Video zWMxbWX4D0M

Now.

Now that I've seen this format, I can't imagine MLB doing anything else. That's exactly how I feel. So I'm glad to see that one be the top one. I thought I was going to hate it because I'm not open minded, but this is actually awesome. That just shows how awesome this community and the people that watch these videos are always come with open mind learning new sports had to stop after he said that one thing that I perceived as an insult to my team stick to lip reading you short gray haired Joe Buck.

That hurts.

But at least he watched and commented. And then it'll take my dad five seasons to figure this out. But I like it. And I think that's going to be a common thread. There will be some confusion, but it's really not that confusing. Okay, next up. Expansion. I'm adding a team in Nashville and Salt Lake because those are the two most common cities. I hear getting teams. I'm I don't care. You can substitute these in your brain.

Whatever, wherever you want to put teams. I'm not too hot on where the next teams go. Just make sure they got owners who care and a fan base who's going to show up and there are good sports market. That's all I care about. But those are the teams I'm using. Okay, so now this is a map. Continental US. These are your American League teams. Now I'm adding the Salt Lake City team to the AL. So you got the Salt Lake City bees.

And I am going to realign them by drawing a line that splits them eight and eight. Boom. Okay, so eight on the left side. That's your AL West eight on the right side. That's your AL East. Again, I'm not too hot on this. If you were like, I need the White Sox and the twins in the same place. We'll figure it out. I just I need I need

four divisions of eight teams in the leagues. We're keeping the American League. We're keeping the National League. And I need four divisions of eight teams to do the stuff I am hot about which is coming up. So there you go. There's your American League. All right. Here's your map of National League teams. And we are adding the Nashville there. I use the Nashville sound logo. And then once again, we're finding where we split this up to get it eight and eight. And bam, there it is. Now you keep St. Louis, Chicago and the Brewers together. They're

on the West. Midwest has West in the name. So don't don't be too bothered by it. That's your National League. So if you need a different way to view that and sum it up, the AL West consists of Seattle, Salt Lake, the Athletics, the Angels, the Twins, the Royals, the Rangers, and the Astros. The AL East consists of the White Sox,

the

the Tigers, the Guardians, the Rays, the Blue Jays, the Orioles, the Yankees, the Red Sox,

the NL West, San Francisco, LA, Dodgers, Padres, Arizona, Colorado, St. Louis, Milwaukee,

and Chicago. And then in the NL East, you have Atlanta, Cincinnati, New York Mets, Miami,

Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, the Nationals, and Nashville. There are your divisions. Again,

you can jumble these up. I really, to do what I want to do, what I am jazzed up about,

I just want four divisions of eight teams, and I'll get into why in the next chapter.

Welcome to the next chapter, where we're going to talk about the season,

the schedule, and the structure of the season schedule. This is what I have been enjoying

diving into. You have seven divisional opponents, eight teams. You are one of them. You have seven

others. You will be playing those seven teams four times throughout the course of the year.

Two series in the first half, a home and away. Two series in the second half, a home and away.

Fans can understand that. You know what's coming. You know the schedule.

It's easy. You will be playing the other teams that are not in your division, but they are in

your league twice. This is the same as we currently have. Once in the first half, once in the second

half. Easier to do with the new schedule to just map it out that way. So two series, once in the

first half, once in the second half against your league opponents. Interleague play. I still want

some interleague play. I don't enjoy what they have right now because it's very hard to organize

a schedule. It's very hard to organize a schedule. It's very hard to organize a schedule. It's very hard to

organize a schedule. It's very hard for rain outs. We're playing through crazy weather. The

travel is ridiculous and I don't really need, you know, baseball is a regional sport, but I do like

some interleague matchups. So you're going to play one series against every team in one division.

This is what they had a couple of years ago before they did. Everybody plays everybody. So like the

AL East will play the NL East on odd years. And then on even years, the AL East will play the NL

West. So you East plays East on odd years.

East plays West on even years. You're going to play four teams in the first half and the other

four teams in the second half to give it some balance. And for those of you that are so smart

and good at math and you're like, but Jimmy, that doesn't add up to 162 games. That's true.

And that's kind of been buried here. But Jason Stark wrote about this and other people have

talked about it. Basically, it might be done. The demise of the 162 game,

schedule. If they expand to 32 teams, a lot of people are saying there's no way they do

162 game schedule. The two new teams give you way more games as a league and it just gets really

hard. And according to one longtime club executive expansion, he said means the end of 162 games.

