Red Sox manager Terry Francona gave Commissioner Bud Selig something to consider Saturday.

Maybe MLB was listening in when Terry Francona made some frank and honest suggestions about how baseball should consider re-structuring its playoff format starting in 2012.

“I hope they add about six,” Francona said in partially tongue-in-cheek fashion of adding MLB teams to the playoff pool.

Then he struck a more serious tone.

“I like the idea of having another wild card. I think it’s intriguing because it’s drawing more fans in and having more teams maybe think they have a legit chance, which is good.”

Then the blinds came down in the Fenway Park media room. A mesage from MLB perhaps?

“I thought that was me, I thought I was going down,” cracked Francona. “Wow, I thought I was going to say goodbye to you guys.”

But then Francona collected himself and continued to entertain the topic.

“I think the way the divisions are set up though is not fair,” Francona said. “I think you have to get more balance in what you’re doing. The question about sense of accomplishment, in ’04 we won 98 games. The only team that won more than us was the Yankees. We didn’t back in anywhere, and they were in our division. If they weren’t in our division, we would’ve probably won 102. If you’re going to start giving that much importance to a division winner and less to the wild card, I think there needs to be more balance. Look at our division right now, you’ve got four teams over .500.”

Would he be cool with 15 teams in each league and a possible interleague match-up in the final weekend of the season, perhaps in an NL park where an AL team would be without a DH?

“I’d be cooler if there was a designated hitter,” Francona said. “There’s decisions that need to be made by people that are smarter than me, hopefully. It’s never going to be perfect but I think there’s probably ways they can figure out to make it really good and a little more fair.” Read the rest of this entry »

Baseball analyst Peter Gammons stopped by The Big Show on Friday to talk playoff matchups, the acquisition of the Liverpool soccer team by Sox ownership, and the Red Sox offseason. The ownership group behind the Red Sox recently bought the Liverpool soccer team, and Gammons offered his own insight for Red Sox management: “A friend of mine last week brought this whole thing up and he said ‘You know what, if things go bad, the Red Sox marketing campaign could be ‘It could be worse, we could be the McCourts.”’

Following are some highlights from the conversation. To hear the interview, visit The Big Show audio on demand page here.

On Tim Lincecum vs. Roy Halladay matchup in the NLCS:

“It’s a great pitching matchup. There were some studies done today of some of the great matchups. I think this is greater than [Bob] Gibson against [Denny] McLain in ’68, just because McLain wasn’t very good down the stretch.  It was a little different; I mean he was fortunate to get to 30 wins. I mean, it still was 31 wins against Bob Gibson but not quite the same. They listed [Sandy] Koufax against Whitey Ford in ‘63. There were a couple of names in the ‘50s. But this is probably in 25-30 years, the best postseason matchup. The one that I could remember that I looked forward the same way was Catfish Hunter for the A’s and Tom Seaver for the Mets in ‘73. What is fascinating to me, what we saw in the divisional series, is the return to the point where the elite pitchers have become the stars again. We’re not sitting there waiting to see how far Barry Bonds can hit the ball into McCovey Cove. We’re not thinking about, ‘It’s going to be 11-9.’ We saw so many elite pitchers; I think the losing teams of the 15 games of the divisional series combined for 24 runs. The elite pitchers were dominant, and I think from a fans standpoint, while it might be more fun to see a 9-6 game, people anticipate and will watch the great pitching matchups. Back in the 70’s when we had [Luis] Tiant against [Jim] Palmer, everybody in the city closed over that. Even though a 3-1 game might not be the most exciting, the pitching matchups are.

Read the rest of this entry »

Peter Gammons of the MLB Network and NESN checked in with The Big Show on Friday to talk about the playoffs, instant replay, and the Red Sox owners’ acquisition of the Liverpool soccer club. Gammons started by making a pitch to Boston baseball fans to watch the playoffs: “I realize people in Boston don’t want to watch the Yankees. It’s just the Giants and the Phillies are so fun to watch…I think the most compelling potential series without a doubt is the Giants playing the Phillies.”

Following are some highlights from the conversation. To hear the interview, visit The Big Show audio on demand page here.

On Roy Halladay’s no-hitter :

I don’t know if anybody had too many doubts about it. He’s such a special guy. I was writing a column today about the Yankees and if you look at [Andy] Pettitte and [Derek] Jeter, their numbers for the postseason are exactly the same for the career and regular season. But their ability just to space everything out and have that tunnel vision and concentrate exactly and they don’t get wrapped up in this game, and that’s the way for Halladay, the same thing, it’s the norm rather than being dramatic about it. I guess some of these teams get too fired [up], and think, ‘Oh boy, we’re going to play with the crowd.’ Just concentrate on what you do. Halladay shuts everything out so well. I actually think you’re going to see that in Roy Oswalt, too. He’s different than Halladay. Halladay is incredibly creative and so forth and he has, what, five different fastballs now, two different cutters, change-up, a split, and all the rest. Oswalt is so convicted in everything he does. I mean, I once asked [former teammate] Brad Ausmus, ‘Is that arrogance or conviction?’ And he said, ‘When you’re good it’s not arrogance, its conviction.’ And I think you’ll really see that from him too.

