Let's Fix Things That May or May Not Be Broken

[BBTV]

First up, I want to fix the drafts of the four major sports.

 

Currently, NFL is simply the reverse order of final record, which gives incentive for teams to tank at the end.

NBA has the lottery where you really need to be in that bottom four to have a shot at the top, so tanking is practically required.

Baseball is straight record, and most years is such a crap shoot it doesn't really matter.

I'm not sure how NHL works, but I know the Penguins tanked twice, and IIRC, Edmonton tanked (or was legit horrible) for MacDavid.

 

So here's my solution to this problem:  Do the draft order by the order in which teams are eliminated from the playoffs.  Nobody is going to tank from day 1 (except the Process-era Sixers), so they're going to legit play until they're about out of it.  In the event Detroit is eliminated by week 9, it will be on merit, and they get the top pick and still have incentive to play hard the rest of the way.  Toward the end of the season when teams are teetering on the brink, they're going to want to make the playoffs so there's little - if any - risk of the tanking.  The first 10-15 picks will be locked in by week 12 or so, which means the end of the season should be legit competitive, and the teams with the top picks got them while playing hard.

 

What do you think?

[BBTV]

I'm not sure how to get records of when teams were eliminated in any given year in order to see how much things would have changed, but one flaw in this argument is that when a division blows like the NFC East did in 2020, the Eagles, who were a max 5-win team had they not tanked, would have been one of the highest non-playoff-team drafters since they were among the last eliminated despite winning 4 (but should have been 5) games.  So there's a flaw there, but a pretty rare one IMO.

 

Also the dolphins situation wouldn't have happened since they wouldn't be playing for playoff positioning once they're knocked out.

[tigers]

Most American sports that have the teams in the Final that have not or may have not met in the regular season.

 

It needs to be fixed.

[TBGKon]

2 minutes ago, tigers said:

Most American sports that have the teams in the Final that have not or may have not met in the regular season.

 

It needs to be fixed.

Not exactly.  NBA and NHL play all teams, so at minimum the final 2 teams have played at least twice.  MLB will be fixing this next year, as all 30 teams will play at least 1 series each season starting in 2023.  The NFL is the one where it has the least chance to occur, but you cant have a 30+ week NFL season.

[neo_prankster]

4 minutes ago, TBGKon said:

Not exactly.  NBA and NHL play all teams, so at minimum the final 2 teams have played at least twice.  MLB will be fixing this next year, as all 30 teams will play at least 1 series each season starting in 2023.  The NFL is the one where it has the least chance to occur, but you cant have a 30+ week NFL season.

Didn't the NBA have everybody face each other while they still had an odd number of teams or did that change when Hornets 2.0 came into the league as the Bobcats?

 

How will MLB's new scheduling format really work if the Padres for instance are gonna have one series against each from the American League? Will they rotate who plays at home every other year?

[tBBP]

11 minutes ago, TBGKon said:

Not exactly.  NBA and NHL play all teams, so at minimum the final 2 teams have played at least twice.  MLB will be fixing this next year, as all 30 teams will play at least 1 series each season starting in 2023.  The NFL is the one where it has the least chance to occur, but you cant have a 30+ week NFL season.

 

Not yet, anyway.

 

Now, as to my suggestion of what to fix: the entire financial structure of the NBA. That is the only big sport where max contracts, mid-level exceptions and protected/unprotected draft picks are a thing (to my knowledge, anyway), and to this non-analytics and not-math whiz, and teams literally build/draft/deal/tank around all that needlessly complicates stuff. So for any of you smart(er) guys, is there some kind of way to simplify all that bullcorn?

[neo_prankster]

Also, I think the Pointless Realignment thread might be the better place if we wanted to talk about trying to fix the divisions in the team-sport leagues, right? Because I feel like there might be a way to tweak the NFL's divisions while letting Dallas stay in the NFC East with the Giants, Eagles and Commanders.

[Red Comet]

34 minutes ago, tBBP said:

 

Not yet, anyway.

 

Now, as to my suggestion of what to fix: the entire financial structure of the NBA. That is the only big sport where max contracts, mid-level exceptions and protected/unprotected draft picks are a thing (to my knowledge, anyway), and to this non-analytics and not-math whiz, and teams literally build/draft/deal/tank around all that needlessly complicates stuff. So for any of you smart(er) guys, is there some kind of way to simplify all that bullcorn?

Yeah, get rid of about 8-10 teams.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

Here's the way to fix drafts: get rid of them.

 

A draft is nothing but a means to rip off players by reducing their bargaining power. All players who are not currently under contract should rightfully be free agents.

 

The typical reflexive response is: but then the rich teams will sign all the best players.  However, this poorly-thought-out response takes as givens some factors that could very well be different.

