What if the baseball season was radically shorter than 162 games?

[Frobby]

Watching this 60-game sprint has been pretty entertaining.    I don’t think I’d ever want a 60-game season to become the norm, because what would I do the rest of the year?   But what if it was a lot shorter than 162?    Would that make the season more exciting/entertaining?

There’s a lot of ways it could be structured:

NBA-like, with half the games but way more days off.

Five months of games with 2 days off a week.

Or, a sprint like we’re having this year with fewer games but fewer days off, too    Like 80 games in a three month span.

Pros: 

- Larger chance for hot or cold streaks to make or break a season. (You also could see this as a “con.”

- Less baseball played in cold weather (especially post-season).

- Harder for rich teams to win purely based on war of attrition.

- Fans of teams that fall out of the race don’t face many months of playing out the string.

I’ll stop now to let Philip tell me this is the worst idea ever....

 

 

[DrungoHazewood]

With a lot of days off you could go with a two-man rotation and starting pitchers would be the MVPs every year, even if they're only throwing six innings a start.

At some point in the past I did a thought experiment considering what would be different if in 1880 baseball had taken the same path and football and had always just played once a week.  I thought it was a thread here, but no idea if I could find it.  I don't remember much in the way of responses, I think most people just decided it was another loopy Drungo idea.

[nevadaO]

16 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

With a lot of days off you could go with a two-man rotation and starting pitchers would be the MVPs every year, even if they're only throwing six innings a start.

At some point in the past I did a thought experiment considering what would be different if in 1880 baseball had taken the same path and football and had always just played once a week.  I thought it was a thread here, but no idea if I could find it.  I don't remember much in the way of responses, I think most people just decided it was another loopy Drungo idea.

I've considered that as well actually, it usually pops in my head at the start of the EPL season. Roster sizes would be ridiculously small, like a goalie you'd have the same starting pitcher every game, but perhaps like in European footy have those games on Saturday with random Tuesday games mixed in that are part of a broader championship. Perhaps a huge cup that starts off in the low minors and eventually you'll have the random "darling" AA team vs. a MLB team. 

[OFFNY]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

 

Watching this 60-game sprint has been pretty entertaining. I don’t think I’d ever want a 60-game season to become the norm, because what would I do the rest of the year? But what if it was a lot shorter than 162? Would that make the season more exciting/entertaining?

There’s a lot of ways it could be structured:

NBA-like, with half the games but way more days off.

Five months of games with 2 days off a week.

Or, a sprint like we’re having this year with fewer games but fewer days off, too    Like 80 games in a three month span.

Pros: 

- Larger chance for hot or cold streaks to make or break a season. (You also could see this as a “con.”

- Less baseball played in cold weather (especially post-season).

- Harder for rich teams to win purely based on war of attrition.

- Fans of teams that fall out of the race don’t face many months of playing out the string.

I’ll stop now to let Philip tell me this is the worst idea ever ......

 

o

 

The definition of "Small Sample Size" would be considerably smaller.

 

o

[Roll Tide]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

Watching this 60-game sprint has been pretty entertaining.    I don’t think I’d ever want a 60-game season to become the norm, because what would I do the rest of the year?   But what if it was a lot shorter than 162?    Would that make the season more exciting/entertaining?

There’s a lot of ways it could be structured:

NBA-like, with half the games but way more days off.

Five months of games with 2 days off a week.

Or, a sprint like we’re having this year with fewer games but fewer days off, too    Like 80 games in a three month span.

Pros: 

- Larger chance for hot or cold streaks to make or break a season. (You also could see this as a “con.”

- Less baseball played in cold weather (especially post-season).

- Harder for rich teams to win purely based on war of attrition.

- Fans of teams that fall out of the race don’t face many months of playing out the string.

I’ll stop now to let Philip tell me this is the worst idea ever....

 

 

Don’t think is a terrible idea. I just don’t see the owners walking away from the revenue 

[Sports Guy]

I think the season should be shorter and just have more playoff teams to make up for the revenue.

130ish game season.  End it Sept 1..start the playoffs.

[HowAboutThat]

3 hours ago, Frobby said:

Watching this 60-game sprint has been pretty entertaining.    I don’t think I’d ever want a 60-game season to become the norm, because what would I do the rest of the year?   But what if it was a lot shorter than 162?    Would that make the season more exciting/entertaining?

There’s a lot of ways it could be structured:

NBA-like, with half the games but way more days off.

Five months of games with 2 days off a week.

Or, a sprint like we’re having this year with fewer games but fewer days off, too    Like 80 games in a three month span.

Pros: 

- Larger chance for hot or cold streaks to make or break a season. (You also could see this as a “con.”

- Less baseball played in cold weather (especially post-season).

- Harder for rich teams to win purely based on war of attrition.

- Fans of teams that fall out of the race don’t face many months of playing out the string.

I’ll stop now to let Philip tell me this is the worst idea ever....

 

 

:-) a little shorter is fine. My issues are mainly the idea that shorter games are better, which ignores the reality that INTERESTING games are better, regardless of length. This false goal creates rule changes that I loathe, in no small part because they accomplish nothing while ignoring the real issues.

Meanwhile, I wouldn’t mind seeing a split season: 80 and 80, with each  half’s victors guaranteed a playoff spot, and a couple WCs.

It can’t be very much shorter, because running a baseball team is too expensive and 100 game season would not generate enough income. 
id also like to see a draft order race to discourage tanking. Give the first pick to the best of the worst six, and go in reverse order for the first 6 picks.

Overall I don’t think I’d mind a slightly shorter season, but I really want to begin on April 1 and end on October 1. As much as I love baseball, when October comes, it’s time for something else.

[Frobby]

13 minutes ago, Philip said:

a little shorter is fine. My issues are mainly the idea that shorter games are better, which ignores the reality that INTERESTING games are better, regardless of length. This false goal creates rule changes that I loathe, in no small part because they accomplish nothing while ignoring the real issues.

Meanwhile, I wouldn’t mind seeing a split season: 80 and 80, with each  half’s victors guaranteed a playoff spot, and a couple WCs.

It can’t be very much shorter, because running a baseball team is too expensive and 100 game season would not generate enough income. 
id also like to see a draft order race to discourage tanking. Give the first pick to the best of the worst six, and go in reverse order for the first 6 picks.

Overall I don’t think I’d mind a slightly shorter season, but I really want to begin on April 1 and end on October 1. As much as I love baseball, when October comes, it’s time for something else.

Well, the Orioles don’t usually worry about October....

But when they do, I’m definitely not ready to watch anything else!

[ChipTait]

I watched a good amount of Australian Baseball last season.  They play a 40 game regular season over ten weeks which determines playoff seeding for a couple quick three-game playoff rounds.  If MLB played 4 per week for 26 weeks, that would be almost 2/3rds of a "normal" season.  I'd miss the darn-near-every-day aspect, but I might get a few more things accomplished.  Or, I might just invest more time into developing a West Coast-based NL team to be my #2 favorite. It would depend on how the powers that be set the schedule.