Cavaliers to bring in Sullinger, Melo for workouts
June 20, 2012No need to fear the NFL’s “All-22” video revolution
June 20, 2012I wrote last offseason that what Uncle Bud was trying to do when he expanded the MLB playoffs to five teams per league from four was essentially to put a Band-Aid on what has become a glaring competitive balance issue. Basically, by allowing more teams into the postseason, you increase the likelihood of a small-market team winning the World Series. If this happens often enough, then voila! No more competitive balance issues. Uncle Bud is the salve to our down-trodden sports’ soul.
This line of thinking, I should make clear, is quite obviously farcical. Increasing the chances of a fluke does not a perfect league make. After all, if we just let EVERY team into the playoffs and then had a single-elimination tournament to crown a winner, we’d almost certainly have a more diverse group of champions. But no one would respect those champions, and for good reason.
Anyway, as the MLB trade deadline draws near, I started to think of the expanded playoffs all over again. In many ways, Uncle Bud’s plan is working: heading into last night’s games, only five teams were more than 10 games out of their respective division races, while 17 of 30 teams were within five games of first place. Put another way, of the 14 AL teams, 10 are either (a) leading their division or (b) within five games of a wildcard spot.
And while this is mostly a good thing for the league—increased hopes and all that jazz—it’s also attended by some nasty collateral consequences. To wit: in most years once July rolls around, teams are fairly entrenched in either the “We’re-going-to-try-to-win-this-year” camp or “We’re-selling-all-our-assets-for-anything-you-got” camp.1
Even more than that though, by July there were often 15 to 20 teams who’d already entered full sell-off mode. This was largely a good thing for teams who were hoping to acquire talent, because when there are more sellers than buyers, prices go down, and sellers must compete on price to move their inventory. It’s this “low prices—everything must go” mentality that left many feeling the Tribe got swindled in many of their big deals from recent seasons. I have typically argued–as I’m wont to do–that those weren’t inherently bad trades; they were just indicative of a buyer’s market. Lots of teams were selling players, and only a few were buying. Prices necessarily dropped.
But now consider the new artificial market Uncle Bud’s created. For the sake of argument, let’s say that due to the new hopey change, that there are only five teams who are currently willing to raise the white flag and sell their assets. Let’s also assume that another five teams will stay pat, hoping their clubs start to perform better. That leaves 20 teams competing for the assets of only five.
Which will result in at least two effects. First, the price for those assets (in terms of prospects or money–doesn’t matter which) will go up. When there are only one or two starting pitchers on the market, the selling team can ask for much more in a bidding war than if there are six or seven. This is basic supply and demand. The second (and related) effect will be fewer deals overall. The greater the number of teams who believe they have a chance to succeed, the more often those teams will be hesitant to give anything of immediate value up in a trade. Since most trades in the MLB are not “challenge-trades”, but rather moving future value for current value, this should result in fewer overall trades being made. 2 I don’t know about you, but I like trades, and anything that decreases them kind of stinks, generally.
This state of affairs, it should go without saying, also sucks eggs for the 2012 Cleveland Indians. Entering last night’s game, the club sat a half game out of first and three games out of an AL wildcard spot. Such a standing would normally suggest the Indians should be buyers at the trade deadline. But because of the added wildcard and closely bunched standings, there aren’t enough sellers. Furthermore, because the sellers who do exist are few and far between, the prices for their players are likely to be more than we can afford. It’s not like the Indians minor league system is overflowing with high-end talent after the Ubaldo trade—at least not the sort of talent that’s close to the Major Leagues—and we certainly don’t have the financial means to take an onerous contract off another team’s hands for a non-prospect.
I’m not saying that the Indians won’t add a player via trade before the July 31st deadline. In fact, I sort of think they will, if only to eschew the PR disaster that would accompany standing pat.3 What I am saying is that any trade the Indians make is likely to take place in the context of an extreme seller’s marke. We’re likely to overpay for whatever acquisition Antonetti is able to get his hands on, if only because everyone will have to overpay for their shiny new acquisitions this year. ((If everybody’s overpaying, is it really overpaying? I’ll leave that imponderable to you, but the housing crisis might suggest the answer could be “Yes”.)
