The haves and have-nots
A nice little tongue-in-cheek reminder from ESPN's Jayson Stark that the Yankees and the Red Sox are not the only teams playing in the AL East.
It's one of the things that I've always found interesting in Major League baseball, the way the divisions are structured and the schedules put together. I grew up watching soccer in the UK, and the size (or rather, the relative lack of size) of the territory means that there is no need to organise the divisions geographically - there are four divisions of professional soccer teams, and teams are promoted and relegated according to their end-of-season standings. Within the division, though, things are very simple: teams play each other twice a season - once at home and once away - and that's it. Obviously, the season extends to only forty games or so, so scheduling is much easier, but that also means that there is less inherent imbalance in each division. Sure, there are teams which have little chance of winning the division or at least securing one of the promotion spots, but given the shorter season and the fact that they play the best two or three teams only twice, then they probably have a better chance, in theory, of doing well than, say, the Blue Jays, who play the Yankees and Red Sox 19 times over the course of a season.
I guess there are those will will argue that the shorter season makes things more of a crapshoot, just as those best-of-five playoff series sometimes throw up huge upsets, but it's less the length of the season that I'm concerned about than the fact that the Devil Rays, for example, will always be stuck in the AL East, fighting it out with the Yankees and the Red Sox (and the Orioles and the Blue Jays). Even if they were a good team (and it looks like Toronto and Baltimore could be just that this year), they're still realistically looking at second place at best, and a shot at the Wild Card. I don't have any magic solution to even up this imbalance - I don't suppose there is one, except for putting all the teams back into one single division, but that might just create other scheduling worries - players would be worn out by mid-May with all the travelling.
Back to the division itself - the thing that the AL East seems to teach best is patience and humility. Patience is something that Devil Rays' manager Lou Piniella needs to have - he has to take a long-term view of his ballclub's situation, because they're not going to win the division anytime soon:
"What am I going to say? I've gotta be optimistic," he winks. "But I like our ball club. I really do. This is night and day a better club than last year."
Blue Jays' GM J.P. Ricciardi prefers the humility route, but that's probably because his team really does have a chance in the AL East. As the past two World Series have shown, the underdog card is sometimes a good one to play:
"I wouldn't call any of our moves blockbusters. We're more like the little chihuahua that keeps coming at your ankles."
A-Rod and Curt Schilling had better watch where they put their feet...
It's one of the things that I've always found interesting in Major League baseball, the way the divisions are structured and the schedules put together. I grew up watching soccer in the UK, and the size (or rather, the relative lack of size) of the territory means that there is no need to organise the divisions geographically - there are four divisions of professional soccer teams, and teams are promoted and relegated according to their end-of-season standings. Within the division, though, things are very simple: teams play each other twice a season - once at home and once away - and that's it. Obviously, the season extends to only forty games or so, so scheduling is much easier, but that also means that there is less inherent imbalance in each division. Sure, there are teams which have little chance of winning the division or at least securing one of the promotion spots, but given the shorter season and the fact that they play the best two or three teams only twice, then they probably have a better chance, in theory, of doing well than, say, the Blue Jays, who play the Yankees and Red Sox 19 times over the course of a season.
I guess there are those will will argue that the shorter season makes things more of a crapshoot, just as those best-of-five playoff series sometimes throw up huge upsets, but it's less the length of the season that I'm concerned about than the fact that the Devil Rays, for example, will always be stuck in the AL East, fighting it out with the Yankees and the Red Sox (and the Orioles and the Blue Jays). Even if they were a good team (and it looks like Toronto and Baltimore could be just that this year), they're still realistically looking at second place at best, and a shot at the Wild Card. I don't have any magic solution to even up this imbalance - I don't suppose there is one, except for putting all the teams back into one single division, but that might just create other scheduling worries - players would be worn out by mid-May with all the travelling.
Back to the division itself - the thing that the AL East seems to teach best is patience and humility. Patience is something that Devil Rays' manager Lou Piniella needs to have - he has to take a long-term view of his ballclub's situation, because they're not going to win the division anytime soon:
"What am I going to say? I've gotta be optimistic," he winks. "But I like our ball club. I really do. This is night and day a better club than last year."
Blue Jays' GM J.P. Ricciardi prefers the humility route, but that's probably because his team really does have a chance in the AL East. As the past two World Series have shown, the underdog card is sometimes a good one to play:
"I wouldn't call any of our moves blockbusters. We're more like the little chihuahua that keeps coming at your ankles."
A-Rod and Curt Schilling had better watch where they put their feet...
posted by Iain at
10:25
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