What I have put together is a 156 game schedule. Why 156? Because it's the perfect number.

I'll tell you why right now. 156 games allows us to have an organized schedule. The schedule just

got released for next year. It's insane. It makes no sense. Off days everywhere. Four game sets,

two game sets. You play this team and then you play them again and then you don't play them for

three months. Well, now we can balance it out. We can organize it. Every series is a three game

series. Isn't that wonderful?

My wife didn't grow up loving baseball. Sometimes she asks about the schedule. She tries to figure

it out. She gives up. Four games, two games. Didn't they just play this team last week? It's

like, yeah, yes. Yeah, you're right. It doesn't make sense. Now I can say, yes, the Yankees play

the Red Sox. They play them two times, first half of the year and two times, second half of the

season, home and away, home and away. And every time they play, it's a three game series. And

that's easier for,

for fans to remember. That's more welcoming. And guess what? My dearest wife, who I love,

I've built in off days into the schedule. Every Monday, eight games will be played. Every Tuesday,

16 games. That means every team will play every Tuesday. Every team will play every Wednesday,

eight games on Thursday. Every team will play every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Baseball

owns the weekends in the summer. That's kind of what they do. The American League will be playing

their series Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

And then the American League will have Thursday off. The teams will travel. The pitchers will rest.

The bullpens will reset and regroup. And I will go on a date night with my wife and I will know

Thursday's standing date night. Maybe we go see a movie on Thursdays. But I know that now that I

can organize my life around it. As a fan, that makes it easier. The National League will have

Mondays off and they will play series Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. The biggest key to content

creation is making it easy for your audience to watch. So I'm going to go on a date night with my

audience to engage and watch. And you know, if you Google any, like what's the best strategy? It's

like be on a schedule, release things regularly, let your audience know so they don't have to look

up. I got to, I got to look up and find what time the Yankees are playing every other day. Is it a

630 start? Is it a seven start? Is it a 730 start? Is it 840 start? Is it a 430 start? Is it a 120

start? Are they on Apple TV? Are they on ESPN? Are they on TBS? Are they on Fox? Are they on Roku?

Are they on Yes? Are they on Prime?

Let's go back to it being easy to be a fan, right? It sounds so nice to me. It sounds so nice, but I

haven't even gotten to the best part, the playoff structure. Now, everything that I am doing in this

playoff structure has been done before in Major League Baseball or is currently being done in

another league. I have invented nothing. I'm just combining a lot of really fun elements. Four teams

in each division will make the postseason.

The league wants 50% of the teams in the postseason. That's what the NBA has done. I think

that's what the NFL has done. That's like a magic number that the league has. They want to get to

where 50% are in the postseason. You say that's too many teams for baseball. That makes the 156

game season meaningless. If so many get in, I have fixed that. I have come up with a structure

that gives you excitement.

Here we go. Now, I might lose some of you here, but hear me out. The first half division winner

is in the postseason. 78 games. If you won your division, guess what? You got a spot in the

postseason. Doesn't matter what you do in the second half. Now, you might not like the spot,

so you're going to have to play good ball in the second half because you might not like the

seeding you get, but you got a spot. The second half winner is also going to be in the postseason.

So, say you're the Atlanta Braves and your whole rotation is hurt for April and May. Don't worry.

You got to be the best of the eight teams in the second half and you can get yourself in the

postseason. Hope is not dead at the halfway point anymore. If you think your team has it, if they can

go on a wild run, then guess what? You can do it. There is still reason to tune in. Still reason for

your team to try. Still reason for your own team to try. Still reason for your own team to try.

To get after it. And the first half winner, we got a pennant race in June. That's awesome. We got a

pennant race in June. We got teams that came in seventh place in the division, but they got injury

returns. And now they can make a storm in the second half. We've got interest across the board.

And then the top overall record once you take those two away, right? Say one team wins the

first half and the second half. Well, then the next three overall records.

Take up the postseason teams. That's fun. We all agree. Oh, great. Let's move on. I mentioned

seeding. Well, these will be the winners in the AL. The first half, the second half, the overall

records. They will all get put in one list and their overall record is how they get seeded.

That's pretty huge because sometimes you win your division and you're like the fourth best team.

In the playoffs right now. So you go into the pot and wherever you fall record wise,

that's the seeding you're going to get. And what does the seeding mean? You ask what a phenomenal

question. What a great question. This is the current playoff structure for, you know,

I just have the AL here because it's easier to find. This is the current playoff structure.

