"Fair Ball" by Bob Costas

[Clay Dreslough]

I just finished reading "Fair Ball" by Bob Costas. It's a quick read and I recommend it on the basis that it's fun to read and brings up a lot of issues about the state of baseball today.

Costas doesn't back up his opinions with a lot of detailed analysis (like a sabermetrician would), but that doesn't mean his opinions aren't worth considering.

He wrote this in 1999, before the worry about contraction. In it, he proposes two 15-team leagues, each with 3 divisions of 5 teams. But he hates the Wild Card because it renders the division races irrelevant, eliminating great playoff races like the 1993 NL West (Giants-Braves) or 1978 AL East (Red Sox-Yankees) or 1951 NL (Dodgers-Giants).

"The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Dodgers win the wild card! Dodgers win the wild card!"

Costas would prefer that THREE teams from each league make the playoffs, with the #2 and #3 seed fighting in a best-of-5 division series for the right to face the #1 team.

In 2001, this would have helped out Seattle, by allowing them to rest their pitchers for the ALCS. But it would have eliminated Oakland from the playoffs, a team that arguable "deserved to be there" more than the Yankees or Indians.

Anyway, what do you think?

Clay

[dturkenk]

I've read Fair Ball too, and found it a very interesting read. I agree with a lot of his points, but I'm not sure about his opinion on the wild card.

Think of the last few years - where would there have been a meaningful division race without the wild card?

This year, the Cardinals and Astros would have good, and we would still have had the Arizona/San Fran battle that was overshadowed by Bonds.

Last year, I think there would have been one race too.

The problem isn't that there's a wild card - it's that there are only 4 or 5 times each year who have a realistic shot at winning anything.

Alot of it is revenue based, although Oakland has done just fine with a smart $30 million payroll, and LA and Boston have done pretty poorly with $100 million rosters.

I think there are a few things that need to be done in concert in order to fix the problem:

1. The teams need to initiate some real revenue sharing. Along with that, there needs to be a salary floor. Carl Pohlad should not be able to take the revenue money and make a profit off of it by ignoring his team. What incentive do owners like Steinbrenner have to up the sharing percentage if other owners won't put it towards their team?

2. There needs to be some sort of slowdown on the increase of player salaries. I don't exactly know how to implement that - at least without raising questions of collusion. Although there's got to be some reason baseball has this wonderful anti-trust exemption.

3. Contraction is a good thing, maybe. There are too few quality pitchers. Of course eliminating the teams will concentrate the hitters onto fewer teams. Who knows how that will affect offense?

4. Raise the pitching mound again. Or unjuice the ball, something. Increasing the size of the strike zone helped some, but the offense levels are still way too high. There's no need to revert back to the Deadball era or even the late 60s - but maybe to the 80s level of offense, where 49 homers was a lot.

Just some ideas I've had. I know they've been raised elsewhere, and who knows if the owners will ever implement them.