Interesting

[DrungoHazewood]

Maybe expansion would be better (although I'm not excited about watering down the talent pool). I don't know.

I've come around to the idea that there is no such thing as long-term watering down of the talent pool. Sure, if you expand by 20 teams in one offseason you'll have a huge dilution of talent. For a while. But if you do it in small steps you'll never see any effect.

I believe that places like the Dominican Republic prove that, given enough economic incentives, most populations haven't scratched the surface of how much MLB-quality talent they can produce.

In any case, if you can live with the level of play in Babe Ruth's time you could have 75 MLB teams from the current player pool. Easy.

[srock]

I've come around to the idea that there is no such thing as long-term watering down of the talent pool. Sure, if you expand by 20 teams in one offseason you'll have a huge dilution of talent. For a while. But if you do it in small steps you'll never see any effect.

I believe that places like the Dominican Republic prove that, given enough economic incentives, most populations haven't scratched the surface of how much MLB-quality talent they can produce.

In any case, if you can live with the level of play in Babe Ruth's time you could have 75 MLB teams from the current player pool. Easy.

Just thinking through my keyboard here...

Maybe a solution is to split MLB into two divisions with relegation/promotion. Expand to 40 teams, 20 in each group. Basically a AAAA division and a Premiership (for lack of a better name). Each of the 40 teams can still have a minor league system like now, maybe 3-4 minor league teams instead of 5-6.

This would have to be done slowly I think. Maybe add 1 team a year, when there are 34 split into two 16 team leagues.

Each team plays ~140 regular season games, then a 2-3 round playoff for each division.

You could have something similar to the FA Cup in England where the two divisions play one another in an ongoing in season tournament as well.

[BaltimoreTerp]

Just thinking through my keyboard here...

Maybe a solution is to split MLB into two divisions with relegation/promotion. Expand to 40 teams, 20 in each group. Basically a AAAA division and a Premiership (for lack of a better name). Each of the 40 teams can still have a minor league system like now, maybe 3-4 minor league teams instead of 5-6.

This would have to be done slowly I think. Maybe add 1 team a year, when there are 34 split into two 16 team leagues.

Each team plays ~140 regular season games, then a 2-3 round playoff for each division.

You could have something similar to the FA Cup in England where the two divisions play one another in an ongoing in season tournament as well.

I think if you are going to go that far, you should go all the way and make ALL levels relegation-style. So that if the owner of the AA team in Akron wants to make a run at the majors, they could win their league, rise to AAA and win that league. Or if they want, they could sign an affiliation agreement just like today that keeps them from moving up or down but also gives them financial benefits (like not having to pay players).

[Mad Mark]

The simple fact of the matter is that MLB is going to throw out these utterly impractical, pie-in-the-sky ideas as a stall. What 24 to 26 of the owners are hoping for is a nationalization of the revenue stream, because national revenues (mlb.com, etc) are equitably shared among the teams. If the MLB network could become the primary vehicle for delivering baseball product to our televisions, most of the revenue discrepancies between the haves and the have lesses would wither.

I think they're crazy optimistic about this, and doubt it will happen before most of us are dead, but I really believe that's what they're banking on, long-term.

[RShack]

The simple fact of the matter is that MLB is going to throw out these utterly impractical, pie-in-the-sky ideas as a stall. What 24 to 26 of the owners are hoping for is a nationalization of the revenue stream, because national revenues (mlb.com, etc) are equitably shared among the teams. If the MLB network could become the primary vehicle for delivering baseball product to our televisions, most of the revenue discrepancies between the haves and the have lesses would wither.

I think they're crazy optimistic about this, and doubt it will happen before most of us are dead, but I really believe that's what they're banking on, long-term.

You don't mean nationalization. That's when the gov't takes over an entire industry. What you're talking about is like what Rozelle was smart enough to get NFL owners to do, which is to treat TV revenue as one shared league resource, not a bunch of disparate individual team resources. The fact that baseball didn't do something like that is the crux of the entire problem about outlandish and undeserved revenue disparity. TV money is the problem. If it wasn't for that, the MFY's would still be richer, but the disparity wouldn't be nearly as crazy as it is now.

The damn thing is that, because of the anti-trust exemption, MLB can pretty much do whatever they damn well please. They can set rules for how teams must behave, and if a team doesn't comply, MLB can take the franchise. The fact that they've screwed around for so long without dealing with the problem that team-specific TV-money creates, it makes it way harder to fix now, because the RSN wealth has been blurred up with other things. For example, while the YES network is about the MFY's, by now it has its fingers in so many pies that it's much harder to sort out how much of the revenues are due to the MFY's and how much isn't, what the real value of MFY coverage is to YES vs. whatever the formal contract says it is, etc. So, while MLB could decree that each team has to split its TV revenue with the rest of the teams (who provide the opportunity for them to have any TV revenue whatsoever), there would be years of BS about how much money that really is, legal fights about how YES is not beholding to MLB, just the MFY's are, and so on. While MLB has more power to fix it than any other professional sport would have, they've let it become much more of an opaque mess, making untangling it even harder. It's another missed opportunity we can thank the Bud Regime for...

