From an article in today's Phila. Daily News: Mike Schmidt is spending a couple of weeks with the Phillies in Florida as a special instructor, and has an interesting prediction on how the major leagues will look...

[quote]For Schmidt, the Rolen Issue - the current third baseman won't re-sign because he does not believe the Phils will spend big to win big - is a symptom of the disease that is killing baseball.

"It saddens me that the game of baseball has come to that,'' Schmidt said. "It's a perfect example of the trouble the sport is in. The game itself is at a real scary period in history."

As such, he predicts massive contraction to two eight-team leagues, as the majors existed from 1901 through 1960. Smaller markets like Detroit and Milwaukee, he said, will become part of an elite minor league, a sort of Quadruple A, "by the year 2020."

He did not indicate at which level he believed the Phils would compete.

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I'm all for contraction to 16 teams. I wouldn't have an AL or NL anymore, just 4 divisions along geographic lines, the division winners are seeded according to record, 1 plays 4, 2 and 3 play, the winners in the WS.

It won't happen but it's nice to dream.

A sensible sharing of TV revenue, along the lines of the NFL, would erase any unfair advantages of small/large market gaps. Period. No contraction necessary.

There is also the argument that there is not enough major league - caliber talent, particularly pitching, to stock thirty teams. Having 28, 26, 24, 16 teams would do more to reverse the inflation of baseball statistics than any rule change about strike zones, height of pitching mounds, etc. ever could.

[quote]Originally posted by Munson Man:
There is also the argument that there is not enough ... talent, particularly pitching, to stock thirty teams.

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I've never bought that argument -- just look at the demographics of the U.S. alone. Population in 1950 - 152 million; population in 2000 - 281 (almost double) MLB teams in 1950 - 16; MLB teams in 2000 - 30 (almost double). Then you need to take into account the growing population of Latin American countries like the D.R., Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico ... where some of the pitching talent is coming from today. There's easily enough talent around for 30+ teams.

I agree with you DCBucky. I've never bought into that "dilution of talent" argument.

I also don' t believe contraction will happen in my lifetime. It's a lot of posturing by the owners to get what they want, both from the players union and from the cities that haven't caved in and built new stadiums for them.

I live in Tampa Bay, where we have a new team, struggling to establish itself, in one of the most fickle sports markets in the U.S. All this talk of contraction -- and the mention of the Rays as a possible target -- aren't doing anything to get baseball established here.

I wish Bud and the boys would just shut up and face reality: without revenue sharing, there will be no MLB at all in a few years.

rant, rant, pant, pant.....

[ March 05, 2002: Message edited by: raysnjays ]

Right on, DCBucky...and your figures don't even take into account the fact that the players were drawn almost exclusively from white Americans in 1950. There's enough talent out there. Watch AAA ball and you'll find the players are really not that different from a lot of lower-tier major league regulars.

JC, maybe there's enough position player talent, but pitching? I don't think so. Pitching has always been hard to come by, esp. lefties; most teams now are lucky to have 2 quality starters and a bullpen ace. Middle relief is where you see the real decline; that's one reason, IMHO, that games take so long is that since starters aren't expected to complete games any more, the middle guys come in and get hammered and walk a bunch of people.

The Angels let Shigatoshi Hasegawa go for purely economic reasons. He was Troy Percival's RH set-up guy, but they figured guys like him were a dime a dozen, so they let him go. Mark Petkovsek was supposed to take over that role, but he went to Texas for big money and got rocked last year.

It's the lack of pitching talent that's causing the position players to have inflated stats. So it doesn't look like the talent of the position players is diluted. But there are players on the rosters of teams now--some of them starters--who would be in the minors if there were fewer teams.

Pitching is thin because teams need twice as many pitchers as they did forty years ago. But part of that is the smaller strike zone, the lower mound, and the way modern hitters are trained to wait for a pitch to drive--all of which force the pitchers to throw more pitches. Even if they allowed the same number of hits...of course, with players that are bigger and stronger than ever and the newer parks, they give up more, so they have to face more batters too. Atlanta used to be one of the best hitter's parks in baseball--now it's average, because of the advent of Coors Field, Enron etc.

Even so, AAA pitchers are not that much worse than AAA position players, or AAA hitting stats would be huge. I don't believe the difference between the 700th best player and the 800th best player, or even the 400th best player and the 800th best player is as great as the difference between #1 and #10 is much bigger. The main effect of a larger number of teams is to reduce the number of star players per team, not to allow much weaker players to play.
This is why this new "balancing" draft will make no difference--having a larger number of marginal major league players just isn't going to help anybody.

MLB can't do much about puny ballparks with even punier (sp? is there even such a word?) foul areas. They did try to extend the strike zone some. While the zone's vertical dimensions definitely expanded, it seems like a bit was nipped off the sides in the process. Still, expanding the strike zone was definitely a move in the right direction.

If the matchup is still lopsided, why not raise the mound a couple of inches? While it isn't a cure-all, it would help the pitchers out some. Why isn't this happening? Is it just that things don't change all that easily/quickly in this tradition-rich sport?

I think there's more to the inflated hitting stats than diluted pitching. Just look at the size and skill of today's players. The "hitters" of history couldn't hold a candle to them. Ruth and Williams couldn't hit today's pitching if their lives depended on it, let alone amass the stats they did back then.

Just as there is a greater pool of talent from which to draw in the realm of position players/hitters, so is there more stock on the pitching side.

Anyway, the point is I cannot justify contraction based on these arguments of diluted talent. I just don't buy it.

[quote]I think there's more to the inflated hitting stats than diluted pitching. Just look at the size and skill of today's players. The "hitters" of history couldn't hold a candle to them. Ruth and Williams couldn't hit today's pitching if their lives depended on it, let alone amass the stats they did back then

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Woah! I don't agree with that at all. You could use the reverse argument: that the pitching pool was much stronger in Ruth/Williams' day and that mediocrities that hit .280 today would have been driving buses in their hometowns back then, not playing in the Bigs.

Ted Williams lost how many years during his prime to military service and he still put up great numbers? He would be able to hit in any era. I just don't think that this insane drive to have tons of muscles actually helps players all that much. Sure, they can hit the ball farther but they aren't as flexible either. There was an interesting comment once (can't remember who said it) that baseball is really the one sport you can compare players from the different eras because a players size and strength have less of an impact than in football and basketball.

It's not just the strength of today's players. I also think there has been an increase in skill level as well. But, it's pointless to argue about it, except....

I'm perfecting my time machine, so in a little while we'll be able to test this theory. I'm sending Pedro back to face the Babe and bringing the Splendid Splinter up to face Randy Johnson. We'll see what happens!

[ March 07, 2002: Message edited by: raysnjays ]