Terry Francona often talks about how he loves to manage in the American League East. Great competition, phenomenal teams, one intense rival.
However, Francona, who is in favor of expanding the playoffs to include more wild card teams, would only welcome that plan if there was realignment among the divisions.
"I think the way the divisions are set up, it's not fair," Francona said Saturday at Fenway Park as his first-place Red Sox prepared for a doubleheader. "I mean, I think you've got to get some more balance."
One of the playoff-expansion plans floating around would see the inclusion of an additional wild card team, which would play the other wild card team in a play-in game. There are other variations involving even more wild card entries. The common theme is that non-division winners would be forced to do some extra work to get deeper into the playoffs.
Francona never said he is opposed to that, even though his team has been a wild card entrant four of the five times he has made the playoffs. But he would hate to see exceptional second-place teams, such as the four he has had with 95 wins or more, get penalized. Therein lies the urge on Francona's part to spread the wealth.
"In '04 we won 98 games. Only team that won more than us was the Yankees. We didn't back in anywhere," he said. "And they're in our division. If they're not in our division we probably win 102 … If you're going to start giving that much importance to a division winner, less to the wild card, there needs to be more balance."
While that could do away with a Red Sox-Yankees chase for a division crown, it might allow for the high-powered clubs to each claim a title and not be penalized just because they are bunched in one elite group.
"Look at our division," he said of the 2011 version of the American League East. "We've got four teams over .500."
Some of the aforementioned scenarios involve one 15-team league, which obviously makes the need for balanced divisions obsolete. That would make moot Francona's desire to spread out the AL East teams.
For now, he has to focus on the task at hand in 2011. Boston and New York have swapped the division lead nine times since May. Both look destined for the postseason. As they move toward that scenario, Francona must balance his priorities.
"I think it's more important [to win the division]," he said. "There's advantages obviously to playing at home and things like that, but I think ultimately what's more important is your team feeling good about themselves and being healthy."
Because wild card teams aren't necessarily penalized in the current structure, except in the sense that they have no homefield advantage, these are things that Francona can say. If he was with a wild card team that finished with the second-best record in the league and had to play a play-in game, he might be saying some other things. The Red Sox manager hopes it never gets to that.
