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There's an interesting movement going on, and I wanted to look at some of the possibilities that it produces this week. None of this has been announced, because nothing about college baseball is ever announced (more on that frustration with the lack of organization later), but the word of mouth seems to be spreading. It began with the word that the ACC was planning to continue their policy of having all conference teams participate in the conference tournament in some form or another, even after the conference grows to twelve teams. The SEC has followed up with discussions of expanding its tournament to all twelve teams, potentially as early as the 2005 season.

Whether this is a good idea is a separate discussion than how it should be done, and, frankly, I'm unsure of the actual motivation. I'm of the stated opinion that the only conferences that probably should hold tournaments are those that can make a good bit of money by doing so without risking a chance of teams with a legitimate shot of going far in the postseason being left out of the NCAA tournament. That pretty much means the ACC, SEC, and Big 12 are the only leagues with any real business holding a tournament. When you add to that the fact of Florida's 2003 tournament bid, obtained after finishing 9th in the regular season and missing the SEC tournament, I can't see any reason that the leagues would go to twelve team tournaments, but those three are the ones most likely to go to twelve, so the harm is probably less than it could be.

That said, if they're going to do it, it would be nice if they did it well, so I wanted to look at ways to do it well -- fair, competitive, and interesting would be a good start. There are actually at least three conflicting potential goals that could be considered -- hope that everyone has an even chance, hope that teams who performed better in the regular season are rewarded with a better chance to win, or hope that a bubble team or a team that otherwise wouldn't qualify will win. None of these are any better or worse than any other, especially for the leagues that are likely to be involved here. With that in mind, I'd like to present a few alternate formats for consideration to see if anything sticks.

• The worst format I've been able to come up with, probably because I had help, is the one that the ACC is apparently planning to use. Seeds #9-#12 play a one-day single-elimination knockout round. The winner of that round plays a single game against #8. The winner of that game is then the #8 seed in an eight-team straight double-elimination tournament. I suppose that this increases the odds of the #1 seed winning it, but that's about the only positive thing to be said about it.

• The first serious possibility is a straight twelve-team double elimination. This has a few problems with it, but it does OK on the fairness front. The schedule is a little contorted for a twelve-team, and trying to predict when a team will play ahead of time is tough. On the other hand, it is easy to understand the lose-two-and-go-home nature of things. This would require 22 or 23 games, so it would be a six-day affair with little room for bad weather.

• A slightly modified version of that would be a supersized version of the CWS format -- two six-team double-eliminations with the winners playing a single game or a best of three. College fans are used to the concept, so it wouldn't be too hard a sell; this is probably what I would expect the SEC to actually do. This one would take between 21 and 25 games, so I'd probably expect just a single championship game.

• Now, we get to the more creative ideas. One, if you want to reward the high seeds well, is to play three four-team double-elimination brackets. The high seed among the three winners would then get a bye to the championship game. This one doesn't seem too hard to understand, and it gives some extra impetus to the regular season. It would take between 20 and 23 games to play.

• A more extreme idea is to play a knockout tournament of best-of-three series. The #1-#4 seeds would get first-round byes while the opening rounds were played on campus, and then the final eight would meet in a single location to play it out. This one would take, potentially, as many as 33 games, so it would have to be a two-week affair, but it would certainly provide the best onfield possibilities.

• Finally, we come to my favorite possibility: Divide into four three-team round-robins, and then let the four winners play a double-elimination bracket. There are a couple of disadvantages with this one, but I think they're bearable. First of all, you don't get a guaranteed championship game. Generally, I don't think that's that huge a ratings killer at this level, so I think it's all right. Secondly, you have the potential for the need for a tiebreaker of some kind in the round robin phase, such as run differential. This I view somewhat as a mixed blessing rather than a deal-killer, since the soccer fans in the crowd will testify that this can add some excitement to the end of an already-decided game. In exchange for those things, you get a format that gives everyone an equal chance, in which everyone gets at least two games, and which can be played in either 18 or 19 games, which fits acceptably into a five-day schedule, a factor which can't be ignored when weather is a big concern so often in these things. I like it; go lobby your favorite coach.

As as aside, I was notified this week (and verified), that the selection committee last week voted to allow Dallas Baptist to be counted in this year's RPI. DBU is in the transitional phase and was supposed to have submitted their schedule back in the fall for approval similar to that that was given to Northern Colorado (which in itself isn't particularly a good thing). When they failed to get that in on time, they were given another chance and have been added. I have nothing against the team (they'll be somewhere around the middle of the pack in Division I for now), but the season's already started, and this is fairly similar to, say, Major League Baseball deciding in mid-May to allow that troubled Portland AAA team to join the NL West. On some level, you can't just make it up as you go along.

Rather than keep returning to the subject of pitch counts and pitcher usage in general too often for my main theme, I'm just going to run a standard feature down here where I point out potential problems; feel free to stop reading above this if the subject doesn't interest you. This will just be a quick listing of questionable starts that have caught my eye -- the general threshold for listing is 120 actual pitches or 130 estimated, although short rest will also get a pitcher listed if I catch it. Don't blame me; I'm just the messenger.

We're starting early this year, alas.

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Boyd's World-> Breadcrumbs Back to Omaha-> Twelve-Team Tournaments

About the author, Boyd Nation