League Expansion
An interesting topic is emerging from the comissioner's office of late. The league has a desire to expand to 32 team. Per MLBTR:
Newman also notes that Manfred continues to have interest in expanding the league, though the commissioner said expansion will not become a prominent focus until the stadium issues for both the Rays and A’s are resolved. “I know the Mayor of Montreal has been very vocal about bringing baseball back to Montreal,” said Manfred. “Charlotte’s a possibility. And I’d like to think that Mexico City or some other place in Mexico would be a possibility.”
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/07/rob-manfred-tony-clark-all-star-g...
This is actually of great interest to me for several reasons, the leading among them is: I believe the baseball talent pool is now TOO deep. I hear the objections already:
But Matt, how can a sport ever be too deep? Isn't a higher level of play good for the fans? Don't deeper leagues offer better parity?
For the most part, I agree with the above sentiment, to a point. A deep league offers closer games, closer play-off races, fewer teams that are hopeless to watch, and more exciting talent on display. We are seeing that in baseball like we've never seen before. I would argue that today's class of players is far...far more talented than the class of players that made up the league in 1995 or even 2005. One of the big ways you can see this is by watching relatively young journeyman players. I say young because you want to avoid the probability that aging is causing a decline. If you look at the bottom third of players who got at least 200 plate appearances in 2012, and you ask, how did those guys do in 2016 (and how are they doing now), you will obviously lose a good many of them attrition anyway (that would happen normally...the five-year survival rate for a player who received regular playing time but was in the bottom third of the league as of 2010, from 2005, was roughly 19%. But the guys who did survive had an OPS+ of 84 (combined) in 2012 and 76 now. Doesn't sound like a lot, but that's a GIGANTIC movement compared to the typical changes we see historically.
So the bottom of the distribution of player performance is getting narrowed toward average, as is the upper bound. That's a good thing, right?
Well...it can be, but I think we have now reached a point where the leagues (especially the AL) are so deep that we're losing diversity of playing styles and body types. This has already happened in the NFL - the bodies have gotten freakier and freakier such that, today, you don't ever see small guys on those fields...or even large, but slow, guys. They're all giants who run 4.1 40s (I'm exaggerating a tad, but you get the meaning). And it's happening in baseball too.
Think back five years and run through the top relief pitchers in the game (it gets even more obvious if you look further back). Top relievers have always thrown pretty hard on average, but you could find a handful of guys with subpar fastalls landing on the top 20 reliever WAR list. And "threw pretty hard compared to average" implied that you threw 94...nowadays, if you throw 94, you get MULCHED unless you have some sort of massive equalizer breaking pitch. Just ask James Paxton about how much good a 93/94 mph fastball does him today (hint: when you see those speeds, he's about to get crushed). The best releivers in todays game all throw at least some of their fastballs at 96+ with the possible exception of short-term overachievers like Pat Neshek and 'hot' Nick Vincent (who has come back to earth and dropped off the top 20 list).
Similarly, the Ichiros of the game are very rare now. The little superstar is almost absent from today's game. How many tiny guys can you think of that are kicking tail in baseball right now. I've got Jose Altuve and...I'm sure there are a few others...? Just take the average height and weight of the players at this year's all-star game and compare them to the same averages from 1995. Go on...I dare you. And that was during the steroid era. :)
If you want further proof that the game has become so balanced that it is now unbalanced in gameplay...look no further than the skyrocketing K, HR, and batted ball velocity trends.
Point being...this game is now so thick with freaky talents that guys like Kyle Seager surprise us...Seager has a frame and talent similar to, say, Chris Sabo, and Sabo surprised no one. But Seager snuck up on almost everyone in the game. When he was drafted, they said he didn't have anywhere near the size to be a star hitter in the big leagues.
In football, the freakshow has largely been positive - that is a game based on power and control of the space and momentum. Baseball is not. It's a skill game and most of its fans like underdogs like Altuve and Ichiro.
I'm sure Manfred is considering expansion because it means more revenue for the league...but in this case, he's right and has no idea why.
He mentions Charlotte, Mexico City and Montreal as possibilities and a couple others routinely get floated (Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Jacksonville, etc)
I, for one, am hoping the league expands sooner, rather than later. It also allows us to move to 4 divisions of 4 teams in each league and lets us relegate interleague play to set times of the season to further highlight the special nature of those games.
I'm curious what the denizens think on this one.