Prospect Insider - Realignment and the DH

Realignment and the DH

By Alex Carson

By 10-29-2011

One of the worst kept secrets in baseball right now surrounding the CBA discussions is a realignment plan that would see the Houston Astros move from the National League Central to the American League West. It could become a reality as soon as next season or perhaps 2013 if the schedule makers don't want to start from scratch for 2012.

Mariners' players probably won't be too upset about playing 10 fewer games to the right of the Mississippi, but the change probably benefits the Rangers and Astros the most. An in-state rivalry and far less travel should be helpful for those two clubs. Plus, four teams to beat out for a division title is an easier task than five.

There could be a disadvantage seen across the rest of the American League, though: Loss of value from the designated hitter.

I'm doing a bit of educated guessing here, so bear with me. But with two 15-team leagues, we'd have to see interleague play every day. This would mean that teams like the M's would play 40 games per year on the road in National League parks under their non-DH rules.

Historical example: When interleague play began in 1997, the Mariners played four road games in NL parks. Edgar Martinez played two games at first base, showed up as a third baseman for one at-bat in a third contest and pinch hit in the fourth. At that stage of Martinez's career, he already was unable to handle playing four games on defense.

Edgar played a total of 155 games that season and put up a 6.4 fWAR. Playing in 20 fewer games, his value drops enough to matter if you're embroiled in a close divisional race. If he's trotted out at first five times, we're talking about an extremely small sample of games, so perhaps the defensive hit is minimized if he's in the middle of a hot streak at the plate.

What we don't know is what those five games might do to his legs and what sitting on the bench for 15 other tilts may do to his timing. You'd love to think that Edgar would be Edgar and come right back out hitting, but even with Edgar that cannot be assumed.

So what does this mean for players like David Ortiz, today's version of Edgar Martinez? He can talk about his unhappiness with the Boston Red Sox all he wants, but all that does is weaken his leverage with a team like the New York Yankees. Appearing in 20 fewer games per season negatively impacts the numbers after the dollar sign this winter for Ortiz, and other DHs such as Jim Thome, Jason Kubel and Adam Dunn.

The Yankees may have a need, and hurting their rival in the process is always appealing, but Brian Cashman isn't just going to toss huge cash at Ortiz unless it makes sense for the club. Being available for 120 starts, rather than 150-162, doesn't help Ortiz's cause.

I have to think this also puts some limitations on the Mariners' potential pursuit of Prince Fielder. Yes, Fielder plays in the NL now, but there's little doubt that his value is tied to his offense. Additionally, only one of Fielder or Justin Smoak would be on the field during those 40 games in NL parks.

Let's take a look at how reducing each full-time designated hitter's 2011 at-bats would have affected their fWAR, assuming they'd lose out on about 135 trips to the plate.

Realignment fWAR for DH
Player	AB	AB/135	WAR	WAR/135
Edgar Martinez (2000)	556	421	5.4	4.09
David Ortiz	525	390	4.2	3.12
Johnny Damon	582	447	1.5	1.15
Billy Butler	597	462	1.8	1.39
Bobby Abreu	502	367	0.4	0.29
Hideki Matsui	517	382	0.3	0.22
Jim Thome	277	138	1.3	1.19
Travis Hafner	325	290	1.3	1.19

Obviously, some of these players can still fake it in the field, and for some the only time blades of grass should touch the bottom of their cleats is the path between the dugout and home plate.

The Mariners are not a team that is one big bat away from contention. For the 40 games the Mariners would be playing in NL parks, only one of Fielder or Justin Smoak would be in the lineup. They can't afford to dump their available payroll into one player only to have him regularly play musical chairs with another valuable player.

I'm sure the Mariners will make a run at Fielder. What I'm not sure of, however, is if they should get involved in any sort of bidding war considering their available payroll and Fielder's long-term value. Jack Zduriencik and team ownership will certainly consider Fielder's projected progression and decline as a player, if and when they make an offer.

This was already a pretty big basket to put all your eggs into. Not getting full value from that investment changes how teams may value the commodity.

I'm not saying that the usefulness of bat-only players has gone the way of the buffalo. There will be a team willing to do go after a Prince Fielder or David Ortiz, whom still offer plenty of value at the plate. These players, however, already don't/can't play the field much, if at all, and now their one true value to the game is going to be reduced.

Alex Carson can be reached via email at carson@prospectinsider.com. Follow him on twitter here.

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Comments
The following 17 comment(s) for this article are shown below:

1.  By: Boy9988 on 10-29-2011 17:22:33
Where have you heard that it will be full league integration? I have heard from seilg himself that he is going to reduce the number of interleague games.

2.  By: FWBrodie on 10-29-2011 17:23:47
40 games a year in NL parks? That can't be even close to right.

3.  By: FWBrodie on 10-29-2011 17:38:22
Say you have 14 of the 15 teams playing each other every day, that means you have a 15 day rotation between required days off (give or take a few series related limitations). Given a day off every 15 days, teams could play 162 games in 174 days. Last year the Mariners played 162 games in 178 days. That doesn't even factor in that every team could potentially be playing during normal interleague play which would lower that number further. I'm sure there are several complications unforeseen by me do to the series format, but it doesn't seem like anything would need to change in terms of # of interleague games or length of schedule.

