Welcome back to BCB After Dark: the hippest hangout for night owls, early risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. We’re so glad you decided to stop in tonight. Let us hold the door for you. There’s no cover charge. Let us take your coat for you. There are still a few tables available. Bring your own beverage.
BCB After Dark is the place for you to talk baseball, music, movies, or anything else you need to get off your chest, as long as it is within the rules of the site. The late-nighters are encouraged
to get the party started, but everyone else is invited to join in as you wake up the next morning and into the afternoon.
Last night I asked you who you thought was the Cubs “go-to” ace starter for the 2026 season. The vote wasn’t even close as 65 percent of you said Cade Horton. I hope you’re right. I’m a little worried that his peripherals didn’t support his stellar ERA. In any case, Edward Cabrera was second with 11 percent.
On Tuesday nights I don’t do any movie stuff, but you still have time to vote in yesterday’s BCB Winter Science Fiction Classic between Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Back the the Future. But I always have time for jazz, so you’re free to skip ahead now.
Tonight we’re featuring the great guitarist Wes Montgomery playing the song made famous by Little Anthony and the Imperials, “Goin’ Out of My Head.”
This is from some TV show somewhere in the world in 1967, but I have no clue which one.
Welcome back to everyone who skips the music. You must be out of your heads.
One idea that MLB has been floating among the fans has been the concept of an in-season “tournament” that teams would play in to give players something else to play for. I’ve gotten polls on both MLB dot com and The Athletic asking me what I think about the concept, so the commissioner’s office is clearly considering the concept. There’s a good chance the owners bring it up in the collective bargaining talks.
The idea of an in-season tournament is borrowed from European football (soccer). The different financial structure of American and European sports helps explain why the concept took hold over there and not here. Football clubs are really independent of the league they play in. The clubs created the leagues that they play in whereas the American model is that teams are “franchises” created by and tied to the league in which they play. That greater independence means that these teams are members of multiple organizations, all of which have their own competitions. Over time, the top-tiered leagues (such as England’s Premier League, Italy’s Serie A, etc.) have become more important that those other organizations the teams belong to, but they still compete in tournaments organized by the other groups.
There is something like this in American soccer as well. The US Open Cup dates back to 1914 and every club that is a member of the US Soccer Federation, which means almost every professional and well-organized amateur team, is allowed to participate. That includes MLS teams, although admittedly MLS has been trying to weasel out of playing in the US Open Cup over the past few years in favor of tournaments the league owns (and profits from) or co-owns with Mexico’s Liga MX.
The NBA has recently adopted an in-season tournament called the NBA Cup to try to drum up interest in the sport in November and December when most fans are still watching football. The 30 teams are broken up into six groups of five and those five teams play a round-robin tournament. The six teams that win their group and two wild card teams then compete in a standard eight-team single elimination tournament until a winner is crowned.
So that teams take the games seriously, the NBA decided that all of these games would also count as regular-season games, which is a departure from what goes on in Europe or the US Open Cup. That means that the teams that get eliminated get extra games against other eliminated teams in order for all the teams to have played the same number of games at the end of the season.
The biggest argument in favor of such a tournament is that it gives fans something else to cheer for. Maybe the Pittsburgh Pirates (to use an example) don’t have what it takes to win the World Series, but it’s possible they get hot at the right time and win a Cup title. Plus, the games could be spread out so that Paul Skenes could start the quarterfinals and the finals and the Pirates always have a chance to win a game he starts.
You get upsets a lot in soccer cup matches because the top teams often have bigger things to worry about that some of these smaller cups and play their reserves against the lower teams. Of course, with the NBA making the games count as regular-season games, there is much less incentive to do that in the NBA Cup.
The appeal to MLB and its owners is clear: A in-season Cup tournament gives them something else to sell. The seven games that make up the single-elimination tournament could be sold in a separate TV package to some channel or streamer who would like to add baseball to their portfolio but don’t want to make a major commitment. Presumably, these games would fetch a higher price than some random regular season game in early June.
MLB could incentivize teams to win the Cup in various ways. The NBA just hands the winning team a cup and a boatload of money for each player, but there are other ways to get teams to take it seriously. MLB could reserve the final playoff spot for the team that wins the Cup. I don’t think they’d do that because then that team has little incentive to win the rest of the way unless they were in line for a first-round bye, but it is something to consider. Beyond money, MLB could reward the winning team with more draft picks or international pool money.
So what do you think? Would you like to see an in-season MLB tournament? If so, what format would you like? Would you want the games to count as regular-season games or separate? What would you give to the winners.
One fun idea that I doubt MLB would consider for financial and logistical reasons is to let NPB and KBO teams participate. It’s still fun to think about.
If you think it’s an idea worth trying, suggest a format in the comments.
Thanks for coming by tonight. Get home safely. Stay warm. Have a hot cocoa for us. Recycle any cans and bottles. Tip your waitstaff. And join us again tomorrow for more BCB After Dark.
