Moneyball

I stated in mid-April that with the Cubs current roster they were no better than a .500 team. I guess I was being optimistic because as they sit today, they are three games under the break-even point. Yet, I continue to hear how we are still in the wild card. Let me just come out and say it, if the Cubs win the wildcard, then I am going to become the CEO of JP Morgan Chase.

You have to question the merit of the wild card in the first place when a team so clearly mediocre is even in contention for it. I’ve read many a baseball pundit speak to just how great the wild card is because it keeps fan’s interest in the game. I counter with the notion that is provides false hope and is wholly unfair. The fact that the last three World Series winners were from the wild card just makes me want to vomit.

You see baseball is not like any other sport in that it plays a 162 game schedule. It used to reward the team that made it through that marathon of a season by awarding only four post-season berths. Now eight teams make the playoffs and as we see a team not even playing .500 ball can have a hot month and make the post season. Which then becomes a best of five series in the first round.

It is like running that marathon and then telling the winners that they need to now see who can run the fastest fifty-yard dash. Baseball is a funny game and in a best of five series anything can happen. Don’t believe me look at last weekend’s Cubs - Cardinal’s series. The Card’s, a far superior team to the Cubs lost three of four. My point is that anything can happen in a short series and this to me makes the whole wild card bullshit unfair to a team that went out and proved it was the best over the course of 162 games.

Sadly baseball like any other business is all about the money. With an extra round of playoffs comes an extra round of network television money. So, therefore the wild card is not going to go anywhere. I guess I propose that instead of awarding a wild card winner baseball should re-align to four divisions instead of the current six. Then you award the top two teams in each division a playoff birth. That would eliminate a team like San Diego, which is currently under .500 from being in the playoffs.

As of right now the playoff teams in the NL would be St. Louis, Atlanta, San Diego and Philadelphia. If you re-aligned to just East and West divisions by taking three teams from the central (Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Milwaukee) and placing them in the East and taking the other three (Cubs, Card’s and Houston) and placing them in the West your four playoff teams would be St. Louis and Houston from the West and Atlanta and Philadelphia from the East. This would eliminate San Diego and any team under .500. You could do the same for the AL.

Instead the billionaire’s who run baseball only think about squeezing as much money as they can from the sport. No one gives a shit about fairness, or tradition any more. Interleague play is another of my pet peeves but I will save that rant for another day. Owners will quote, attendance spikes and increased ratings, as proof baseball is more popular than ever. People will call me an old-timer traditionalist who needs to get with it.

It’s funny but the last year baseball only had four divisions and no wild card or interleague play they set a new attendance record. So, just why did we have to fix it? Money they say is the root of all evil and baseball owners care much more about it than the integrity of the game. I mean, why did the Cubs have no weekend games in Milwaukee last year? It’s easy, because Milwaukee can guarantee a sell out when the Cubs come in on a Tuesday so, why waste a weekend date (in which more fans will come out no matter who the opponent) on the Cubs.

It’s a joke and the game I love has so many problems that need to be addressed that mark my words, a time will come when the greed will ruin this great sport. (Hell it almost did in the 1994) All of that is a crying shame. Baseball is the purest sport of them all. You can’t run out the clock, you can’t play a prevent defense, and you can’t get into a hurry up offense. Each field has different dimensions and it’s the only game where the defense has the ball. It is the thinking mans’ game, it is just to bad more thinkers aren’t running the sport.