TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Friday, April 30, 2004

Follow the Caribbean Series

I've seen a decent amount international baseball. In fact, I've seen the game played at the professional level in five different nations. It occurs to me that the World Cup could learn a lot from the Caribbean Series. For those that don't know, the Caribbean Series pits the champions of the Mexican, Dominican, Puerto Rican and Venezuelan Winters Leagues against each other early each February. Instead of watching teams like Australia in the proposed World Cup, we should restrict the tournement to the cream of the crop. Take the winner of the World Series and the Japan Series as your first two teams. For the third slot, pick the winner of the Caribbean Series. That team would have to play through their Winter League season, their playoffs, and then beat out the other good teams in the tropics to represent. The final team can be Cuba, if politics allow, or there could be an at-large bid.

This takes some steps to solving one potential problem. Since teams as a whole go to the World Cup, the management will be that team's management. You don't have to worry about some stranger blowing out your best starter's arm in honor of the flag, you just have to be willing to take the heat and say "I want to win the World Series too." Now we take another page from the Caribbean Series. The teams that show up aren't exactly the same squads that battled through November, December and January. Each team is allowed to take a small handful of players from their respective league in order to give their team a turbo boost. Since the Caribbean teams now must follow "The I-Rod Rule" which limits the talent they can put on their roster, we can give the Caribbean team more slots, and allow them to cherry-pick from MLB rosters. Of course, MLB should be allowed to replace those players. For example, set the replacement number to 5. So the Japanese and MLB teams would be allowed to make five replacements on their rosters (there would be a gentleman's agreement concerning overuse of players not normally on a team's roster). Then suppose the Dominican team won the Caribbean Series. Since they aren't allowed to have the likes of Sosa and Pedro on their winter rosters, they get to pluck ten from MLB. If the World Series team lost two Dominicans in this process, they are allowed to chery pick an additional two players from the rest of MLB (with the caveat that they can only pick US citizens).

This method is tried-and-true and would lead to a much higher level of competition. The four teams would play a double-round robin over six days with the possibility of a championship game. This should be started early in March, when the NCAA hoops tourney consists mainly of mismatches. With the proper formula, this can work. Of course, Bud is running the show here...

posted by David 6:40 PM