[Arthur_Bryant]

The simple fact of the matter is that MLB is going to throw out these utterly impractical, pie-in-the-sky ideas as a stall. What 24 to 26 of the owners are hoping for is a nationalization of the revenue stream, because national revenues (mlb.com, etc) are equitably shared among the teams. If the MLB network could become the primary vehicle for delivering baseball product to our televisions, most of the revenue discrepancies between the haves and the have lesses would wither.

I think they're crazy optimistic about this, and doubt it will happen before most of us are dead, but I really believe that's what they're banking on, long-term.

You mean collectivization, maybe. Thirty big league ownership groups just had a heart attack when they saw "nationalization" and "MLB" in the same paragraph. And while the great majority of owners should be in favor of equal sharing of broadcast revenue, the luxury tax bribe keeps some franchises from acting in their own best long-term interest--just enough to maintain the current system.

If 25 teams really did push for it, it would happen.

[DrungoHazewood]

Just thinking through my keyboard here...

Maybe a solution is to split MLB into two divisions with relegation/promotion. Expand to 40 teams, 20 in each group. Basically a AAAA division and a Premiership (for lack of a better name). Each of the 40 teams can still have a minor league system like now, maybe 3-4 minor league teams instead of 5-6.

This would have to be done slowly I think. Maybe add 1 team a year, when there are 34 split into two 16 team leagues.

Each team plays ~140 regular season games, then a 2-3 round playoff for each division.

You could have something similar to the FA Cup in England where the two divisions play one another in an ongoing in season tournament as well.

Would be interesting. Probably the only realistic way of implementing something like promotion/relegation in a closed league. Might even get the big money teams/owners on board if they thought there was almost no chance of relegation.

But like all of these kind of ideas I'd put the chances of implementation at <1%.

I think if you are going to go that far, you should go all the way and make ALL levels relegation-style. So that if the owner of the AA team in Akron wants to make a run at the majors, they could win their league, rise to AAA and win that league. Or if they want, they could sign an affiliation agreement just like today that keeps them from moving up or down but also gives them financial benefits (like not having to pay players).

I'd like that, just because I'm in favor of the market sorting out what level team a city can support, rather than Bud and his 30 drinking buddies.

But it's just not happening without a serious financial crisis and/or Justice Department/antitrust regulators stepping in and splitting up baseball like AT&T. The owners won't give up ownership of 95% of the ballplayers in North America because it sounds cool. Nor would any MLB owner willingly go along with a plan that would slash revenues and franchise values if they had an off year. Of all the long-odds plans, this has to be one of the longest.

You mean collectivization, maybe. Thirty big league ownership groups just had a heart attack when they saw "nationalization" and "MLB" in the same paragraph. And while the great majority of owners should be in favor of equal sharing of broadcast revenue, the luxury tax bribe keeps some franchises from acting in their own best long-term interest--just enough to maintain the current system.

If 25 teams really did push for it, it would happen.

Maybe. Pretty sure the high level leadership in MLB, and several 10s of millions Yanks/Sox fans like the idea of rich, dynastic superteams that drive up the profile and revenues of the game in a way that a Royals championship just wouldn't.

[Mad Mark]

You don't mean nationalization...

You mean collectivization, maybe. Thirty big league ownership groups just had a heart attack when they saw "nationalization" and "MLB" in the same paragraph...

Sorry, guys. I reached for a shortcut that clearly didn't work trying to differentiate between locally generated and nationally generated revenues. (Now that I think about it, it really doesn't work, what with Toronto being in another nation and all.) Perhaps I should have used the terms "shared" and "hoarded" revenues!

[BaltimoreTerp]

I'd like that, just because I'm in favor of the market sorting out what level team a city can support, rather than Bud and his 30 drinking buddies.

But it's just not happening without a serious financial crisis and/or Justice Department/antitrust regulators stepping in and splitting up baseball like AT&T. The owners won't give up ownership of 95% of the ballplayers in North America because it sounds cool. Nor would any MLB owner willingly go along with a plan that would slash revenues and franchise values if they had an off year. Of all the long-odds plans, this has to be one of the longest.

I agree completely. I was just putting it out there as my preferred theory.