merits of the approach - if I were the GM of the Brewers or the Reds, I'd probably do the same. But at a broader level, I'm not sure it's good for baseball to have half of the entire NL looking pretty much non-competitive before spring training starts. There are competitive balance issues, entertainment issues, revenue sharing issues, labor issues - I mean it's February, and you have 40-50 relatively solid free agents sitting at home with no teams. I mean, you're always going to have a few teams that suck. MLB has to be worried about it. Tony Clark has got to be worried. As does Steinbrenner who's sending money to the Brewers. Scott Boras, etc.

At a macro level, I think this has got to be a worrying trend.
To be clear, I agree that this is happening. I don't agree that teams are doing this with the end goal of getting a higher draft pick in the same way that it happens in the NBA and possibly the NHL also (I don't follow hockey too closely). I think the high draft pick is benefit to this process rather than the end goal itself, in other words.

And interestingly, the Astros, one of the teams who have been a flashpoint in this discussion, also sort of illustrate the potential pitfalls of this. They had three consecutive #1 picks and only hit on one of them (granted, it was a pretty big hit). Really, other than Correa and Springer, their team was not built solely through the success of high draft picks - Altuve was an undrafted free agent, Keuchel was a 7th-rounder, McHugh was a waiver pickup, etc.
 

smastroyin

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A lottery doesn't stop tanking. Full stop. Baseball needs to embrace the things about it that make it unique. Instead they seem obsessed with trying to emulate other sports.

The real issues here should be explored. Does it actually hurt the product materially to have teams that are tanking? Does the league as a whole perform better with parity? Etc. With these answers, you can do things like address whether revenue sharing should be set up differently (e.g. you start to lose a cut if you continually have a terrible product) and whether there should be a salary floor to try and ensure some minimal attempt to put together a team. These create other issues, of course.

Personally I don't think tanking is that big of a deal in MLB. I don't think it's even as big a deal as people make it out to be in the NBA. Based on history, I'm not entirely sure that parity helps MLB revenues.

Anyway, it seems to me the root of the problem is this - the league has created a fairly nice safety net in the form of revenue sharing. This safety net makes it so that teams can lose 100 games and not really feel it as much at the bottom line. In fact, while it would require much more analysis than I have time for, the system may reward a team for being so bad compared to being mediocre. The real question, as I note above, is whether this is actually good or bad for MLB overall.

(Personally, my crazy idea to solve all of this is to break into two leagues again and have relegation)
 
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snowmanny

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There are two scenarios under which I suppose in theory I would want the Red Sox to tank (although in practice I imagine I would end up rooting for them in every game):

1. They completely sucked and there was a rarely good number one pick available (e.g. Griffey Jr., Harper).
2. They pretty much sucked and a few more losses would protect the first round draft pick.

Getting the third pick instead of the sixth pick means something to me as a Celtics or Patriots (lol) fan but not nearly as much to me here.
 
Dec 21, 2015
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Yeah, in the NFL it's an artifact of the 16-game season and very strong top-of-draft relative to the rest.

In the NBA, it's an artifact of there usually being, at most, 2-3 players available in the draft who can reverse the fortunes of the franchise (and some years, that number is 0).

In the NHL... wait, why is tanking a problem in the NHL? Is it, even? They have a lengthy and complex minors system that ought to blunt the impact of the draft. Is there some revenue-sharing stuff tied to finishing position? Careers for top players in the NHL can be very long, too. Theirs is the league most like baseball in this regard.

In baseball, maybe one year in five is there an obvious, consensus, franchise-altering #1-overall pick available. Ken Griffey Jr (1987), Chipper Jones (1990), A-Rod (1993), Adrian Gonzalez (2000), Joe Mauer (2001), David Price (2007), Bryce Harper (2010). The #2 overall pick would net you JD Drew (1997), Josh Beckett (1999), Justin Verlander (2004), Alex Gordon (2005), and a lot of variance beyond that. The #3 pick became Matt Williams (1986), Troy Glaus (1997) and Evan Longoria (2006), but also a lot of never-weres.

Meanwhile:
- Trout was drafted #25 overall
- Kershaw was #7
- Greinke was #6, and rather famously had a tough first few years in the majors
- CC Sabathia was #20
- Pujols went in the 13th round
- Maddux went in the 2nd round as did Tom Glavine; Randy Johnson went in the 4th round, and was 30 before he put it together; Biggio was #22 overall; Smoltz was in the 22nd round (!). Etc etc.
...and that leaves out all the amateur FAs including Miguel Cabrera, Felix Hernandez, Adrian Beltre, Pedro f'ing Martinez, and we might as well include Piazza

My point is, any team obviously or semi-obviously tanking in the last few months is not gaining much if any expected draft value, at the expense of their dignity and some very-real short-term ticket sales and TV coverage. You would expect that, all else equal, if one team is tanking and costing themselves money for little long-term gain, their competitors would love that display of irrationality.

