Comments on: Would Realignment Help The Hot Stove? http://wrigleyville.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2018/01/30/would-realignment-help-the-hot-stove/ Just another Baseball Prospectus Local Sites site Sat, 16 Feb 2019 21:04:52 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1 By: Dave http://wrigleyville.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2018/01/30/would-realignment-help-the-hot-stove/#comment-21631 Sun, 04 Feb 2018 03:26:16 +0000 http://wrigleyville.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=22808#comment-21631 Here’s a fairly significant problem that I see with this idea of eight 4-team divisions: there’s a good chance that we’d see clearly worse teams make the playoffs very frequently, either every year or close to it. That can be some concern under almost any system, but with this idea I think that we would fairly regularly see a .500 or below team make the playoffs while one or more teams with 85-90 wins miss the playoffs.

I think that this off-season has been more about the wild card race looking not that competitive, especially in the AL, than teams assigning no value to getting a wild card. Normally, if division races don’t project to be very competitive, then the wild card races should look pretty competitive because the math should line up that a lot of decent teams project well back in their divisions but are all in the wild card mix.

This year, however, the Angels’ early moves (re-signing Upton, getting Ohtani, Kinsler trade, Cozart signing) pushed them up to a high-80’s win projection not far below the Yankees and Red Sox. The Angels still look well behind the Astros, but the Angels also look well ahead of possible wild card contenders such as the Blue Jays, Twins, Rangers, and Mariners. So that group of teams, who have been pretty quiet in free agency, doesn’t have a ton of incentive to push for short-term upgrades to go after a wild card in 2018.

The NL wild card, by contrast, looks somewhat more competitive with the Cardinals projected for a high-80’s win total but then a few teams in the mix with a low-80’s projection. We have seen some activity from these NL teams, with more trades than free agent signings. That includes moves by the Cardinals (Ozuna), Giants (Longoria, McCutchen), Brewers (Yelich, Cain, plus lots of rumors around a FA starting pitcher), and Rockies (several FA relievers, including Wade Davis).

]]> By: jo http://wrigleyville.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2018/01/30/would-realignment-help-the-hot-stove/#comment-21573 Tue, 30 Jan 2018 13:21:51 +0000 http://wrigleyville.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=22808#comment-21573 I have, and will always, hate the wild-card system, along with its 3-headed hydra of a division system. I think 8 divisions of 4 teams each would be just awesome.

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