 

First of all, there is no good reason for the existence of "rich teams" and "poor teams". If a team's owner cannot afford to pay the going rate for talent in a given sport, then that owner is not fit. So the appropriate answer for a team that cannot compete is for it to either get better owners, or else to fold.

 

The key word here is "compete". Let us note that, in professional sporting competition, absolutely nobody argues that accommodations ought to be made for lesser-talented players. To make accommodations for less wealthy owners is equally absurd.

 

Alternatively, the richer owners could prop up the less rich owners by means of a revenue-sharing scheme that equalises all teams' spending capability.

 

Either way, the fundamental value worth defending is that a player employed by no team be free to negotiate with any team that is interested in hiring that player — just as workers in every other sector can do. Ideally, this principle would be enshrined in a federal law that would ban a draft as a form of collusion.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Thumbs enthusiastically up. I hate the draft.

[neo_prankster]

3 hours ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

Thumbs enthusiastically up. I hate the draft.

 

If you want to get rid of the draft, say goodbye to the Green Bay Packers.

[sky1324]

3 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

The typical reflexive response is: but then the rich teams will sign all the best players.  However, this poorly-thought-out response takes as givens some factors that could very well be different.

 

First of all, there is no good reason for the existence of "rich teams" and "poor teams". If a team's owner cannot afford to pay the going rate for talent in a given sport, then that owner is not fit. So the appropriate answer for a team that cannot compete is for it to either get better owners, or else to fold.

Why would any player ever want to go to the Charlotte Hornets when they could be signed by the Lakers or Warriors? Getting rid of the draft utterly dooms small-market teams. I know this is great for you, being a New York fan and all, but this would basically be certain death for any team not based in a top-10 media market because you'd rob the teams that can't sign big-name free agents (again, not even talking money here, this is strictly a location thing) of their only way to improve.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

4 hours ago, CDCLT said:

Why would any player ever want to go to the Charlotte Hornets when they could be signed by the Lakers or Warriors?

Because the Hornets might offer more money. Don't forget that having no draft would force leagues to address the mythical "small market" issue by sharing revenue so as to equalise the teams' ability to spend (or else by bringing in competent owners for teams whose owners cannot keep up with the costs of the business that they have chosen to enter). 

 

Also, in a world without a draft, each team would still have its own GM making decisions. One GM could rate a given player higher than another does, not to mention the fact that different teams have different needs.

 

 

4 hours ago, CDCLT said:

Getting rid of the draft utterly dooms small-market teams. I know this is great for you, being a New York fan and all, but this would basically be certain death for any team not based in a top-10 media market

 

Even I as an arrogant New Yorker know that not everyone wants to live here — or in any other huge city, for that matter. There are plenty of people who, when given the choice between a Charlotte or a Kansas City or a Cincinnati as opposed to a New York or a Los Angeles, would choose the former. And some of those people are pro athletes.

 

 

4 hours ago, CDCLT said:

you'd rob the teams that can't sign big-name free agents (again, not even talking money here, this is strictly a location thing) of their only way to improve.

 

First: faulty premise, as, with an appropriate revenue-sharing plan in place, there'd be no teams that can't sign big-name free agents.

 

Second: signing free agents is not the only way to improve, as trades exist.

 

 

5 hours ago, neo_prankster said:

If you want to get rid of the draft, say goodbye to the Green Bay Packers.

 

With an appropriately robust form of revenue sharing, the Packers would be able to spend just as much money on players as any other team could.

 

 

The mythology of the "suffering small-market team" has become so engrained in the dialogue that we tend to forget that it is a phenomenon entirely of the creation of the owners.  And it is one that the owners themselves can unilaterally solve simply by sharing their revenue, instead of systematically stealing from players by restricting those players' bargaining power.

 

The idea that companies that do not employ a given worker can get together to dictate which of those companies the worker can sell his services to, this is patently offensive. And it should be illegal.

[MJWalker45]

1 hour ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

Because the Hornets might offer more money. Don't forget that having no draft would force leagues to address the mythical "small market" issue by sharing revenue so as to equalise the teams' ability to spend (or else by bringing in competent owners for teams whose owners cannot keep up with the costs of the business that they have chosen to enter). 

 

6 hours ago, CDCLT said:

Why would any player ever want to go to the Charlotte Hornets when they could be signed by the Lakers or Warriors? Getting rid of the draft utterly dooms small-market teams. I know this is great for you, being a New York fan and all, but this would basically be certain death for any team not based in a top-10 media market because you'd rob the teams that can't sign big-name free agents (again, not even talking money here, this is strictly a location thing) of their only way to improve.

