If the suits running Major League Baseball are serious about realignment and making changes to correct the obvious inequities in the game, they need to take a hard look at the plight of the Tampa Bay Rays.
Why? The Rays have never won the American League wild card.
They've won the AL East championship twice. They've won the AL pennant once. But they've never gone to the playoffs as the AL's best divisional runner-up.
Not as the Rays.
Not as the Devil Rays.
Not once in the franchise's previous 13 seasons.
And that should surprise no one because, when it comes to winning a wild-card berth in the playoffs, no team in baseball annually confronts a more daunting task.
That's not an opinion.
It's a fact.
It's a fact the Rays play in the AL East, where they must contend with the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, two marquee teams that have dominated the division for most of the past 15 years.
It's a fact the Rays embark on every season knowing their postseason hopes depend greatly on their ability to outplay the Yankees and Red Sox, two marquee teams that grossly outspend everyone else in the division, and almost everyone else in baseball.
It's a fact the Rays, because MLB embraces an unbalanced schedule, must play more games against the Yankees and Red Sox than the wild-card contenders in the AL Central and AL West, neither of which boasts two teams as strong and successful as those AL East juggernauts.
True, the AL East's other two teams, the Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays, face the same challenges. But at least they can count on a home-crowd advantage in their home ballparks.
The Rays can't -- not always, not when they need it most.
As most of us who live here know, Florida is filled with folks who moved here from somewhere else. And, as a result, the Rays often are overshadowed in the Tampa Bay market, where, when the Yankees and Red Sox come to town, thousands of transplants from New York and New England flock to Tropicana Field to root for the visitors.
That doesn't help.
But commissioner Bud Selig and the suits can.
They can't change the makeup of the Tampa Bay market, but they can change the flawed format that unfairly punishes the Rays for playing in the wrong division.
And they should.
In discussing any potential realignment plan, they need to make a choice: Do they want to retain the wild-card system, which keeps more teams in the playoff chase deeper into the season? Or do they want to stay with the unbalanced schedule, which puts more emphasis on division games and enhances rivalries within the divisions? They can't have both and claim to care about fairness.
While the unbalanced schedule works for deciding division championships -- each team in the division plays essentially the same opponents the same number of times -- it doesn't provide a level playing field for wild-card contenders in different divisions.
Really, it doesn't make sense.
Unlike teams vying for division titles, wild-card contenders often (usually?) are competing against teams in other divisions, even though they're playing noticeably different schedules.
To be more precise: They're competing for a league-wide playoff berth but playing more games against teams in their divisions, which, in most cases, are far from equal in strength.
How, exactly, is that fair? It's not.
On a year-to-year basis, it's tough enough for the Rays to contend with the Yankees and Red Sox in the AL East, where they've more than held their own the past three seasons and are in the fight again as the All-Star break approaches.
Playing in the AL East shouldn't make it tougher to win the wild card.
But it does.
So if the suits running baseball are serious about realignment and correcting the obvious inequities in the game, they should start with a balanced schedule.
Comments