Unbalanced

By Andrew Lipsett
Several years ago, when MLB announced the unbalanced schedule, it seemed like a great idea. Divisional races had lost a little punch; this was sure to reinvigorate them (and, to a certain degree, it has). But as the years have gone by, I have found myself less and less enamored of the system, which – in addition to making what should be exciting divisional rivalries seem plodding at times – contains within itself inequities that attack competitive balance in MLB.
In theory, divisional races themselves have remained fair due to the unbalanced schedule (despite the fact that teams play some divisional rivals 18 times and others 19, a necessary byproduct of the scheduling). But since the mid-1990’s, baseball has been breaking out of its self-contained mold; whereas before, only the winners of each division advanced to the postseason, we now have a system where an additional team – one, chosen from three divisions – joins them. This would be fine if schedules were equally balanced; if the Sox played the Yankees as often as they played the Rangers or the Mariners or the Royals. But that’s not the case. Instead, nearly a full half of each team’s games are played against divisional rivals. And if, at the end of the season, two teams are separated in the Wild Card Standings by one game, who is to say that one of those 19 games vs. the Royals or Devil Rays or Pirates doesn’t trump one against the Cardinals or Yankees or White Sox?
One of the strengths of pre-WC baseball was that each division stood on its own, at least until the LCS. Each team played each other team essentially the exact same number of times, but even if they hadn’t, those inequities of schedule would have been self-contained. The playoff contenders would still be competing only against teams that had played identical schedules. As it stands today, the closest competitors for the Wild Card each season have played wildly different schedules, against different opponents at a different frequency. During those years of a difficult AL West and an AL East that, apart from the Yankees and Sox, was relatively easy, who’s to say that the Red Sox would have finished with the Wild Card? Is it any shock that the Wild Card didn’t emerge from the best division in the NL Last year – the NL East – but instead from the most top-heavy one, with a mix of good teams and truly awful ones?
While I’ve come around on the Wild Card, this issue remains a problem for baseball. It ensures that the Wild Card, year in, year out, will go to teams that have had the opportunity to beat up on lesser clubs more often than their opponents. It may, at times, even penalize better teams simply because they played in more competitive divisions.
Baseball’s playoff syustem remains the most exclusive of the major sports. Only 8 teams out of 30 can advance, and those 8 are supposed to be the very best. It usually works out that way, and if it doesn’t – as with the 2005 San Diego Padres, for example – at the very least those teams were the best in their division. With the current Wild Card setup, however, that is not necessarily the case. The only way to solve it, or approach it, is to consider reframing the unbalanced schedule. I’m not in favor of doing away with it altogether, but in 2006 the Red Sox will play the Devil Rays 19 times and the Twins 6. There has to be a better way.