Where MLB teams might have a valid complaint, however, is that when some team does something dumb like that (via fielding B-team lineups, keeping stars out on extended rehab stints, and of course trading MLB assets for Minors lottery tickets), the beneficiaries are scattered. The opponents scheduled in the second half of the season may not be evenly distributed among other teams competing for playoff spots and short-term success. Or those teams (who, say, get a minors callup facing them as a starter, instead of a being-held-out all-star SP) may have their benefits vary day-to-day, series-to-series. So if TB is tanking and the MFY get 12 late-season games against them and BOS only gets 7, we'd be miffed by that. I can see that creating a common cause by owners, to try and enforce some good sense.
 

Hoodie Sleeves

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But I think it's fair to say a lot of teams are not doing their utmost to build teams that would maximize win totals. There's a difference between the two, and the problem is really more the latter rather than the former. .
Of course they don't, and I'm not sure there's any way to fix that - especially when fixing short term problems can often cause long term ones. Would you really want to incentivize a team to buy a bunch of FAs when they're 3 years away from a big talent infusion from the minors?


The problem, IMO, is largely that the league as a whole isn't a level playing field - the only way that teams like Tampa, etc can compete is through the draft, and the only way to assure that sort of peak is by having a bunch of down years, and then riding the prospects. We see less of this sort of thing in the NFL because teams are on an even footing (salary cap, high salary floor, revenue sharing greater than salary floor) - in Football, teams that are bad for long periods because they're poorly managed.

The Cubs are kind of a different thing - they have plenty of money but the previous regime had made so many bad contracts that this was the only way out.
 

smastroyin

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Baseball could emulate the NFL parity model (BTW, over the last 10 years MLB has more parity than the NFL in almost every measurable respect - what the NFL has is higher movement up and down the food chain year to year) by banning players after a randomly determined 2-12 year span (even the good ones), taking away all but 2 years of team control and all guaranteed contracts, taking away the minor leagues and replacing them with a non-paying league that brutally weens down prospects.

The cap and floor that you mention is also present in the NBA. Doesn't really help create parity there.

My point is, as I said above, each sport has different realities that govern its competitiveness. There is no one size fits all model.
 

trekfan55

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Baseball is very different than any of the other sports and MLB is different than any of the other leagues.

1. Payrolls are very different. Certain teams simply cannot pay the salaries to get top players. The NFL, with a salary cap, makes this a more even field of play and you don't have a case where it is "inevitable" that certain player will go to the Yankees when he becomes a FA. Also, the NFL contracts are not guaranteed, so when someone signs a $260MM dollar contract, it is the guaranteed portion that matters. Whether we like or hate the movie Moneyball, the scene where Brad Pitt is sitting with the owner asking for more money is representative of this. The A's just lost 3 of their top players to FA and had to make do within their budget constraints to replace them.

2. At certain points, teams in baseball will opt to rebuild, and start playing players who are not ready for prime time. This is inevitable in the cycle of some teams. Also, when a team has a valuable asset, they will look to trade him for young prospects if they know they're not going anywhere with just him. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

3. The 162 game schedule is another factor.

I really don't see tanking to be an issue in MLB, and like someone said, there are very few guaranteed draft picks out there.

The last time I really remember tanking was "suck for Luck" by the Colts when they lost Manning to an injury.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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It strikes me that the only "problem" with the notion of tanking or whatever you want to call it is that it means fewer jobs for the veterans who are mostly past their peak or otherwise have flaws they refuse to acknowledge. Teams aren't paying any sort of a premium for a one-skill player unless that one skill is elite. So guys like Pedro Alvarez, despite being in his prime, are still jobless. Isn't it likely that a guy like Alvarez could get a job with one of these "tanking" teams if he wasn't seeking the salary that prompted his old team to cut him loose in the first place? It's not like they don't have roster spots to fill, they're just choosing not to spend significant dollars to fill them.

