Here's a prediction you can take to the bank, to the windows at Vegas and to your friendly neighborhood psychics convention:
Floating" realignment isn't ever going to happen. Ever.
But if that's the kind of thing Bud Selig's special committee for on-field matters is kicking around for more than 30 seconds, it tells us something. And what it tells us is this:
This committee, if not this entire sport, is obsessed with the Yankees and Red Sox.
So here, in reality, is the problem these guys are actually trying to solve:
What do you do to "fix" a system that allows the Yankees and Red Sox to make the playoffs, seemingly, every darned year?
That's a question many people in baseball's inner sanctum are ruminating on these days. And they're ruminating on it even though Bud Selig told us this week that "we have more competitive balance now than we've ever had before."
Believe it or not, the commish is probably right about that. But there's always a catch, and you know what it is. Try to convince the frustrated citizens of Baltimore, Tampa Bay and Toronto that competitive balance has never been better. Good luck on that.
So today, let's address a fascinating idea that we hear has also been floated by that committee (and other people):
Is it time to split up the Yankees and Red Sox? Is it time to move them to divisions all their own?
Hey, you want to give those other AL East teams a shot at the wild card? That's one way around that Yankee-Red Sox logjam, right? Divide and conquer.
Think about it. The pros are obvious. Maybe the Yankees and Red Sox would still make the playoffs every year. But …
(A) They'd both have to win their divisions to do it, for a change.
And (B) even if they did, they would still leave the playoff door open, thanks to the miracle of wild cards, to all the other teams in their respective divisions. Which sure isn't happening now.
So it's an idea worth thinking about, anyway. But it's a funny thing. We can't seem to find anyone who likes it, outside of a few desperate folks in Baltimore, Tampa Bay and the lovely province of Ontario.
We ran it past Red Sox manager Terry Francona last week, for instance. He had to admit it was tempting.
"I'd like to take Tampa and split them up, too," he said, with a laugh.
But after he'd swirled the concept around his brain cells for a little while, he had a thought people never seem to consider anymore when they contemplate the state of the AL East.
"You know," Francona said, "I'm not smart enough to have the answers. I do know that when people have ideas, I think they forget that about every 10 years, things change. Ten years ago, Cleveland sold out every game. Now it's hard for people to even remember that. Now, we're selling out [every game]. We're good. The Yankees are good. Tampa's good. These things are kind of cyclical. That's just the way the game is. … I think people who are living through it now don't realize that it hasn't always been this way."
And whaddaya know, he's right. The wild-card system has been around for 15 seasons. Over the first eight seasons, only twice did both AL East juggernauts make the postseason. Yeah, you read that right. Only twice.
But since 2003, it's happened in five of the last seven years. So before we start blowing up divisions and rivalries, are we sure that's a big enough sample size?
"I know it seems like the Yankees and Red Sox have been dominant for a long time, but they're really only been dominant since '03," said one GM who has been a high-ranking executive in both leagues. "That's just a seven-year period. Now maybe their financial advantages are so great that they'll always do that. But if you look back historically, you find that things even out."
To be honest, it can sometimes take a long, long time before those things do even out. You can ask all those NL East teams that kept finishing behind the Braves for a decade. But let's still acknowledge the point and move on to the next big issue -- the sheer impracticality of splitting up these behemoths.
"I don't see how it can happen politically," said an official of one club, "because I don't think there are any other teams that want the Red Sox or Yankees moving into their division. You wouldn't send them to the National League. And if you moved one of them to the [AL] Central, which of those teams would volunteer to move to the East?
"I don't see Jerry Reinsdorf letting the White Sox move. I don't see the Tigers going back. I'm sure Kansas City and Minnesota wouldn't want to be in the East. And good luck getting Cleveland to move back. So I don't think there's any logical candidate. I just don't see it."
We guess there are people who would ask, "Why can't you send one of them to the National League?" But that's not happening.
Since the Yankees set up shop in New York in 1903, there has never been a season when these two clubs weren't in the same league and, eventually, the same division. And any baseball official who has ever seen that Yankees-Red Sox cash register ringing would rather start all World Series games at 3 a.m. than blow up this rivalry for good.
We know people in Kansas, South Dakota and Orange County all overdosed on Yankees-Red Sox ESPN games about 20 years ago. But if you've ever tried to buy a ticket to one of those games, or perused the TV ratings, we wouldn't need to spend 10 seconds explaining to you why this is one break-up that's really, really hard to do.
So if baseball is determined to "fix" its Yankees-Red Sox "problem," it's going to have to find some other way: Add a second wild-card team. … balance the schedule. … rein in payroll disparity.
Whatever. It's all on the table. But it isn't going to happen via realignment -- radical or otherwise.
There's a larger question at work here, however. And it's a question this sport is going to have to think long and hard about:
Isn't it insane to mess with the fabric of your entire sport because you can't figure out what to do about two of the most successful franchises on Earth?
"Do we really want to make rules around two teams?" asked the GM quoted earlier. "When you think about it, how bad would that look for the sport if we had to admit, 'We can't control what they do, so we have to change our rules?'
"To me," he said, "it would be embarrassing to make rules around the Red Sox and Yankees and then turn around in maybe seven, eight or nine years and find that the Mets, Cubs and Phillies are like the Yankees and Red Sox are now. Then would we have to make rules for those teams, too?"
It's an excellent point. In fact, it's the central point. We're fine with just about any sensible idea that improves the competitive balance of 21st-century baseball. But as we consider those ideas, we should always remember that nothing is forever.
