Apparently this week is “Everybody hate on interleague play” week in MLB. There has always been a little bit of hate for interleague, but this year it is out in full force. ESPN has wrote articles on why it sucks, Yahoo! Sports has talked about why it sucks, and even managers are now speaking out about how they don’t like it.
Well I’m here to disagree!!! I love interleague play. Being a Yankees fan, outside of the Red Sox you would have trouble finding a more exciting opponent that generates more buzz than the Mets. One of the biggest arguments against interleague play is the unbalanced schedules. Some teams play terrible opponents in the opposite league. This year the Dodgers and Red Sox have scored two of the best draws for facing mediocre opponents. And on the other hand, some playoff hopefuls face incredibly tough teams that perhaps their in-house division rival will not face once that year unless it is in the World Series. This year, playoff contending Cincinnati and Cleveland both have tough interleague schedules.
To that argument I say this: Uhhh…have you ever watched the NFL? The media and fans always make a huge deal out of strength-of-schedule. How much does it ever have an impact? Almost zero. The Patriots had one of the hardest schedules last year. Their record: 14-2. The easiest strength-of-schedule last year in the NFL was the Arizona Cardinals. Coming off two straight playoff appearances and the fact that they were in the very weak NFC West, the Cardinals odds were looking decent based on strength-of-schedule even without Kurt Warner. The end result was a 5-11 season, last in the worst division in the NFL. Why? Because schedules hardly matter, injuries and other unforeseeable events happen. And the ultimate reality is that the good teams find ways to win games, and the bad teams will manage to lose. Bringing it back to baseball, if the Cincinnati Reds are complaining about their schedule and struggling against their interleague opponents, then who cares? If you can’t beat the Yankees, Rays, and Indians now, you definitely won’t beat them come October, and so you are irrelevant anyway. If the Reds really are a talented team, they will find ways to win two of three games in each series. (It should be noted the Reds have lost their first two games to the Indians this year.) By the way, I’ve been watching a lot of the Yankees lately, they are definitely beatable, so I don’t know why teams like the Rockies are complaining.
With interleague play, you get matchups that you just can’t find within your own league. Anybody who loves baseball history like I do should be salivating at the thought of seeing the Cubs play at Fenway Park vs Boston for the first time since the 1918 World Series. It was also awesome to see the teams playing in 1918 styled jerseys as well. Also for once it was really cool to see the Florida state rivalry with both the Rays and Marlins well above .500. Interleague play also presents great opportunities for big-time free agents to face their favorite team. Cliff Lee faced the Rangers, whom he took to the World Series last year and absolutely dominated them last night. Later on in the season, we will get to see great matchups like the Yankees vs. the Cubs, Milwaukee at Boston (actually pretty cool), and K-Rod facing his old team as the Angels play at the Mets.
Admittedly, yes there are some flaws to the system. Some teams get awful draws and boring matchups. Some teams have no true rival, so during rival week you will see the Detroit Tigers inexplicably facing the Pittsburgh Pirate. However, for the true baseball fan and casual alike, the novelty of seeing an opponent that you would never normally face should be intriguing enough. That said, I think there are solutions for this and baseball can take a lesson from the NFL. Pit divisions against each other and rotate by year. In the NFL, the four divisions in each conference will only face a division from the opposing conference once every four years. This way no one can complain about how one team faces tougher opponents than another within their division, and the match-ups don’t get stale and repetitive. Given the option of scrapping interleague play altogether, I’d much rather take the alternative. It’s great for fans, it’s great for the teams, and it’s great for the media. On the whole, interleague play will always manage to drum up exciting storylines no matter what teams are playing and I think and hope it’s here to stay.
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