The Inaugural Season

Welcome to the Inaugural 2010 Season of Premiership Baseball! Here I will explain the theory and the practice behind an idea I dreamed up this month (though maybe someone else has beaten me to it, I'm claiming it as my own). In theory, it would revolutionize baseball as we know it. In practice, it's a fresh way to look at America's Pastime.

With all the talk of realignment in MLB recently, I had an odd thought. It would never happen, and I'd be opposed to it myself for historical reasons. However, please participate in a little experiment with me. Imagine, if you will, a world where Major League Baseball operates on a system similar to that of English Premier League soccer.

Let's start with the theory of the plan. We'll need upper and lower baseball divisions (no, not the American and National leagues; work with me here). I think the fairest way to do this at the moment is to split the teams up into two groups: those with a positive run differential in 2009, and everyone else. Happily, this criterion gives us two groups of 15 clubs. I have decided to name the two groups as they do across the channel -- Premiership is the upper division, and Championship is the lower. Here's how the two shake out:

Premiership Baseball (highest to lowest run differential):
Los Angeles Dodgers
New York Yankees
Boston Red Sox
Los Angeles Angels
Philadelphia Phillies
Atlanta Braves
St. Louis Cardinals
Colorado Rockies
Minnesota Twins
Tampa Bay Rays
San Francisco Giants
Texas Rangers
Chicago Cubs
Toronto Blue Jays
Florida Marlins

Championship Baseball (highest to lowest run differential):
Detroit Tigers
Oakland Athletics
Chicago White Sox
Milwaukee Brewers
Cincinnati Reds
Seattle Mariners
Arizona Diamondbacks
New York Mets
Cleveland Indians
Houston Astros
San Diego Padres
Pittsburgh Pirates
Baltimore Orioles
Kansas City Royals
Washington Nationals

If this were a real league scenario, the teams in each league would compete within their league. The All-Star break is toast, replaced by a mid-to-late season FA Cup-style tournament involving all 30 teams ... and their AAA clubs just for kicks. Who wouldn't watch the Durham Bulls beat the Orioles? And what does the winning team get? What's on the line? A shiny trophy and bragging rights! Certainly not homefield advantage for the World Series!

The teams that finish 1-4 in Premiership play do the usual best-of-seven postseason to determine the overall season victor, because we can't do away with the Fall Classic. The bottom 5 teams in RD in the Premiership get relegated down to the Championship. The top 2 in the Championship get promoted to the premiership; the teams that finish 3-4 in Championship play have a 1-game playoff at #3's home park for the right to promotion. The teams at the bottom of the Championship get to wonder why their front offices make such horrible decisions.

Farm systems remain intact to feed the big league clubs. Venues would remain unaffected, and travel would not be so much more difficult than it is now. Hard to say how this would affect revenue -- certain rivalries would be eliminated in some years, but undoubtedly new rivalries would arise.
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Enough of the theory; let's get to the practice. I'll be keeping track of W/L and RD stats within both divisions throughout the season. It's easy to just jot down the scores from real MLB games and figure the standings based on these. However, I'll also keep track of W/L and RD within the divisions. See the standings that follow this post for details on how that works. You'll pick it up quickly, I promise.

If it holds my interest enough, maybe I keep it going. There are several baseball sim programs that I could use to run something like this, but player data for 2010 won't be available until the season's over, so to get an accurate read on this whole scheme, we'll have to wait. Until then, welcome to the site, and play ball!