I know our manager John Corrigan was one of the driving forces in creating this A-B league, and we are grateful for his continuing input. We're playin ball and it's all good. However, I can't stop thinking of growing up in Brooklyn, with the sky line of elite Manhattan in the close but water bound distance. "Please sir, can I have some more?" Are the "Gang of Four" really happy with the caviar division? Familiarity? may breed exciting close games -or boredom, and anyway I hear caviar raises your cholesterol.
Looks like the 55+ Division is headed the same way. You would think at that age level there would be a different mindset. Oh well, the 62+ Division will get it right. Jim Porter WhizKids 55+ Division
Well ...... for the most part everything really stays the same until we reach playoff time.
I don't remember the exact specifics of the schedule we voted on (there were more pieces of paper with proposed schedules on them than i have fingers and toes but the regular season schedule is fairly similar to two years ago with the unbalanced schedule.
The regular season is laid out with the top 4 playing each other several times and then playing the teams ranked 5-11 or so one time. The 5 - 11 teams play everyone once a couple teams twice and the bottom teams play each other a few times and then the 5 seeds down one time.
We have two distinct factions in our league .... one wants parity, drafts etc and the other wants open free agency and no limits on player movement. This new option is a way to try and satisfy both. If you look at past results in the 45's i believe no team has ever won other than the Giants or Marlins. If you look at last year with the upper and lower divisions it was clear that the 5th and 6th teams in the upper division were a notch below the upper teams and both the 5th and 6th teams (Dodgers and Black Sox) lost a substantial amount of talent to free agency (our top three offensive players) and would be weaker than last year while the top teams all added players and improved.
My hope / plan when i took over the Dodgers was to try and build a team that could win the championship .... and i made some significant strides and we improved dramatically. That all came crashing down at the end of this year when my guys left. They didn't leave because they weren't happy ... they left to go to a much stronger team that will compete for a championship this year. There is just no way that i can replace the talent that i lost. After thinking about it i came to the conclusion that a natural effect of free agency is that for the most part the most talented players are going to head to the top teams and it will be almost impossible to build a contender out of an existing team without some merger with another team or radical move that would displace half my team and i don't want to do that to guys i have played ball with for years and like and respect and want them to like and respect me.
Despite my team being hurt by free agency i am not against it ..... one of my statements during this process is that we have some great baseball in our division and we should embrace it and not dilute it with a draft or other efforts to bring about parity. Unfortunately the down side is that we go into a season with 15 teams and the reality that 4 of those teams are dramatically stronger than the other 11 and among those it is fairly wide open and the vast majority of those 11 teams have a realistic shot at winning the division.
The playoffs will be more competitive ..... we won't see a weekend of 20-0 and 28-1 sweeps. The top guys will have a best of 5 final... the lower division teams will have an opportunity to play three or four weekends of playoff baseball in September.
And ... this is a fluid thing ...... each year the managers can decide what division to play in. So if my guys who left have a miserable experience and come back next year or a team picks up a tremendous amount of talent they can play A and if an A team gets hammered by free agency they can play B.
It may not be perfect but it's an attempt to make more of the games competitive and get more guys playing baseball deep into September. Entering the season the vast majority of the teams feel as if they can compete for a title .... last year it was only a handful.
What stops all four A division teams from moving to the B division? If a team finishes second in the A division and goes to the B div., is that o.k.? What happens if they want to stay there, and end up dominating that div.for a couple years in a row? Right back to where you started? Or do you start a C div.? Looks to me like a can of worms has been opened trying to please a few folks who will just find something else to complain about down the road.
Playing baseball in this league is not a right, its a privelage. Everyone is invited to play, that doesn't mean the rules have to be diluted and twisted to fit everyones agenda.
What stops all four A division teams from moving to the B division? If a team finishes second in the A division and goes to the B div., is that o.k.? What happens if they want to stay there, and end up dominating that div.for a couple years in a row? Right back to where you started? Or do you start a C div.? Looks to me like a can of worms has been opened trying to please a few folks who will just find something else to complain about down the road.
Playing baseball in this league is not a right, its a privelage. Everyone is invited to play, that doesn't mean the rules have to be diluted and twisted to fit everyones agenda.
Pete
I am glad to see you got the van out of the mud Pete
Each team can move freely each season.
No rules have been deleted, changed etc .. as i said the feedback from the GM's was very positive.
but the regular season schedule is fairly similar to two years ago with the unbalanced schedule.
