MLB All-Star Game: How would I change the game?

2. Eliminate World Series homefield advantage from the equation

Given my thoughts above it likely comes as no surprise I think the idea of granting homefield in the World Series to the league which wins the All-Star Game is a dumb one. I’ve written about this already, you can find the link to my article here on my FanSided writer page, so I’ll spare you the long and gory details.

But giving homefield advantage to the winning league is more about rhetoric than it is results. The point I make in the article spoken of, is homefield advantage in the World Series is rather unimportant anyway.

Since the solution was applied in 2003 to link The Midsummer Classic with the Fall Classic by extending homefield advantage to the winning league, the home team in the World Series has won eight of 12 series. With just those numbers, it would seem there is a correlation between homefield advantage and World Series success. But a deeper look into the numbers shows the World Series to actually be a crapshoot.

The “better team”, based on regular season record, in the Fall Classic is 5-7. The team with the better Pythagorean expected win-loss record is actually worse, just 4-7 (one year the two teams who played in the World Series had the same expected win-loss record).

Only four times did the Pythagorean expected win-loss champion (among the two teams playing in the World Series) host the World Series, and only half the time, twice, did they then win the World Series. One of those was the 2009 New York Yankees, who were so much better than the Philies, they would have certainly won regardless of homefield advantage.

The point is this: homefield advantage is rather unimportant and lack correlation to winning the World Series. So, if my assertions are correct, why are we creating this false illusion that winning the All-Star Game is uber-important?

Part of it is because no one looks this deeply into the data. Part of it is because baseball fans are just like all other media consumers. They take what is packaged for them and believe it to be true without doing any investigating on their own. But that isn’t even the point.

The point is the All-Star Game winner is ultimately irrelevant. Prior to the new arrangement, winning the All-Star Game only meant bragging rights for the winning league.

Part of the larger issue then is with the influx of free agency and thus changing leagues among players, bragging rights mean little. Rare is the player nowadays who has not spent time playing for a team in both leagues, at some point in his career.

Perhaps bragging rights is no longer enough motivation for competing in the All-Star Game. But that creates a larger question: Is competing the point of the All-Star Game?

Certainly no wants to watch a game played like the NHL’s or NFL’s All-Star contests where players are clearly playing at half speed, and all pretense of defensive effort flies out the window.

The NBA’s version of the All-Star Game, despite its being the most rambunctious and artificial show, also eliminates the pretense of defensive effort…until the fourth quarter when the alpha dogs take the floor and the competition starts to look like a Game seven of the NBA Finals on steroids.

And they truly are playing for nothing, not even bragging rights—though it could be said with the current culture of the NBA, where nearly all the best players double as best friends, there is at least an illusion of bragging rights to go around.

For the most part baseball is incapable of matching this sort of setup. The very essence of baseball, based on its rules of no re-entry (though now in the modern setup there is an addendum just for the All-Star Game where one fielding position player can re-enter the game if the rest of the bench is cleared), make it so the ninth inning, and God forbid extra innings, will be played mostly by guys who were afterthoughts or first-time All-Stars.

Is that fact OK? Yes. If we allow ourselves to rethink, to remember the All-Star Game is not meant to be a competition as much as it an exhibition. It is meant to feature the players fans want to see. They want to see Mike Trout try to hit an Aroldis Champan fastball—something they could currently only see in the World Series, or once every three years or so.

They want to see Nolan Arenado make a ridiculous play at third base like they see on Baseball Tonight’s Web Gems segment so frequently, but rarely see live because he plays for the Colorado Rockies. Most of all they want to see the stars.

It’s not even about what the stars do—it’s one baseball game, they can only do so much. It’s simply seeing them, all on one field, together. It’s the illusion, but a much more fanciful and pleasing one, of having all the most talented players on the field in one game.

One of my favorite movies is Field of Dreams (I’d say it should be for any baseball fanatic). One of the great things about the idea behind the movie is that all these great baseball players are on one field, playing together, for the love of the game, just to play.

Of course they want to win, because part of what is fun about playing baseball is winning. But unlike most other jobs, part of what is fun about baseball is the fact it is a game. When it is played by the best players in the world with everyone giving their best effort, but without the pressure of having to win, it allows us to dream, all of us, of that utopia.

We can be like Ray Kinsella’s father and ask a man he knows not to be his son, “Is this heaven?”

Next: What ever happened to sunlight?