Imagine a world where the Mariners, through their tortuous years of around 90 or 100 losses from 2010 through 2013, would have faced the prospect of being dropped down to Class AAA.
We used to joke about that back when I covered them. About how a demotion for too much terrible play might have inspired the team’s ownership to try to be more competitive back at a time they were running Adam Kennedy out there as a cleanup hitter.
Anyhow, the concept of relegation is actually quite real in soccer, where leagues in most countries but ours demote poorly performing teams.