The Great American Baseball Tournament
So the Kyler Murray controversy ended with him picking the NFL over MLB. Surely the money in baseball runs deeper for the players thanks to the lack of a salary cap, but the road leading to said grandiose contracts without risking your life and without putting your future health benefits at the hands of the NFL is still so lengthy that its hard to justify ever picking baseball. What makes Major League Baseball such a strong league in terms of talent and minimal amount of busts is all the baseball you have to play and prove yourself in before even hitting the major leagues. College baseball, Single-A, Double-A, Triple-A, these are all major steps that pay little that can take years before you finally nab the attention of a major league organization.
There are so many legendary cases of players toying in the minors for five, seven, even ten years before finally wearing the uniform of a professional team. For every inspiring story of a Dominican making it from poverty to the big leagues, you have dozens that flame out, or can’t handle the pressure, or don’t even have the patience to drag themselves though the low-paying system while wasting their youth and struggling to support family. There are tons of sad stories of forgotten or neglected players they just don’t make it because its hard to shine while playing in Iowa in double-A ball. And with that, Major League Baseball also has a superstar problem due to this grueling system of choosing top-tier talent: no developing storyline.
LeBron James shone through high school and got drafted straight to the NBA. You knew his name before he even played the first minute of professional basketball. You knew the story about Cam Newton before he became pro because of his college football career. The story develops through time, and allows for these athletes to build fanbases and build endorsement deals before even hitting the big time. Major League Baseball lacks the college-to-pro connection the NBA and (especially) the NFL enjoys because there are very few leaps from college to pro, you have to go through multiple leagues, and your story usually disappears over time. The World Baseball Classic became a popular stepping stone for Hispanic and Japanese talent, as they were able to shine throughout the wildly-popular tournament and immediately drew the attention. Darvish and Matsuzaka received global fame with their WBC appearances.
So the question is, how can a player stand out and truly make their mark on baseball before officially becoming pro? How can a player find the proper endorsement deals before getting picked up, before finally conquering AAA? I have a solution that will help baseball and will help the players as well. To add to that, I found a way to even improve the All-Star Weekend.
I present you The Great American Baseball Tournament:
This tournament will run every summer for about 7-8 weeks. The GABT (eh…) will involve every state, and every single U.S. territory, even splitting some of the states into geographical sections because of popularity and because let’s be honest, certain states have some major cultural differences within its borders. My proposal is to have 65 total teams within 15 divisions, each one having four or five teams. The divisions will also be decided by geographic region and will allow for each region to have a share of home games to build up hype and even expose smaller cities and markets to high-stakes baseball. Representing every state and territory allows for high-quality baseball to be played in places where you’ll hardly have the chance to see such beautiful sports action live. So yes, even Idaho, Guam, American Samoa, and the Virgin Islands will have home games to play. This increases exposure and might even create new fans within far off regions.
The scheduling for the playoff seeding is simple, for five days in a row one team in the division will host all their home games and plays each of the other opponents at least once, playing only one of the teams twice. So let’s take the Badlands Division as an example:
First Location: Boise, Idaho
Game 1: Wyoming at Idaho
Game 2: Montana at Idaho
Game 3: North Dakota at Idaho
Game 4: South Dakota at Idaho
Game 5: Wyoming at Idaho
Second Location: Billings, Montana
Game 6: North Dakota at Montana
Game 7: South Dakota at Montana
Game 8: Idaho at Montana
Game 9: Wyoming at Montana
Game 10: North Dakota at Montana
This schedule is designed so that everyone plays each other three times, for a total of 12 games from each team. Let’s then take a smaller division like the Caribbean Division:
First Location: San Juan, Puerto Rico
Game 1: North Florida at Puerto Rico
Game 2: North Florida at Puerto Rico
Game 3: South Florida at Puerto Rico
Game 4: South Florida at Puerto Rico
Game 5/Game 6: Georgia at Puerto Rico (Double-header with Game 5 to match up with the five-team divisions)
Second Location: Miami, Florida
Game 7: Puerto Rico at South Florida
Game 8: Puerto Rico at South Florida
Game 9: Georgia at South Florida
Game 10: Georgia at South Florida
Game 11/Game 12: North Florida at South Florida (Once again, double-header)
With the smaller division, every team plays each other four times---twice at home, and twice on the road for a total of 12 games. Of course, they will start their games almost a week after the larger divisions begin so the schedules can match up better.
Determining a divisional winner is simple, we create a World Cup-like point system which rewards for victories (3 points) and if you manage to make it to extra innings (1 point). If there is a tie then the divisional winner will be then be determined by victories, then by runs scored. With the East and the West containing seven divisions, each team on top will advance and the Wild Card will then be picked by a one-game playoff between the two best records from non-divisional winners.