Is it time for Instant replay? Will it slow down games that much?

I maintain that it would speed up games because you wouldn’t have coaches, players, managers everybody running around the field; getting 14 different groups of umpires converging on the field. If you had in the playoffs a seventh umpire with all the technology they have, they could make the decision in 30 seconds.

I’ll give you an example that just amazed me. At the Hall of Fame induction, Doug Harvey got in. That’s great. He was a tremendous umpire. There were a lot of current and former umpires up there who made it very clear to me that they were very upset with Jim Joyce. They thought the umpire’s association should’ve disciplined Jim Joyce for admitting he was wrong in the [Armando] Galarraga case [when Joyce admitted to blowing a call that ruined a perfect game]. I actually thought it was the best moment of the year for an umpire. First of all, Jim Joyce, I believe was second in the player rankings. The fact is, okay I’m a human, I’m really sorry I ruined a place in history for this guy. There’s the whole point where you should never, ever admit you’re wrong, we don’t need replay. The administration of umpiring for me; for instance, you can’t have a replay on a check swing, I understand that. But I wish they had it in the rule book. About five years ago I was working with Bobby Valentine and there was a check swing that was a very controversial call. Now I have to admit I don’t do what Bobby Valentine did, which was always have the rule book in the bathroom, to study it every day about three times. So we called up one of the umpire administrators, a really good one. We said, ‘Could you go through the manuals and find what the definition of a check swing is?’ He called us back about four hours later and said ‘There is no rule in any manual about what a check swing is.’ It’s like pornography, you know it when you see it.

On the importance of the bullpen in undermining the Red Sox:

I think it’s more like one to eight on your pitching staff. If you’re bringing your bullpen in in the fifth and sixth inning, it’s never a good thing. I said this a bunch of times in September, I never realized how important Hideki Okajima was to that team for three years. That guy did every role possible. He was great at it, and when he went, they basically ended up with a two-man bullpen. All those different things that Okajima did: get left handers out, pitch two and a third innings here, and close…There’s no question. There was no seventh inning-get-you-into-the-eighth-inning guy… They didn’t get the innings, the outs out of [Josh] Beckett that they would normally expect. He got three outs after the seventh inning the entire season.

Should Red Sox fans be concerned about $450 million purchase of Liverpool Soccer Team?

Listen, I think it’s fair. We don’t know yet exactly what the economics are of this. I know that they have said this doesn’t affect baseball operations at all. We don’t know. The fans are going to be screaming, ‘Wait a minute, is this going to expand income or make it tougher?’ We’re not going to be adding that much payroll at the trading deadline. I understand that. The budget, they went over by signing [Adrian] Beltre for $10 million dollars. Is this going to impact them? …The fans have a right to ask that. I don’t have any problem but it’s up to the Red Sox to answer that. How much of Tom Hicks’ debt do they have to take in this? …

I think they are going to have to be proactive and address it. OK, they’re not going to spend $205 million. OK, [if Adrian] Beltre goes, and they end up playing [Jed] Lowrie at third, sign Carl Crawford, and have the first five guys in the lineup being [Jacoby] Ellsbury, [Dustin] Pedroia, Crawford, Victor Martinez, [Kevin] Youkilis. OK, fans can buy into this, go out and get a few relievers. OK, fans can buy into this. If it’s, OK, we’re going to get Adam LaRoche and who else, you know fans are going to be screaming. And that amazing sell out streak may not be so amazing. I was amazed that last Saturday night, starting a game at 9:15, with [Daisuke Matsuzaka] starting, assuring it wasn’t going to get done until one in the morning, that place was packed, I couldn’t believe it. It can come to an end and it’s one of those dangers when you try to do too many things. I think most fans say, ‘Well why can’t they focus on baseball and nothing else?’

Now I happen to feel there’s a chance that the Yankees get old in a few years, especially if they have to sign [Derek] Jeter for five years…I think they have a chance to get old and the division has a chance to be a 90-95 win division instead of a 95-105 win division. Fans are always going to believe the Yankees are going to have 100 wins every year.

On Cliff Lee’s Future with the Rangers, and the Rangers having a ton of money thanks to a new TV deal:

I think there’s a lot of debt they have to deal with. I know there are a lot of people, owners and general managers saying, ‘Major League Baseball was paying the bills. You can’t tell me that they didn’t know this $3 billlion dollar deal was coming.’ … I can see Texas really being in that hunt with Cliff Lee, I think they’ll be very active. The rest of that pitching staff is low cost…There’s no question that the new ownership with Nolan Ryan, the group is going to be saying, ‘We’re building around Cliff.’ I think that would be a big blow to the Yankees. When I heard about that [TV] deal, I thought Cliff Lee might end up in Texas.