The other day, Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated and the MLB Network weighed in on the stagnant winter market, citing seven forces that have manifested this winter, and among those was “The Empty Middle Lane." He wrote:
It’s become mostly a bifurcated game: Teams are either all-in as far as World Series aspirations or all-out. That’s not “tanking.” That’s smart business sense.
Of course it’s tanking, and it’s been going on in professional sports for decades, and it’s also smart baseball business under the current rules for the teams that choose this course.