2023 MLB Playoffs

[chasfh]

Here's another thing: in small divisions, there's a chance an 83-win team like the 2006 Cardinals makes the playoffs, in which anything can happen. In a 16-team table, there's no chance for this, unless you go eight teams deep in the playoffs, which, then why even bother with 16-team tables if you're not trying to control for .500 teams making the playoffs in the first place? Bottom line, owners and players want more chances to make the playoffs and earn playoff money, not fewer chances.

Edited October 13, 2023 by chasfh

[Tiger337]

12 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Setting aside the difficulty in selling a 14th or 15th place team, which I acknowledge you believe is not even a thing, probably the biggest challenge is to have a truly balanced schedule, which I acknowledge you may not believe is even important. But what the hell, let's spool out the thought exercise.

The main principle of a truly balanced schedule would be exact same number of games against every other team, as well as the exact same number of home games and away games against each. That's the way they do it in all the big football leagues in the world, e.g., the English Premier League. So in that sense, the only way to truly balance everything for MLB is to have one big league, 32 teams, one table (i.e., no divisions), and the same number of games against each team, with home-away games split 50-50.

The first thing to look into is six games against each opponent, three home and three away. That would end up being 186 games, though, which obviously is unworkable.

The only other possibly workable solution would be four games against each opponent, two home and two away. Now, there may actually be some fan support for this, since it is only 124 games, and there are always some fans looking for ways to shorten the season as much as possible, probably to get baseball away from the buzzsaw that is the NFL and NBA. So MLB could start the season around May 1 and end it around September 30. That's 124 games in 152 or so days, plenty of off days to schedule to avoid conflicts with marquee NBA games like Lakers-Celtics, or NBA Finals games, or with the NFL on Sundays. The whole league can have the day off when these things happen. Sound crazy? It is, but they're already scheduling this year's LCS's to minimize Sunday play, and they're scheduling the World Series to avoid Sundays altogether. So precedent has been set.

If we must maintain the two league setup, then one way to do it would be six games against each of the other 15 teams in the league, and four games against each of the 16 teams in the other league. This setup would actually be "mathemagical", because it would be (15 * 6) + (16 * 4) = 154 games for the season. Nostalgia, baby! It's the perfect solution to blend tradition with blowing up the current system. You as a fan may or may not care to follow the 15th-place Tigers for the whole year, but at least you'll be able to compare the players' stats with Charlie Gehringer's or Hal Newhouser's on a one-to-one basis. Tradition!

One other idea, which you might actually kind of like, is to split up MLB into four separate 8-team leagues (or "conferences", which is probably where it's all going anyway). To make this happen, we'd have to throw out the whole idea of balancing schedules, but there are two possible approaches with this: play 12 games against each team in your own "league", and three against each of the 24 teams in the other three "leagues", for a 156-game season; or eight games against your own "league", and four against the other three "leagues", for a 152-game season.

Of course, all these options assume that owners would even want to play in 32- or 16- or even 8-team tables, which I can assure you they will not. They will want to play in four-team divisions, so that's what we'll be getting. Assuming that, I think we are looking at 14 games against each of our divisional opponents, six games against each of the remaining 12 teams in our league, and three games each against each of the 16 teams in the other league, for a total of ... 162 games. Continuity, baby!

 

Of course you can't sell a 14th or 15th place team in a league.  Those are almost surely awful teams.  You should be able to sell a 6th, 7th or 8th place team if you have 6 or more teams making the league playoffs.  Just list the teams in order and draw a line at the playoff break point.  It's easier to explain that to someone than "our team finished 2nd and the Red Sox finished 5th, but they are going to the playoffs and we are not."  Fans only identify place in the division over place in entire league, because that is how it has been presented to them for years. 

Owners might not like big divisons because many of them have made their fortunes largely by marketing to simpletons.  However, the last time they discussed realignment, I remember that a group of players wanted to eliminate divisions because they wanted to assure that the best teams during the regular season made the post-season and they felt (probably correctly) the owners wanted divisions to water down league and make it possible to get into the playoffs cheaply with an inferior team.  Players also were not in favor of expanding the playoffs further.  So, I hold out some slight hope that the players might make this an important issue in future negotiations, although I understand it will probably just be used as a bargaining chip.   

[Tiger337]

6 minutes ago, oblong said:

Players too.

 

I think players want to play in smaller divisions if the schedules are unbalanced as it means fewer long trips, but there is no advantage to them if the schedules are balanced.  Players are highly competive people and given a balanced schedule, I believe they would like to see the most successful regular season teams make the playoffs.  I do remember some of them suggesting elimination of divisions in a realignment.   

[Tiger337]

10 minutes ago, chasfh said:

True. What player would not care about playing on a 15th-place team?

[lordstanley]

 

[Tiger337]

The Harper/Arcia thing has got to be the silliest baseball controversy ever.  What happened to the good ole days of Billy Martin and George Brett.  

[Shades of Deivi Cruz]

I liked Casty when he was a Tiger, I liked him when he was a Red, and I like him on the Phillies. Just something about him clicks with me, and makes me appreciate him as a player and a person. Here he is explaining why Scooby Do is his favorite superhero. 🤣

 

 

[Tiger337]

3 hours ago, chasfh said:

Here's another thing: in small divisions, there's a chance an 83-win team like the 2006 Cardinals makes the playoffs, in which anything can happen. In a 16-team table, there's no chance for this, unless you go eight teams deep in the playoffs, which, then why even bother with 16-team tables if you're not trying to control for .500 teams making the playoffs in the first place? Bottom line, owners and players want more chances to make the playoffs and earn playoff money, not fewer chances.