Every year there are teams that suck whether it is by intent, bad luck or incompetence. Unless teams get caught in a perpetual cycle of "rebuilding" such that they never reach the Astros/Cubs level of investing in free agents to supplement a homegrown core, teams in the middle class of MLB cycling up and down every few years isn't the end of the world. Teams are slowly but surely learning that sometimes it makes no sense to throw good money after bad and it's a better long term investment to clear the decks and start from scratch. It comes down to a choice of whether you want to be the Astros and suffer a couple horrible years to be contenders for the next 5ish years or the Mariners and float along in mediocrity, never getting over the hump no matter what they do or who they sign.
 

Snoop Soxy Dogg

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Of course they don't, and I'm not sure there's any way to fix that - especially when fixing short term problems can often cause long term ones. Would you really want to incentivize a team to buy a bunch of FAs when they're 3 years away from a big talent infusion from the minors?

The problem, IMO, is largely that the league as a whole isn't a level playing field - the only way that teams like Tampa, etc can compete is through the draft, and the only way to assure that sort of peak is by having a bunch of down years, and then riding the prospects. We see less of this sort of thing in the NFL because teams are on an even footing (salary cap, high salary floor, revenue sharing greater than salary floor) - in Football, teams that are bad for long periods because they're poorly managed.

The Cubs are kind of a different thing - they have plenty of money but the previous regime had made so many bad contracts that this was the only way out.
I pretty much agree. This is quite a fascinating problem. I don't blame teams for going about it the "tanking" way, given the economics of the game. I'd say this:

-I really don't like the term "tanking" applied to this. I don't really see this as losing games to try to get one of the top three picks (aka the NBA). Rather, I see the approach as trying to increase the stable of young talent using all possible ways, including trading established players, taking advantage of the Dbacks, the international market, etc. The draft is just one facet, though an important one. The more young, controlled talent you get, the higher the probability of building something solid. Atlanta is probably the best example of that now (after the Cubs).

-You can actually make the argument that this is part of building competitiveness across the game; it's part of a cycle of building baseball teams that can sustain winning over a period of time. Outside of really big market teams, you have to get bad so you can get that young controlled talent. In that sense, maybe this "tanking" thing is actually a condition for sustained competitiveness/parity around the game, rather than an obstacle to it.

-In that sense, the problem is not so much that teams are going through this; it's the sheer volume of teams that seem to be in that phase at this point in time, which makes the National league seem like a joke. Talk about unbalanced schedule. But maybe over time, as more teams go through this process, overall balance levels actually rise as teams are able to keep their young talent. You'll always have a team or two going through that process, but probably not this many at a time.

-The free agents still in the market are just collateral damage here, because the above approach really favours younger players + their own inability to correctly assess their market value (for those that rejected qualifying offers). This is the system the players themselves have wanted, where the superstars are protected while the rank and file gets a bit more exposed. If there's any fixing, I think it's really more at the margins of the slotting system + qualifying offer.

-Once a player turns 30, it probably behooves them to be a bit more realistic now. Take the best deal available or the qualifying offer - or retire/go to Japan.
 

Yelling At Clouds

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-In that sense, the problem is not so much that teams are going through this; it's the sheer volume of teams that seem to be in that phase at this point in time, which makes the National league seem like a joke. Talk about unbalanced schedule. But maybe over time, as more teams go through this process, overall balance levels actually rise as teams are able to keep their young talent. You'll always have a team or two going through that process, but probably not this many at a time.
I would almost go far as to say more teams in the NL should be doing this. The Padres and Rockies have made gestures in this direction in the last year, but they should probably commit further. I'm also not convinced the Reds are all-in on this rebuild, but I guess they're slightly limited by the fact that Joey Votto has said he won't waive his NTC. (I assume the Brewers will move Braun and Lucroy at the first good opportunity).

Ultimately, I guess the reason I don't think this is a problem is because when done well, it gets teams back into contention a lot more quickly and dramatically than the alternatives (and what even are those alternatives, exactly?) - the Cubs and Astros both made the playoffs after about three years (and the Twins might be poised to join the party this year). Meanwhile, how long were the droughts of teams like KC or Toronto? When was the last time Seattle made the playoffs?

Even if this is a 'problem,' I'm not sure it's one that can be legislated away. Won't there always be GMs - good ones, even - who are willing to sacrifice the future for the present? None of us was in the room, but I'm willing to bet that the Braves weren't really looking to make some of the moves that they've made until names like "Dansby Swanson" came up. How are you supposed to prevent something like that?
 

Spacemans Bong

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The problem here is that Phillies have $13.4 million in next year's draft pool while the Brewers have $9.3 million, because the Phillies get to pick first while the Brewers pick fifth. That's 30% more money for five more losses (Phils went 63-99, Brewers went 68-94). So there's a big incentive to not just stink, but stink as much as possible. You're encouraged to hit rock bottom because that's the best way to replenish your farm system. Losing 100 games used to be an ignominious mark of shame that franchises would do everything to avoid, now it's a goal for maximizing your draft pool.