So now we are down to 16 teams, 8 from the East and 8 from the West. From here on out, its winner-take-all, every game is Game 7, no matter what. We will have home field advantage on the Field of 16, with the top 4 seeds from each side having their home game. Field of 8 will follow the same format. So having the best record overall would definitely work to your advantage, as you might be able to play in your home state a couple times before making it to the semifinals. Here is where Major League Baseball gets affected slightly: the Western and Eastern Finals and the Championship game will take place in the venue of where the All-Star Game is being held.
With the concept of this tournament, All-Star Weekend will have its exhibition baseball, its home run derby, but can still have extremely competitive play in the form of the Great American Baseball Tournament’s final matches. This way the tournament will temporarily have the attention of the baseball world, and the men (and women, hang on just a second) have a chance to shine on the biggest stage in July. Between the 12 games and the Best-of-16, the tournament would take up about a month, so you can start it in mid-June and have run through All-Star Weekend and not occupy too much of the MLB season.
So how will this grown up version of the Little League World Series tournament fix Major League Baseball and the sport of baseball? By displaying the potential future.
My ideal set of requirements in The Great American Baseball Tournament is that every person; player AND coach will be required to be between the ages of 16 and 35----men AND women. This will be the first tournament to be unisex, and will allow for women to play with the men, or at the very least be a coach or a manager. In order to determine the region to play in, you have to be a resident of the region, studying there, or playing minor league baseball there. Taking this a step further, even the umpires will be between the ages of 16 to 35 to allow for aspiring umpires to make an impression on Major League Baseball.
This will essentially be the first semi-pro tournament of the baseball kind to allow teenagers and high schoolers to compete alongside professionals, semi-pros, and unsigned talent (which in the Cheap Ownership Era, is also a possibility), granted they get chosen to participate. Since this takes place during the summer months of summer vacation from schools and universities, it gives everyone an equal chance to join, to travel the country, to make an impact, represent their state of residence and maybe even play their way to a nice future contract.
Nobody really focuses on pennant races of AA or even AAA baseball. Nobody can really point out who won the divisions last season unless you are a scout or a diehard minor league baseball fan. But a tournament that determines the best region of the United States? Now there would be a tournament worthy of watching. Just imagine the rivalries. I have three regions of California battling for a division. I have New York City take on the rest of its own state. There’s Florida’s Hispanic South battling North Florida’s Southerners. Can't forget Chicagoland taking on Illinois and Michigan. The merchandise alone would be spectacular, as now every corner within the United States jurisdiction will have jersey and baseball cap representation. I can see Silicon Valley California, South Florida, and Chicagoland sell merchandise at some heavy numbers.
This will also be the only tournament to be able to schedule important baseball games in every spot. For a week, Alaska will host important baseball games. This would increase exposure to the people, to the smaller lesser-known stadiums, and even lesser-known cities suddenly having some sports media at their doorstep. If you are an aspiring athlete, you will have at least 12 baseball games to show your worth to MLB and the United States in general. Finally, there's also the monetary reward: everyone on the winning team earns a million dollars, with the runners-up earning 500k, and the third-place participant each earning 150k. Although its a longshot from the mega contracts you see in MLB, the average salary of a minor league player is a despicable and disgusting $2,150 per month---and a season only runs five months. This is the garbage Kyler Murray was trying to avoid. So being on this tournament could set you up for the next year or even couple of years while trying to pay bills and make it to the big leagues.
Lastly, the Great American Baseball Tournament (granted it gets the blessing and partnership of MLB) would also become a testing ground for new and wild ideas. Extra inning ideas, mercy rules (imagine the pressure of having to score on the fifth inning or forfeiting the game entirely), limited player substitutions, what the fans are allowed to bring for noise, stadium enhancements, social media exposure, and even television deals. What if Major League Baseball uses this tournament to display prominently on Netflix or Hulu or even its own MLB TV app exclusively? What if they decide to play these games for free on Instagram, or Twitter, or YouTube? The Tournament can display a potential future for streaming content from Major League Baseball in the near future.
Baseball is an ancient beautiful game that could use some ideas for the next generation of viewers. The World Baseball Classic has already influenced Major League Baseball from extra inning ideas to the way players are showing their emotion out on the field. The Great American Baseball Tournament will allow for teenagers, women, young coaches, young minds, and on-the-cusp athletes to show their worth. This tournament will give lesser-known places like American Samoa, Guam, the Dakotas, the Badlands an opportunity to be on top of the sports world, even if just for a little.
The Great American Baseball Tournament most importantly will be that stepping stone for hundreds of future athletes, allowing them an extra chance to display their skill set in a nationally televised and nationally participating tournament. The United States world of sports hardly has a dull moment, but as European Soccer has proven over the years, you can never have too many sports tournaments to witness. In the case of the GABT, I can see little setback in creating such a grandiose event in the middle of a baseball-dominated summer. With the money, exposure, extensive range from the Pacific to the Caribbean, and potential for storylines, everybody wins with this tournament.