Less is more? For Major League Baseball, that might be the case.
Rob Manfred is not dismissing the idea of reverting to a 154-game schedule, something last seen in 1960, before expansion led baseball to add eight games to each season’s slate. It’s an idea that Rockies star Troy Tulowitzki brought up in a 2013 interview with Sporting News.
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“If I could change one thing in the game, it would be the scheduling,” Tulowitzki said two years ago. “I think it’s a demanding schedule — 162 games can be difficult on people. I know in Japan, they have every Monday off, and they play 140-something games. I think, with how many injuries there are and our limitations, that’s something to look into.”
There might not seem to be anything wrong with a schedule that has been in place for more than half a century, but a shorter slate would have benefits. Baseball could keep its stars fresher and reap massive financial rewards from lengthening the playoffs.
By paring down the schedule to 154 games, each team would lose four home dates. But with an increasing proportion of money in the game coming from television rights rather than people actually showing up to the ballpark, that might not be such a big deal.
The ways that the saved days could be used could be either to build more off days into the schedule or reining in the playoffs’ encroachment into November by ending the regular season sooner. Purists might not love baseball stretching so deep into fall, and the weather isn’t always great, but it is good business sense for baseball to occupy as much of the calendar as it can.
Building more off days into the schedule would allow teams to use their stars in a higher percentage of games, as clubs themselves have recognized the value of days off throughout the season to promote better health over the course of six months. Last year, just 35 players appeared in 155 or more games, the lowest total since 1997, right before the Diamondbacks and Devil Rays joined MLB. On a per-team basis, 1.17 players appearing in 155 or more games was the lowest figure in a year without labor trouble since 1991, and tied with 1974 for the fourth-lowest in the 162-game era.
Remember, one of the biggest excuses made by users of performance-enhancing drugs has been about wanting to recover from injury and stay on the field. Well, would it surprise you to learn that the highest number of players to appear in 155 or more games was 51 in 1998, followed by 49 in 2003?
Having more off days might make it easier to ensure that stars will play, but it does not cure the ills of the owners losing the home dates or the broadcasters losing twice as many airings of games. There’s an easy cure for almost anything in business, though, and that is more money.
Where’s the most money in sports? The playoffs. If MLB takes the wild card round to best-of-three and the Division series to best-of-seven, the playoffs become even more lucrative, and the second wild-card teams in each league gets a home date that they otherwise would not be guaranteed. This is something that should happen anyway for the sake of competition, and an expansion of playoffs concurrent with a slimming of the regular season would be the perfect way to do it.
Might that push the playoffs into November? Yes, but who really cares? The stands are going to be full regardless of weather, and while the playing conditions might not be optimal, it’s a gamble worth taking. If you wind up with a World Series game played in Minnesota that looks like it’s in a snow globe, that’s pretty good TV, and that’s good for business.
Players have reasons to want to shorten the season, and so do owners. That is a good backing for keeping an open mind, just as is the case with the idea of the National League adding the designated hitter.
The commissioner’s willingness to consider ideas like this is a good thing. The reasons not to do it might add up to the schedule staying at 162 games, but it is up to Manfred to be open to anything that can make Major League Baseball better, and for the most part, that is what he appears to be.