 

7 hours ago, neo_prankster said:

 

If you want to get rid of the draft, say goodbye to the Green Bay Packers.

The draft is the simplest way to help equalize leagues. If you lose the draft you'll also lose the salary cap. That's even worse for the smaller teams in the league.  For teams like the Packers, Guardians (MLB) and Pelicans (NBA), having to overpay to get better talent in the door would lead to the same things that happen in English football where clubs go under because they overpay to just stay in the league they're currently in.  The common NFL draft made it possible for Green Bay to become Titletown. The salary cap made it possible for teams like the Steelers to stay competitive against teams with bigger sponsorship deals that could bid them out of the park without those restrictions. 

1 hour ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

Signing free agents is not the only way to improve, as trades exist.

A trade only works if both teams can come out at least on equal footing financially as well as on the field. It's why teams like the St. Louis Browns ended up in Baltimore. They couldn't afford to keep players and the better teams could raid them anytime they saw a player that was worth having on the team. 

 

[Red Comet]

I see the draft as like an apprenticeship. Before you get paid the big money, you need to put in the work to show that you’re worth that paycheck that you believe you’re worth. Considering that in the NFL’s case, the player’s union voted to cap rookie contracts, it seems the veterans see it the same way. Also, fixing things that aren’t broken should be the second definition of insanity IMHO.

[TBGKon]

13 hours ago, neo_prankster said:

How will MLB's new scheduling format really work if the Padres for instance are gonna have one series against each from the American League? Will they rotate who plays at home every other year?

That's the thought.  I would think we'll know more in the next few months.  Usually the next seasons schedule comes out in September.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

1 hour ago, MJWalker45 said:

If you lose the draft you'll also lose the salary cap.

 

Damn right.  There should be nothing limiting an agreement on pay between a team and a player.

 

The teams you mentioned (Packers, Guardians, Steelers) would also be helped by the sharing of revenue within their leagues, without harming the interests of players who are selling their services in a supposed market. 

 

 

1 hour ago, MJWalker45 said:

A trade only works if both teams can come out at least on equal footing financially as well as on the field. It's why teams like the St. Louis Browns ended up in Baltimore. They couldn't afford to keep players and the better teams could raid them anytime they saw a player that was worth having on the team.

 

The St. Louis Browns and the Philadelphia A's became doormats not because of the size of their cities (Philadelphia is a very big city; through the 1950s it was one of the three biggest in the country, bigger than Los Angeles), but because those teams' ownerships simply weren't competent.  And this was in the days long before free agency, when player salaries were a pittance on account of the crime of the reserve clause.  In those days there were Major League-calibre players who opted to play in semi-pro ball or in the PCL rather than play in the Major Leagues, because they could make more money doing that. Indeed, an untold number players who were potentially good enough for the Majors decided never to pursue a baseball career and to work at normal jobs instead, as the low pay in baseball combined with the lack of security made the prospect of a baseball career unattractive. 

 

Even back then, when sports team owners were no different to any other local business owners, and did not have to be the super-rich moguls that they must be today, the sharing of revenue would have prevented the A's from becoming the unofficial farm club for the Yankees that they became under the ownership of Arthur Johnson, who had moved them from Philadelphia to Kansas City. 

 

And let me note that, while various leagues have limited forms of revenue-sharing today, such as pertaining only to ticket sales, or covering only a limited percentage of revenue, what is needed is the pooling of all revenue and the dividing of that revenue equally to all of a league's teams.  That would completely eliminate any alleged justification for a draft or for a salary cap.

[Digby]

I thought it was:

 

- 4 series against your division

- 2 series against your non-division but same league

- 1 series against the other league (home/away rotating annually)

 

 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

It would be nice if these captains of industry who see the benefit of collectivism in sports didn't work so hard to prevent collectivism in our greater society. They see an obvious benefit to revenue sharing and salary caps/floors in industry -- I bet you could extend that outward and there might be some obvious benefits.

 

But yes, if you're a billionaire and you can't make it work in Charlotte or Milwaukee or Orlando, I'm not sad for you. And the obvious rejoinder is show me the titles the Knicks, Mets, Clippers, Jets and Rangers have won lately. Market helps, but it clearly isn't everything.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

Since we're also fixing the Major League Baseball schedule:

 

After the next expansion, when each league has 16 teams and four 4-team divisions, a team plays 14 games against each divisional rival, for 42 games.  It then plays 10 games against each team in the other divisions in its league, for 120 games.  That makes a total of 162 games.  And (as mentioned in another thread), the playoff field consists of only the eight divisional champions.

 

This gets rid both of the wild card and also of the scourge of interleague play, thereby solving mulitple problems at once.