I think that's a big reason why so many cromulent veterans don't have a job. Whereas those guys would find gigs with teams looking to put out a semi-adequate product on the field while they rebuilt, 1-2 WAR vets are now costing you millions in the draft and on the field rather than just on the field. If I was the Reds' owner and a guy on the street said "I think you should sign Ian Desmond, he was a 2 WAR player last year and is probably a good bet to be a 3 WAR player next year, he'll win us a few games and keep our noses above water," I would say absolutely not. He'd cost us millions in the 2017 draft (and the 2016 draft, since he's a QO) and materially affect the task of rebuilding the farm system.

Having a draft lottery is the dumbest way to try and fix this, however, since the problem is the difference in spending for a few places in the standings. Ending slotting and ending compensation for FA picks would solve this problem, but the owners and players probably wouldn't agree to that. Maybe offer a credit for every game you lose, say $150K per loss, so a team that loses 100 gets $15 million while a team that loses 90 gets $13.5 million. At least that smoothes out some of the differences, and doesn't make it a no-brainer to try and lose 100 versus 90.
 

derekson

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Desmond would have a job if he didn't have the QO pick compensation attached to him. That's a completely different issue than any tanking issues.
 

nvalvo

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I think SB is onto something: the slope of the difference of draft pool allocations might be too high.

edit: I guess a more gradual decline in draft dollars, especially over the top 5-10 spots, would have an effect like a less drastic version of the NBA's lottery.
 

LogansDad

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I agree with the fact that the draft pool allocations are way off of what they should be. I understand why they got put into effect, but I think they have created a different, though probably just as important to fix, problem.

From a parity, or competitive balance, viewpoint, I think that the non-balanced schedule needs to go away. Going to a balanced schedule would prevent things like the 2013 Houston season being such an advantage to the other teams in their division.

Additionally, and sort of unrelated, wasn't part of the reason they went to the non-balanced schedule to have more division games? I really think that it had the opposite effect of what they wanted, because now each division game is actually less important than they were before. I also don't like watching the same 4 teams play the Red Sox 80 or so times a season.
 

nvalvo

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I think the reason they went to the non-balanced schedule was to keep the miles travelled under control while keeping about half of each team's away games in the time-zone of their home market.
 

dynomite

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The problem here is that Phillies have $13.4 million in next year's draft pool while the Brewers have $9.3 million, because the Phillies get to pick first while the Brewers pick fifth. That's 30% more money for five more losses (Phils went 63-99, Brewers went 68-94). So there's a big incentive to not just stink, but stink as much as possible. You're encouraged to hit rock bottom because that's the best way to replenish your farm system. Losing 100 games used to be an ignominious mark of shame that franchises would do everything to avoid, now it's a goal for maximizing your draft pool.

I think that's a big reason why so many cromulent veterans don't have a job. Whereas those guys would find gigs with teams looking to put out a semi-adequate product on the field while they rebuilt, 1-2 WAR vets are now costing you millions in the draft and on the field rather than just on the field. If I was the Reds' owner and a guy on the street said "I think you should sign Ian Desmond, he was a 2 WAR player last year and is probably a good bet to be a 3 WAR player next year, he'll win us a few games and keep our noses above water," I would say absolutely not. He'd cost us millions in the 2017 draft (and the 2016 draft, since he's a QO) and materially affect the task of rebuilding the farm system.
Quoting this because it's such a great post. I don't write for SoSH baseball -- and should probably take this to PM -- but this is a take I haven't read before and think would make for a good longer article.

As I said upthread, I think this is a real issue for MLB, even if it is not at the forefront of our day-to-day concern as Red Sox fans.

I think baseball is in a great place right now, and it was good for the sport to see the Royals, Blue Jays, Cubs, and Mets in the pennant series. But I think it's bad for the sport to have teams like the Phillies (who play in the 4th biggest media market in America) racing to the bottom for 162 games.
 
Dec 21, 2015
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From a parity, or competitive balance, viewpoint, I think that the non-balanced schedule needs to go away. Going to a balanced schedule would prevent things like the 2013 Houston season being such an advantage to the other teams in their division.

