PCL's Unbalanced Schedule - Pacific Coast League - AAA Baseball On MLNSportsZone,com, A Minor League News Sports Magazine

Unbalanced Schedule
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As with any change, there are dissenters. It seems the scheduling change was a compromise by everyone involved in the league to make do things for the greater good.

Traditionalists in the league wanted to maintain the sanctity of the balanced schedule and ensure the home fans get to see each of the 15 other teams annually.

"There is still sentiment for a balanced schedule," Rickey said. "It's not a battle, and there are no hard feelings. This is about trying to balance. There's an extraordinary amount of give and take between the general managers. There's no head bashing; there's no sour grapes."

Count Las Vegas general manager Don Logan as a member of the camp that prefers the balanced schedule.

"It's always a spirited debate," Logan said. "I feel it's beneficial for our fans in Las Vegas (to play all 15 teams at home). But this is what it takes to keep our major league partners happy, and a majority of our general managers like it."

Some fans might feel slighted that all the league's teams don't pass through their city each year.

"They still see 11 different teams," Rickey said, recalling that's how many visiting teams PCL cities welcomed before the league expanded in '98. "It's not a big factor unless for example there's a Chicago (Cubs) fan and Iowa (their affiliate) isn't traveling to Tacoma or Tucson that year.

"I'm looking at the fact that they play against 15 other teams--some home, some on the road. It's not balanced. It is what it is."

Logan points out that the Iowa franchise is often a big draw because of the national scope of Cubs fans. He also adds that while having Iowa into town for a three-game series can augment ticket sales to an extent, it's really the job of the minor league team and its marketing department to draw fans to the park.

"There are some operators that make the point that fans want to see more teams," Jones said. "But in most leagues there are only eight to 10 teams, so they're already getting more than that."

No major league officials see any this as a detriment to player development. They don't judge a player solely on stats, and facing similar opponents is a fact of life in major league divisional play as well.

Sometimes leagues with just eight or 10 teams get bogged down by divisional play, drawing a large amount of contests against three or four division rivals. But the PCL is large enough to avoid that, plus the rosters are constantly changing because of injuries, trades, promotions and demotions.

"The bottom line is that there is so much player movement in Triple-A that rosters go through changes every time teams play each other," Jones said. "You can see a different guy in Las Vegas in May than you do when you turn around and go there in July. You can see different clubs just through player movement than by facing different teams."

Brewers scouting director Jack Zduriencik sends his prospects through the 14-team International League, but still doesn't see a major player development problem in frequently facing the same opponents even in smaller circuits like the 10-team Southern League.

"Kids get to play different people in the Arizona Fall League, spring training and winter ball to make up from the time they are in one league together," he said. "Between Double-A, Triple-A and reaching the majors, they play against a good mix of players."

Based on comments from last season, Rickey expects the unbalanced schedule to continue into the near future. He said the issue will probably crop up in some form at each year's league meetings, but so far has seen "huge favoritism, support for continuing this beyond this coming year."

"All in all it's worked out fairly well," Logan said. "I'd still be a proponent of going back (to a balanced schedule) but this is the reality of travel in a post-9/11 world. All in all, our major league partners appreciate that we've tried to address the geographic challenges we have as a league."

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