My Ideas for Baseball Reform in Today's World
As the labor-management negotiations in Major League Baseball are being reported with great fanfare, I would like to write about my own plan for reforming professional baseball in Japan.
First, I would like to talk about the playoffs and the SC. Many problems have been pointed out with this.
However, I do not agree with the idea of abolishing them.
In fact, I think it would be better to imitate the majors more.
The league would be reorganized and divided into the Eastern, Central, and Western Divisions, and the team with the highest winning percentage, other than the first place team and the regional champion, would be the wild card.
The combination of the SC would be as follows: (1) the team with the highest winning percentage among the winning teams of each district would be the wild card, and (2) the team with the second and third highest winning percentages would be the wild card, with the winner going to the Japan Series.
If possible, the number of teams could be increased at this time, but I think there would be some opposition to this if the quality of the games were to deteriorate, so four teams per district might be acceptable.
I think it would be better to have four teams in each district, since the actual districts and divisions would be different. Also, it would be better if the Yakult and the Giants were placed in different districts.
Of course, this would reduce the number of inter-district battles and increase the number of exchange games. In fact, the 12 teams would play each other almost evenly. The Yakult-Giant series would be a subway series.
If possible, the number of teams should be increased to five teams per region, for a total of 15 teams.
This would make the significance of the SC much clearer.
If we are going to emulate the majors, we might as well do it in the style of the majors, and this would not hurt the vested interests as much. This way, vested interests would not be hurt so much. Well, there is the matter of the division of districts.
The above is my idea of baseball reform.
*** Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) ***