We have six teams making it. We have two wildcards.

The top team is going to buy to the divisional series championship game. These are best of three

and then best of five and then best of seven and the world series best of seven. All I'm doing

is adding two more franchises into the postseason and one more round

of games. But everyone's worried. I'm not adding any more days. So don't worry. I'm adding more

teams and another round. But that first set of games, that's a one game wildcard game. The fifth

seed versus the eight seed, the sixth seed versus the seventh seed. In 2016, when there was a one

game wildcard, it was a Toronto Blue Jays versus the Baltimore Orioles. I lived in California in

the Bay Area. None of my friends were diehard baseball fans. They weren't fans of those two

teams. And they put together a watch party for the one game wildcard. And they put together a watch

party for the one game wildcard. It was an event. People tuned in. It was the best way to start the

playoffs ever. It was just instant drama and tightness. So let's go back to that because

right now the playoffs are starting on a Tuesday at one o'clock and no one's in the stands and no

one outside of baseball even cares about it at all. But when you had prime time, night games,

elimination, oh, that was so fun. And, you know, now we're expecting the playoffs to be

the playoffs. You don't deserve too many games. So that's a one game set. You win that, you move on

where the three and the four seed are waiting for you in the wildcard series. Guess what? That's a

two game series. And this exists in other baseball leagues. Meaning if the three and the four win the

first game, they win. If you're that other team, you got to beat them twice. So I've taken the

three game series and I've just split it up.

Over four, over four teams instead of two teams. Now we're opening up the post season with eight

potentially 12 elimination games. That is drama. That is suffocating drama. And then let's expand

the playoffs. So the owners get more guaranteed games and make the DS seven games. You get through

that gauntlet, you get a breather, you get a seven game set. Come on.

The race down the stretch for seeding would be cutthroat and fun and crazy right now. No one cares

really. You want to win your division? Absolutely. But the wildcard seeding of the three, it's like,

obviously it's important, but the teams do not sell out for it in any way you would here.

You do not want to be in that first stretch.

We're expanding the playoffs, but we can't expand all the series. It's too many games.

I've guaranteed the owners, the same amount of games. I've guaranteed the top four seeds,

the same amount of time off that they have right now.

I'm just making an absolute gauntlet of hell for the teams that get in,

but aren't really deserving if we're being honest. So that's the structure. Now

I needed to see it in the game. I needed to see it in the game. I needed to see it in the game. I needed to see it in the game.

I needed to see it in action. We all do, right? So what I did, because I am a lunatic and I'm not that good at Google sheets,

but I put together a Google sheet that has every damn game of the 2029 season. I put every game on

this dang sheet. I'm talking 2,497 games. I have every matchup and it's so easy to do. Now,

because you can say that the first weekday series,

everyone's going to play in division.

Then that weekend, everyone's going to play in division.

And then the whole league is playing out of division but in the same league.

And then division, you know, this weekend, everyone's playing interleague.

It's kind of easy to do once you get out of the 162 into 156

with 32 teams you can schedule out.

So I put together a whole season, and I did a matrix to make sure I had –

you know what?

It was crazy.

I don't know why I did this, but I love doing this stuff.

So what I'm going to do, I have to make a copy of it,

and I'm going to randomize it.

Obviously, I've done some tests to make sure it works,

but I have a formula in this cell.

Every time I type something over here, everything in this is going to change.

I'm going to copy the random results of the simulation,

and then we're going to paste values only because that's what messes me up.

And then we're going to copy that.

We're going to go back to the actual sheet.

With all the formulas, we're going to paste that in.

Let's go take a look.

What I just did is I selected the winner of every single game,

simulated a winner, and then calculated for the loser.

And let's go look at the first-half standings here.

In the AL East, the Red Sox won by a lot, 51-27.

They have guaranteed themselves a spot in the postseason.

Congratulations to the Red Sox.

It was not even close.

Close.

In the West, Salt Lake, they beat out the Athletics.

Wow.

Vegas and Salt Lake City in a little halfway race.

Congratulations to Salt Lake.

And then in the NL East, the Reds, they won.

Wasn't really close there.

And the Rockies, they have all guaranteed themselves a spot in the postseason.

Okay.

Let's slide over and see how.

We did in the second half.

Now, the Orioles, they won the second half.