4.  By: FWBrodie on 10-29-2011 17:53:45
Even if you had to have one interleague series happening at all times, that only amounts to 1 of every 15 games (6.7%) being interleague. That adds up to 11 games out of 162.

5.  By: skyway park on 10-29-2011 18:00:28
If the Astro's move to the AL then there would be uneven number of teams in each league, which would require interleague play every day of the season

6.  By: FWBrodie on 10-29-2011 18:48:56
Why?

7.  By: valencia on 10-29-2011 19:10:11
Even if it happens everyday, only 1 AL team is playing interleague. Assuming 178 days/15 teams, you get 12 interleague games per team. A far cry from the 40 games assumed. Actually if every AL team played 40 interleague games one at a time the season it would take 600 days. That can't be close to right.

8.  By: Alex Carson on 10-29-2011 19:25:15
Again, I'm assuming one potential format here. Maybe it's different. We will know more soon - but this is one potential change that could change how the Mariners value Fielder. We shall see.

9.  By: pwhit44 on 10-29-2011 20:03:08
Okay, I don't understand how there could be 40 NL road games for the season. I'd assume there would be 40 NL home games as well, to balance out home-road for interleague play... Leaving only half the schedule to played against American League teams?

Color me weirded out.

40 NL road games cannot be anywhere near the truth...

If so, there'd be no point in even having two leagues anymore.

10.  By: jgstecker on 10-29-2011 20:52:18
There'll have to be one interleague game everyday. No team will want to be idle on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday during a home stand.

It likely means each team gets 3-4 inter league series and they're spread out over the year. That might better for interleague popularity since rivalries will squaring off at different times.

There's no way the leagues will play a balanced schedule against each other. The union would never go for it for exactly the reasons outlined in this article.

11.  By: Jason A. Churchill on 10-29-2011 21:29:32
That is why the idea sucks. Interleague play sucks all by itself as it is, but if there are 15 teams in each league, like jgstecker commented in No. 10, there will have to be a interleague game every day of the schedule or teams will have nobody to play.

It's THE reason there has been a 16-14 format since the last expansion took place.

FWBrodie,

You forget that they play series, not games. Your logic is anything but.

Without a drastic change in the scheduling manner, there WILL BE a lot more interleague games, AND more travel. Certainly something all clubs have to keep an eye on when constructing their roster beginning this winter.

12.  By: pwhit44 on 10-29-2011 23:33:38
Agreesies. I hate the idea of evening out the leagues. Also, interleague play has been a snooze from the beginning. Leave it alone, for heaven's sake.

Why must we always change things? I don't cope well with change. Hmpf.

13.  By: valencia on 10-30-2011 06:32:00
80 interleague games makes no sense. That's literally getting rid of AL/NL. Why would we have to play an NL team every other series?

I don't want to be offensive but this post has literally no relevance to anything. DHs can play 145-150 games now and will still play 145-150 games in the future.

14.  By: seattlems333 on 10-30-2011 07:46:35
I agree: 40 games in NL parks, or 80 interleague games, makes absolutely no sense. As your article says, the 15-15 split of teams in the AL and NL requires an interleague series to be played at all times. In a 162 game schedule, there are about 50-55 total series to pay, so, if you rotate between the 15 teams in each league, that means any given team will play three or four interleague series throughout the season as a result of the new schedule. And then let's say you want to tack on another one or two interleague series for the sake of the "rivalry" matchups (ie Yanks-Mets, White Sox-Cubs, Mariners-Padres (!), etc). That brings up the total number of interleague series to somewhere between four and six. Assuming half of those series are played at home, that means only two or three series will be played at an NL park, which would approximate the number played under the current schedule. Therefore, there doesn't seem to be any diminished value of the DH.

While my outline above for how I foresee the new schedule playing out may not be entirely accurate, it seems a lot more realistic than having to play 40 games at NL parks.

15.  By: JonathanAicardi on 10-30-2011 13:03:53
The easy solution is to have one interleague series at all times. It ends up working to about the same number of interleague games per team when its all said and done, only interleague is spread out over the entire year rather than 2-3 week event where everyone is interleague.

16.  By: FWBrodie on 10-30-2011 22:29:37
Jason, my logic is anything but? I appreciate that you're trying to protect your boy, but I accounted for the possibility of the series factor being larger than I thought within said logic... which was perfectly logical.

17.  By: rotoenquire on 11-01-2011 17:39:12
Actually you would need to change things up to an even set of series and more series in your own division. Then change out of division games unevenly. As to say you would play more games geographically closer to you and dice it up to even out with the M's as an example playing less east coast games. As in one year Yankees would not come to Seattle but the M's would head there and visa verse. Keep inter league the same. No need to over think it. To keep it semi fair, you would play teams more close to you win-lose column based on last years totals. Kinda like the NFL in that respect. Did that make sense? lol Sounded good in my head..

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