Uncle Bud has his avuncular fingerprints all over Major League Baseball, and in some respects, it’s hard to suggest his reign has been anything but positive for the League as a whole. The owners, I’m quite certain, love him for what he’s done for their bottom lines. There’s been labor peace for nearly 20 years. By all accounts, Interleague Play is, if not entertaining, then at least well-attended. Et cetera.
But far too often I find he ends up causing more problems than he hopes to solve. Don’t like ties in the All-Star Game? We’ll make it count for MORE THAN ANY OTHER GAME EVER!! Don’t like Barry Bonds? We’ll sic Congress on our Players Union and support specious lawsuits!! Don’t like the Yankees playing in six of the last 16 World Series? We’ll expand the playoffs!! Consequences be damned.
Except as any economist can attest, there are always unintended consequences to any policy change. And by making everyone feel like a winner, Bud might be making it a whole lot hard to actually win.
- You might remember the second vintage, circa 2008-2010. [↩]
- Let’s note that there is the possibility that more “challenge-trades” could be made under this new system than are currently made, wherein, for example, a team might trade its current ace for another team’s current ace, or it’s current star position player for another team’s star position player. This would be awesome, and I wouldn’t complain about it at all, if only because we’d finally have concrete proof as to who the smartest GMs are. This sort of proof, by the by, is the exact reason it’s unlikely to happen: GMs don’t want to be judged like that. They are, gently, wimps. [↩]
- I wouldn’t underestimate such PR manipulation’s role in pulling the trigger on last summer’s Ubaldo deal, by the way. [↩]
27 Comments
Great article. And it might have helped me get a better grade in my Econ class if you had posted it a year ago.
Worst. Commissioner. Ever.
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer it’ll dawn on the people who thought this one extra playoff spot meant anything more when come October you see the same teams there again.
If you mean in baseball, I agree. If you mean overall…I think Stern is worse.
” if we just let EVERY team into the playoffs and then had a
single-elimination tournament to crown a winner, we’d almost certainly
have a more diverse group of champions. But no one would respect those
champions, and for good reason.”
which is basically why I think as flawed as college football is that it still delivers a better method for a championship than college basketball (despite how entertaining March Madness is as well)
Over the long term, wouldn’t this concept bring all teams’ talent levels closer together overall? If the worst of the worst (in the given example, the bottom 5 teams) can extract a higher return on their firesales, it should make them better in the long run. And if contenders have to pay a higher price in those trades, we creep ever-so-slightly closer to a homogenized cluster of medium-talent teams – precisely Uncle Bud’s plan!
was going to post the same thing except you forgot the one extra portion. that the biggest market teams are going to notice the “overpayment” in terms of trades and shift their assets even more to the FA market. thereby increasing the overall price of UFA’s as well.
Yaaayy!!!
basically, it will all come down to the draft. if we can consistently draft/sign well, then we can stay competitive and even get some of these overpayments in our favor perhaps (if we have 2 MLB-quality players at 1 position). if we draft poorly or even at average levels, then we are doomed.
I totally agree. I absolutely love March Madness, but I often feel that the best team doesn’t win the championship. Winning the football championship requires near-perfection over a 4-month process*, while winning the basketball championship takes 3 weeks.
* Well, until they institute a playoff…
Great! So in a few years, $13M/yr for Hafner might seem like a bargain?
Only one commissioner could be booed so venomously by deliriously happy, we-just-won-the-championship fans.
http://youtu.be/9iHJuBECBkU
Okay, it was Vancouver fans, but still.
Agreed.
Fans love to hate him, but Stern has arguably been the most successful commissioner in all of modern sports.
Most important is the long lasting peace between labor and ownership. He also successfully navigated the Steroid era, first reaping the benefits of the long-ball era and then using the fallout to institute the harshest testing regime in professional sports. And now baseball has never been more popular.
Dude also knows how to get his way. Love it or hate it, first he forced inter-league play. Then he drastically changed the All-Star game. Then he strong armed the Astros into the AL, forcing year-round inter-league play. MLB network has started up under his watch. The MLB draft has become something of a spectacle (not to what the NFL draft is, but much more so than it ever was before). He also got his way with the new draft slotting system. Finally, these expanded playoffs.
So he has been able to push his agenda with amazing success all while ushering baseball into an age of unparalleled success. Players are happy, owners are happy, (most) fans are happy.
