Today was a soccer day. I listened to the ESPN Soccernet podcast this morning and watched the second half of the Manchester United-AC Milan match this afternoon. While getting my soccer fix, I had an interesting idea. Some of you may think this sounds crazy, but I'm going to throw it out there.
In all of the major soccer leagues in Europe, South America, Mexico, and just about every where else, there is this nifty little thing called relegation. Relegation is when the bottom three teams (or two, or one, the number varies) of a league are sent down to the next lowest league, while teams from the lower leauge are promoted to the higher league.
Example: West Ham, Charlton, and Watford are at the bottom of the Premier League in England. If the season ends and they are still on the bottom they will be sent down to the Championship League (there are four leagues in England). Birmingham and Sunderland the number one and two teams in the Champions League and they will be bumped up to the Premier League if they stay on top.
My idea is to institute the relegation system in Major League Baseball. I know it sounds crazy, especially coming from a Cubs fan, but I think it would make the game very entertaining. Think baseball could handle it because of all the teams it is structured similaryly to soccer leagues, with the Majors, AAA, AA, A leagues.
I think it would be really entertaining to see which teams would get bumped up with each new seaon. How cool would it be to see the New York Yankees take on the Kane County Cougars or the Minnesota Twins play the Tri-City Valley Cats? I think that relegation would also give more motivation for MLB teams to get out of their division cellars. Let's face it, some teams are historically bad and relegation could shake things enough to turn them around.
All in all, I like the idea of more competition. The little guys taking on Goliath. I know it will never, ever happen, but it sure is something to consider. If you excuse me, I want to catch the Everett Aquasox-Seattle Mariners game.
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But in the MLB, where all those farm systems are interconnected, wouldn't it just be messing up teams' prospects?
For example, let's say the Royals have the worst record in the MLB, and the Yankees Triple-A team was supposed to replace the them; what motivation would that team have to play in the MLB? They're supposed to be able to be tapped by the Yankees when players were needed, but now, the Yankees would have to rely on, what, their Double-A team?
There has to be some sort of separation and less interconnectedness for this idea to work. But -- like communism -- I do like it in theory.
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