The Great American Baseball Tournament: An Idea to Improve Baseball in the U.S.

This is an improved version of my idea from a couple years ago

So the Tyler Murray controversy from years ago 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 system while wasting their youth and making pennies. 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. I found a way for the owners of MLB to have their year of baseball while also shortening the regular season by a month to improve the product of that area as well.

I present you The Great American Baseball Tournament:

This massive tournament will be done yearly, and runs from March through April, ending right before the beginning of the actual MLB season (in my perfect scenario of cutting the MLB regular season). The GABT (eh…) will involve every state, and every U.S. territory, even splitting some of the larger 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 64 total teams within 14 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 some hype.

Representing every state and territory allows for high-stakes 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. All 64 regions of the country will have at the very least a week to themselves to celebrate baseball, have some home games for their locals, and a chance to reveal their state pride. Wouldn’t it be awesome to spend a week in Alaska and learn about the local cuisine and customs while seeing all of Fairbanks show up and loudly root for their state team?

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 two of the teams twice in their home turf.

So let’s take the Badlands Division and display their sample schedule:

This schedule is designed so that everyone plays each other three times, for a total of 12 games from each team.

Now let’s then take a smaller division like the Caribbean Division:

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.

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 in the final standings, 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 Cards will be the three best records from non-Divisional winners. This takes us to 10 teams from each side of the country.

Now we reseed to have a total of four divisions with five teams each, and the two best records from each side having the home field advantage throughout this round. Here’s a sample scenario:

West Second Round Seeding and Schedule For Each Team

After the games from the second round, we have the final eight teams left standing, going by the top two teams from each of the new divisions. From here on out, its winner-take-all and they will all take place in the same city that will host the All-Star Game. So if Yankee Stadium for example is hosting the All-Star Game, not only are they getting Opening Day festivities with the first game on the season, they will also host the final moments of the tournament:

So how will this seemingly grown up version of the Little League World Series tournament fix Major League Baseball and the sport of baseball? By displaying the potential future while simultaneously cutting some of the fat of the regular season.

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----and every gender as well. 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 for a couple years, 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 also be the first semi-pro tournament of the baseball kind to allow teenagers and high schoolers to compete, granted they get chosen to participate. This will also be a tournament that limits players already in the Major Leagues, with only 3 professional players allowed in the 45-man roster to give space for unsigned and unknown and even forgotten talent an opportunity to shine.

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. 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 and even 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.

More importantly, 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 without any unions or contracts getting in the way, allowing for each year to have special quirks. Pitch clocks, extremely limited commercial breaks, extra inning ideas, banning shifts, limited player substitutions, what the fans are allowed to bring for noise, stadium enhancements, social media exposure, and even television deals. You can then transition the better results into Major League Baseball.

Now let’s talk the viewing options. 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. This event lastly can take the place of an entire month of spring training baseball, so we can see high-stakes baseball for an entire month instead of spring training games that usually doesn’t have the same intensity and energy for obvious reasons.  

Even better, we can start the regular season in late April instead of March, and cut the season by at least 25 games but still potentially make good money through the nationwide event. How awesome would it be to start Opening Day with a Major League Baseball game and then closing out the very same day with the final night of the tournament? Baseball would dominate the conversation of sports that week guaranteed with Opening Week, and the final games of the month-long tournament. Plus the regular season of 162 games has been argued to be cut constantly from fans, writers, and even some of the players; a giant tournament would be a nice replacement for 25-35 regular season games. Personally 100 is my desired number, but even 132 games would be a significant improvement.

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 and even parts of the Caribbean 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, locally televised, and even via streaming and trending scenarios. 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 to kick off the season of baseball and improve the future of a sport that has seen better days.

This is a great opportunity to Make Baseball Even Greater.