How'd they do in the first half?

They came in third in the first half.

They won the second half, so they were in it.

Good for them.

Congrats.

The Astros won the second half in the AL West.

And in the first half, they came in third.

Okay.

Now, in the NL East, the Reds won both divisions.

Good for the Reds.

Pole to pole.

So that means that...

Three teams will get in.

And the Padres won the second half in the NL West.

And in the first half, the Padres were 1, 2, 3, 4, 5th.

Only three games back, but they were 5th with the tiebreakers,

which I did as head-to-head, and then division wins.

And the second half, they win the second half.

So we've got those guys in the postseason.

And then Reds, Rockies, Pirates.

Reds, Rockies, Pirates.

For the full season, the Reds won in the East,

which means the next three teams are in.

The Mets, the Phillies, and the Nationals.

Pirates are not in.

And then the Padres won the second half, so they're in.

They are also in anyway.

And who won the first half over here in the West again?

It was the Rockies and the Padres.

And the Rockies came in fourth.

So no one got really snakebit by the first and second half winners,

which would happen, but not crazy.

And in the AL, the Astros won the second half,

so they're automatically in.

And Salt Lake won the first half, so they're automatically in.

The Athletics and Angels.

How about that?

Unbelievable.

And here, the Red Sox won.

Which half did the Red Sox win?

The Red Sox won the first, and the Orioles won the second,

and the Orioles are second.

So no one got snakebit here at all.

So then you take those teams,

and you go to the full list,

where you've got, we've got to see who got in now.

Orioles got in, Astros got in, Athletics got in.

I remember that.

Oh my goodness, where are the Red Sox?

Up there.

Duh.

Guardians got in, White Sox got in,

Athletics, Salt Lake.

Wow.

The National League standings, we have Reds, Padres, Cubs,

Brewers, Rockies,

the Mets, the Phillies,

Phillies, the Nationals.

So this would be the first simulation playoff bracket.

Mets, Phillies, one game wildcard.

All of America's tuning in.

That's amazing.

Nationals, Rockies, one game wildcard.

More people are tuning in than if that's a three game set

that starts on a Tuesday morning.

And Salt Lake and the White Sox, that's crazy.

Angels and Athletics, a little Bay Area.

Well, it's Vegas now.

So there you go.

Okay, should we run another one?

And we'll just edit it out.

Edit it and go through it quicker just to see.

In the first half, the Guardians won,

the Rangers, the Marlins, and the Giants.

In the second half, the White Sox,

the Mariners, Pirates, and the Cardinals.

Ayo, in this randomization, we have a good example.

The Royals won the full season.

They won their division, which is great,

but they didn't win a single half.

The Rangers won the first half.

They came in second.

The Mariners won the second half.

The Royals came in second.

They're not punished for that at all.

Back when they did,

a team, I think the Reds, had the best record overall,

but it hurt them because not enough teams got in.

And this isn't going to hurt the Royals at all

because they're going to be ahead of them in the standings,

and they got in as well.

They didn't get bounced.

Second simulation, here's how it lays out.

Reds and Giants in the wild card.

Marlins, Nationals.

Cubs and D-backs waiting for them.

Pirates and Cardinals waiting for them.

Red Sox, Guardians, Tigers, Astros.

Rangers, Mariners.

So maybe I can share these.

Google.

Sheets if you want.

Put enough time into them.

That's the grand plan.

Again, I'm not going to fight you on which city should expand

or how you do the divisions,

but I think if you go four divisions of eight teams,

it allows you to make the schedule so much more fan-friendly,

less confusing, more organized.

You also have more player-friendly because give them the off day.

Let them reset the bullpens.

Let's stop doing crazy stretches.

You just have 16 games in 16 days, and then the bullpen's taxed,

and then you're shuttling people up and down,

and you have some games where you're just doing a bullpen day.

Like, get starting pitchers back into it.

If there's an off day every week, you're going to have time to reset,

recover, get the bullpens reset, recovered.

You've got a series every week.

You've got a series every weekend.

Play your division.

It's a regional sport, so play your regional rivals

and boost everyone up that way.

Yankees playing the Reds ain't doing much for nobody.

You know?

Thanks for tuning in.

Thanks for leaving all the phenomenal comments

that you guys have been leaving on this video.

They've been just amazing.

And thank you to DraftKings for sponsoring.

Appreciate them as well.

Okay, back to normal breakdowns next.