Additionally, and sort of unrelated, wasn't part of the reason they went to the non-balanced schedule to have more division games? I really think that it had the opposite effect of what they wanted, because now each division game is actually less important than they were before. I also don't like watching the same 4 teams play the Red Sox 80 or so times a season.
This is off-topic, but the unbalanced schedule has become the "Furthermore, I think Carthage must be destroyed" of SoSH baseball commentary. People throw it into threads where it's not related, but unlike Carthage there's no real imperative for it to change.

Every professional team sport, except association football, has an unbalanced schedule. The WNBA, Ultimate Frisbee leagues, Major League Lacrosse, hell even the USA Rugby League has an unbalanced schedule for chrissakes.

Here's an old post responding to a similar complaint that entered in a discussion of the merits of interleague:
post:1223319 said:
In the NFL, teams play 37.5% of their games against their own division, 37.5% against other divisions in their conference, and 25% against one division of the other conference.
In the NHL, teams play 35-37% of their games against their own division, 25-29% against the other division in their conference, and 34-39% against the whole other conference.
In the NBA, teams play 19.5% of their games against their own division, 44% against other divisions in their conference, and 36.5% against the whole other conference.

In MLB, teams play 76 games (47%) against their own division, 66 games (41%) against the other divisions in their conference, and 20 games (12%) against one division in the other conference.
I'd be in favor of less weighting towards the division and more games against the other conference, but trying to make the schedule exactly even strikes me as quixotic and not particularly desirable.

...and it certainly wouldn't impact decisions around tanking.

(edit: can't fix the quote box, whatever)
 

moly99

Member
SoSH Member
Jun 28, 2007
939
Seattle
But at a broader level, I'm not sure it's good for baseball to have half of the entire NL looking pretty much non-competitive before spring training starts. There are competitive balance issues, entertainment issues, revenue sharing issues, labor issues - I mean it's February, and you have 40-50 relatively solid free agents sitting at home with no teams. I mean, you're always going to have a few teams that suck. MLB has to be worried about it. Tony Clark has got to be worried. As does Steinbrenner who's sending money to the Brewers. Scott Boras, etc.
The problem is that baseball contracts are (unlike the NFL) guaranteed and (unlike the NBA) have no cap on years.

Consider the Mariners. The Mariners -despite being a perennially crap team- decided to spend big on Robinson Cano and pry him away from the Yankees. As someone who hates the Yankees I was ecstatic. If I were a Mariner fan I would have been pretty pissed off. The benefit of two or three more wins the first three years of his ten year contract was never going to get the Mariners in the playoffs. Meanwhile the next seven years of that ten year contract will make it very, very tough for them to be competitive. Mariners fans might have been energized the first year after signing Cano, but the back half of that contract is going to be pretty brutal for them.

Forcing small market teams to compete in free agency is not good for baseball, IMO.
 

grimshaw

Member
SoSH Member
May 16, 2007
4,220
Portland
This is off-topic, but the unbalanced schedule has become the "Furthermore, I think Carthage must be destroyed" of SoSH baseball commentary. People throw it into threads where it's not related, but unlike Carthage there's no real imperative for it to change.

Every professional team sport, except association football, has an unbalanced schedule. The WNBA, Ultimate Frisbee leagues, Major League Lacrosse, hell even the USA Rugby League has an unbalanced schedule for chrissakes.

Here's an old post responding to a similar complaint that entered in a discussion of the merits of interleague:
I don't mind the overall counterpoint, but other leagues do not come anywhere close to playing one opponent 13 more times than another - so don't think that particular part is relevant. It saves travel time and is overall beneficial to MLB, but as a fan, it blows seeing the same teams over and over. With spring training and post season potential it's even worse.
 
Dec 21, 2015
1,410
Other than, I dunno, chess, you're not going to find a sport that plays as many games as baseball does in a given year. That's an unfair metric. Ratio of games is fair because it's scalable, and because you can multiply through for the potential level of unfairness inherent in an unbalanced schedule where there's a seriously unequal distribution of team talent in the league.

My point: I think you can argue that baseball overweights in-division games and should lessen that weight. I don't think there's a solid argument (other than some sort of aesthetic perfectionism) for returning to a balanced schedule. Especially not given all the reasons that other team sports have differential weights, e.g.:

1. Travel time & expense & jet lag
2. Fostering rivalries that generate disproportionate fan interest
3. Expanding the potential list of teams that might qualify for the postseason to maintain interest more widely, longer in the season
4. Given #3, having more contests against the teams against whom you are directly competing for a playoff spot means that the end-of-season rank-ordering of those teams suffers less from small-sample-size quirks. I.e. it's a more "true" result of assessing the teams' relative quality.
5. The leagues are no longer managed separately, so there's no organizational turf wars that would prevent more cross-pollination