Hated? Sure. Worst? No.
Selig, not Stern.
And the expanded playoffs are closer to 10th than 1st on the list of problems Selig has caused for the game.
In case you haven’t noticed, the owners (and thus commissioner) have always gotten what they wanted when it came to MLB. From the antitrust exemption, the color line, the reserve clause, and the likely decades before they were caught colluding, MLB owners (and again thus the commissioner) have had it very, very good. Owners from the first half of the century would laugh at how Selig works today. Selig hasn’t been “effective” because he’s a strong commissioner, but because he was given so much power, and such a strong brand, to begin with. It would take a real idiot to screw it up, and he seemingly has been testing that.
well, the Indians traded Joe Carter because he wouldn’t sign a 5yr $10mil deal (that’s total $, not per year). at some point people will see $13mil/year and think, I wish we could find someone to hit an OPS+ of 125 for 90games every year for that $$. of course, it’ll probably be year 2050.
a 4team playoff still makes it near perfection. what I actually want is an 8team playoff that gives a champion from all 5 major conferences + 3 wild cards (guaranteeing one from non-major conferences).
it’d be fun and I think balance the line enough between important regular season + great postseason.
Well, there are still 6 major conferences. Even if the Big East is a mess right now, you’re going to have to include them. Add a non-major champ, and you have room for one real wild-card, and we have to go all the way down to #2 to find them.
I think this would just further magnify the cost spending disparity. The richest teams will be the ones driving up the price in the inflated market.
my dream scenario that won’t happen, so my rules 🙂
the ACC should just be glad I included them 🙂
Fair enough.
All I know is that there were eight work stoppages in MLB from 1972-1994. There hasn’t been one since. Whether that should be creditted to Selig or the owners/players is not for me to say. Same thing goes for the rise in attendance and all the changes in the game.
Maybe Selig doesn’t deserve the credit, but it’s undeniable that the game has changed dramatically and been wildly successful during his tenure. Calling him the worst commissioner is flat out wrong.
If the owners always have gotten what they wanted then the reserve clause would not have been abolished. Also, aren’t the owners the one constantly renewing his contract? That’s what they want. Which suggests to me that they think he’s been a successful steward of the game.
As for owners from early 20th-century laughing at Selig – I sure hope so. Do you real want your comissioner operating like it’s 1931?
Love that picture of Dub Giles, the most backward man in the world.
Ok, I’ll put the gloves on. Right, Selig is no Mountain Landis perpetuating all the evils that the owners wanted for 25 years.
Sure, we’ve seen a decline in work stoppages. Except which is the only commissioner in the sport to oversee a World Series-less year? That’s a bigger black mark than missing a few regular season games.
The owners fought tooth and nail to keep the reserve clause, and it took a lot of work to change that.
You also say “Dude also knows how to get his way”. Sure, so has almost every owner/commissioner in the history of the game until it became laughably obvious how backwards their thinking was. Selig is powerful because he was granted the position, not through any skill of his own.
Also, Selig and the owners skated through the steroid issues for the same reason owners generally beat players at the PR game come CBA renegotiation time. Somehow, fans side with the owners no matter what. Selig ham-fisted the entire process, but got enough people riled up over the evil Barry Bonds that he is taking almost no blame. Maybe someday, 25-50 years down the road, when our kids and grandkids are asking us why the best players of this era aren’t in the Hall of Fame, we’ll start to realize how badly things got screwed up.
Selig also paved the way for his buddies, who were not quite as liquid as they claimed to be, to buy teams. Look how well that worked for the Dodgers.
And of course, the lying to Congress (where’s his perjury trial) about the need to contract the closest team to his Brewers.
No, the guy isn’t pure evil, or the worst ever, but man is he a colossal screw-up.
I agree with the unintended consequences. That part is concerning. I just wanted to say, I’m not sure adding two teams dilutes the playoffs more than a negligible amount. Note that the new wild-card playoff is just one game, which means the winning wild-card team will likely have used its ace pitcher and then have a pitching disadvantage in ALDS Game 1 and 2, which would solve the problem of wild-card teams having a level playing field with the division champions. But maybe that won’t end up having much of an effect come October, I don’t know.