Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkCuban
If you're aiming for balanced divisions, this is bad. If you want to increase the difficulty level, unbalanced divisions are good -- they make it more difficult in the superior division to make the playoffs.
Logically, teams should be geographically close to over teams in their division. In the CL, a team from Oregon and Western Canada play in a division with New York and Boston. Culturally and Geographically, the regions are completely alien.
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If your intention was to clarify the concluding sentence of your previous post, I am still befuddled.
Culturally? Vancouver and Tijuana are closer culturally then?......and not so close geographically either. At least Vancouver and Portland are northern teams playing in the North Division, currently.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkCuban
If there is expansion planned -- at least in the short term -- you'd want to stay at 28 teams. Westheim stated he is against a wild card -- so, with a two-division set-up, the only option is seven-team divisions.
The schedule would need to be re-aligned somewhat -- however, with an odd number of teams, each team has an even number of division opponents -- guaranteeing an even number of home-and-away games between division teams.
I've attached a sample schedule here.
28 interleave games (2 x 14)
56 cross-division games (8 x 7)
72 Division Games (12 x 6)
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156 Total Games
The other option would be three divisions: 5-teams, 4-teams, and 5-teams. The team with the best record would receive a bye, and the other two division winners would have a play-off. This would allow the league to keep its integrity.
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Phew! Only 72 games in the division is almost guaranteeing that at some point, a losing team will make the playoffs. And the other idea of 3 divisions is throwing competitive equality out the window. The clubs in the 4-team divisions have a much easier road to the playoffs than the teams in the other divisions. In real baseball, they did this with the NL Central being a 6-team division and the AL West only having 4 teams. I contemplated suing baseball as my Reds had to beat out 5 teams to win a division title, while the AL West teams only had to beat out 3 others. Ridiculous.....
P.S. I am starting a petition at
www.uselesswebspacefiller.org to get the FL and CL to eliminate interleague play. You can offer your support by clicking the PayPal button and donating what you can afford ($50 suggested).