If Baseball Were Soccer
February 9, 2007 by Geoff Young
Filed under Odds and Ends
Solanus at Viva El Birdos has a fascinating post up about restructuring Major League Baseball in the mold of Barclays English Premier League — soccer to folks in the U.S., football to everyone else. The basic idea, as I understand it, is that teams would be grouped according to how much money they make. It will never happen, of course, but this is a great thought exercise.
Question: How would we benefit from such an arrangement? I can see why fans of the Red Sox and Yankees might be excited about something like this, but what about the rest of us?
Actually Geoff, I’ve had a bit of fascination myself with ideas taken from soccer. I like the relegation-promotion idea myself. Then the Tigers AND their AAA affiliate could play in the Central after the Royals got demoted to the International League and the Mudhens got promoted
I hadn’t thought of that scenario. Here’s a fun one for you: Say the Tigers and Mudhens are playing a doubleheader and Sean Casey gets hurt in the opener. Could the Tigers then DL Casey and grab someone from the other dugout to play first for them in the second game? Ouch, my head hurts…
Intriguing question indeed! Of course this leaves off the fact the Tigers would probably have been playing for the International League championship last year, not the World Series… Or maybe the Eastern League… Oy. It’s been a long decade.
Actually the teams are groups based on performance, not how much money they make. How much money they make is surely directly related to what league they are in, but you move up by winning, and down my losing, not by making money. That is how the soccer leagues work at least.