Not even the "never-ending" omnipotence of the Yankees and Red Sox.
Floating" realignment isn't ever going to happen. Ever.
But if that's the kind of thing Bud Selig's special committee for on-field matters is kicking around for more than 30 seconds, it tells us something. And what it tells us is this:
This committee, if not this entire sport, is obsessed with the Yankees and Red Sox.
So here, in reality, is the problem these guys are actually trying to solve:
What do you do to "fix" a system that allows the Yankees and Red Sox to make the playoffs, seemingly, every darned year?
That's a question many people in baseball's inner sanctum are ruminating on these days. And they're ruminating on it even though Bud Selig told us this week that "we have more competitive balance now than we've ever had before."
Believe it or not, the commish is probably right about that. But there's always a catch, and you know what it is. Try to convince the frustrated citizens of Baltimore, Tampa Bay and Toronto that competitive balance has never been better. Good luck on that.
So today, let's address a fascinating idea that we hear has also been floated by that committee (and other people):
Is it time to split up the Yankees and Red Sox? Is it time to move them to divisions all their own?
Hey, you want to give those other AL East teams a shot at the wild card? That's one way around that Yankee-Red Sox logjam, right? Divide and conquer.
Think about it. The pros are obvious. Maybe the Yankees and Red Sox would still make the playoffs every year. But …
(A) They'd both have to win their divisions to do it, for a change.
And (B) even if they did, they would still leave the playoff door open, thanks to the miracle of wild cards, to all the other teams in their respective divisions. Which sure isn't happening now.
So it's an idea worth thinking about, anyway. But it's a funny thing. We can't seem to find anyone who likes it, outside of a few desperate folks in Baltimore, Tampa Bay and the lovely province of Ontario.
We ran it past Red Sox manager Terry Francona last week, for instance. He had to admit it was tempting.
"I'd like to take Tampa and split them up, too," he said, with a laugh.
But after he'd swirled the concept around his brain cells for a little while, he had a thought people never seem to consider anymore when they contemplate the state of the AL East.
"You know," Francona said, "I'm not smart enough to have the answers. I do know that when people have ideas, I think they forget that about every 10 years, things change. Ten years ago, Cleveland sold out every game. Now it's hard for people to even remember that. Now, we're selling out [every game]. We're good. The Yankees are good. Tampa's good. These things are kind of cyclical. That's just the way the game is. … I think people who are living through it now don't realize that it hasn't always been this way."
And whaddaya know, he's right. The wild-card system has been around for 15 seasons. Over the first eight seasons, only twice did both AL East juggernauts make the postseason. Yeah, you read that right. Only twice.
But since 2003, it's happened in five of the last seven years. So before we start blowing up divisions and rivalries, are we sure that's a big enough sample size?
"I know it seems like the Yankees and Red Sox have been dominant for a long time, but they're really only been dominant since '03," said one GM who has been a high-ranking executive in both leagues. "That's just a seven-year period. Now maybe their financial advantages are so great that they'll always do that. But if you look back historically, you find that things even out."
To be honest, it can sometimes take a long, long time before those things do even out. You can ask all those NL East teams that kept finishing behind the Braves for a decade. But let's still acknowledge the point and move on to the next big issue -- the sheer impracticality of splitting up these behemoths.
"I don't see how it can happen politically," said an official of one club, "because I don't think there are any other teams that want the Red Sox or Yankees moving into their division. You wouldn't send them to the National League. And if you moved one of them to the [AL] Central, which of those teams would volunteer to move to the East?
"I don't see Jerry Reinsdorf letting the White Sox move. I don't see the Tigers going back. I'm sure Kansas City and Minnesota wouldn't want to be in the East. And good luck getting Cleveland to move back. So I don't think there's any logical candidate. I just don't see it."
We guess there are people who would ask, "Why can't you send one of them to the National League?" But that's not happening.
Since the Yankees set up shop in New York in 1903, there has never been a season when these two clubs weren't in the same league and, eventually, the same division. And any baseball official who has ever seen that Yankees-Red Sox cash register ringing would rather start all World Series games at 3 a.m. than blow up this rivalry for good.
We know people in Kansas, South Dakota and Orange County all overdosed on Yankees-Red Sox ESPN games about 20 years ago. But if you've ever tried to buy a ticket to one of those games, or perused the TV ratings, we wouldn't need to spend 10 seconds explaining to you why this is one break-up that's really, really hard to do.
So if baseball is determined to "fix" its Yankees-Red Sox "problem," it's going to have to find some other way: Add a second wild-card team. … balance the schedule. … rein in payroll disparity.
Whatever. It's all on the table. But it isn't going to happen via realignment -- radical or otherwise.
There's a larger question at work here, however. And it's a question this sport is going to have to think long and hard about:
Isn't it insane to mess with the fabric of your entire sport because you can't figure out what to do about two of the most successful franchises on Earth?
"Do we really want to make rules around two teams?" asked the GM quoted earlier. "When you think about it, how bad would that look for the sport if we had to admit, 'We can't control what they do, so we have to change our rules?'
"To me," he said, "it would be embarrassing to make rules around the Red Sox and Yankees and then turn around in maybe seven, eight or nine years and find that the Mets, Cubs and Phillies are like the Yankees and Red Sox are now. Then would we have to make rules for those teams, too?"
It's an excellent point. In fact, it's the central point. We're fine with just about any sensible idea that improves the competitive balance of 21st-century baseball. But as we consider those ideas, we should always remember that nothing is forever.
Not even the "never-ending" omnipotence of the Yankees and Red Sox.