But you've got the same number of teams making the playoffs every year regardless.  So, players are not making more playoff money.  

I am not even convinced there are more contenders under a structure with smaller divisions.  By having an 83-win division winner make the playoffs, all that does is prevent another team from making the playoffs. What if you've got  a wild card race where the three best teams are 95 93 and 92 wins and then there are two teams with 87 and 86 wins.  Now that 83-win team has knocked two teams out of the race.  

 

[chasfh]

27 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

But you've got the same number of teams making the playoffs every year regardless.  So, players are not making more playoff money.  

I am not even convinced there are more contenders under a structure with smaller divisions.  By having an 83-win division winner make the playoffs, all that does is prevent another team from making the playoffs. What if you've got  a wild card race where the three best teams are 95 93 and 92 wins and then there are two teams with 87 and 86 wins.  Now that 83-win team has knocked two teams out of the race.  

 

An 83-win team in a four-division league has a much better chance to make the playoffs than an 83-win team in a 16-team table.

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

An 83-win team in a four-division league has a much better chance to make the playoffs than an 83-win team in a 16-team table.

But, in my example, it knocked two better teams out of contention.  So, there was one less team with a chance.  

[casimir]

The more a league is broken down into smaller subunits, the higher the chances are for a poor team to “win” a division.  4 team divisions would inevitably lead to a team in the playoffs with a losing record.      Some losing record team would win the division.  And then MLB would further the mockery by seeding that team 4th rather than last in the bracket.

There have been NFL teams that win a division at 7-9 and bump better records from the playoffs.

Heck, the Texas Rangers were leading the AL West at 52-62 when MLB shut down for the strike.  The only AL teams with records worse than them were all from the AL West.  The Baltimore Orioles were 63-49, but would have been bumped from the playoffs for Texas.

[chasfh]

This kind of thing has been said many times and in many ways, but here's another:

Three of the four teams left won only 90 games during the regular season, and the fourth team won only 84. All five teams with more wins are no longer in the playoffs.

 

[Tenacious D]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

This kind of thing has been said many times and in many ways, but here's another:

Three of the four teams left won only 90 games during the regular season, and the fourth team won only 84. All five teams with more wins are no longer in the playoffs.

 

Ain’t life grand?

[Tiger337]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

This kind of thing has been said many times and in many ways, but here's another:

Three of the four teams left won only 90 games during the regular season, and the fourth team won only 84. All five teams with more wins are no longer in the playoffs.

 

I have been told many times that this is not a problem.  I guess if most people like it that way, then it's not a problem for MLB.  Personally, I consider the post-season tournament to be anti-climatic. It's more baseball games, so that's good, but the results don't mean a lot to me.  

[Toddwert]

3 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I have been told many times that this is not a problem.  I guess if most people like it that way, then it's not a problem for MLB.  Personally, I consider the post-season tournament to be anti-climatic. It's more baseball games, so that's good, but the results don't mean a lot to me.  

I'm with you but I dont know how you really fix it in a way that the owners will go for

[oblong]

I hate when one series plays two games before the other plays one.  I’m sure it’s due to TV considerations. 
 

and haven’t we seen enough of ARod and Jeter and Papi?  Papi calling Jeter Cap?  Come on. 

[oblong]

2 hours ago, Toddwert said:

I'm with you but I dont know how you really fix it in a way that the owners will go for

The only way to fix it is to not allow them in. Anybody can beat anybody in a 3 game series and to a lesser extent 5 and 7 game. 
 

In the AL it’s the 3-4 seed. That isn’t horrible. In the NL it’s the 4-6 seed. But AZ as the 6 didn’t block anyone like MN did for Toronto and Seattle in the AL. They and Miami and the sixth best record in the NL and I don’t know the tiebreaker. So mathematically it stands if you let in 6 per league, regardless of division, you very well might get an 84 win team. 

[chasfh]

11 minutes ago, oblong said:

I hate when one series plays two games before the other plays one.  I’m sure it’s due to TV considerations. 
 

and haven’t we seen enough of ARod and Jeter and Papi?  Papi calling Jeter Cap?  Come on. 

 And the schtick, like the stupid bit on the horse, because Texas cowboy I guess.

[Tenacious D]

I’ll worry about all of this when the Tigers win their division and get a bye.  Until then, I don’t give a ****.

[chasfh]

6 minutes ago, oblong said:

The only way to fix it is to not allow them in. Anybody can beat anybody in a 3 game series and to a lesser extent 5 and 7 game. 
 

In the AL it’s the 3-4 seed. That isn’t horrible. In the NL it’s the 4-6 seed. But AZ as the 6 didn’t block anyone like MN did for Toronto and Seattle in the AL. They and Miami and the sixth best record in the NL and I don’t know the tiebreaker. So mathematically it stands if you let in 6 per league, regardless of division, you very well might get an 84 win team. 

I think the reason people resent it in baseball is because it doesn't happen in the other sports.

In the NFL a wild card might win a Super Bowl, but they almost always have division-winning-level records, like 11-5 and 12-4, not 9-7. And the 9-7 teams who do go to the Super Bowl have won their divisions, so in a sense, they "earned" their way there. The 2007 football Giants won the Super Bowl as a 10-6 wild card team, probably the closest analog for a potential Diamondbacks champion, and maybe people talked about what a travesty that was, I don't remember.

In the NBA, the higher-seeded teams almost always wins because there's hardly any luck involved in that sport. Better teams practically always beat worse teams. As it so happens, the 2022-23 Miami Heat, who went 44-38, were the first team lower than a 6-seed to go to the NBA Finals in a full season, and they got smoked by the Nuggets 4-1.

In the NHL a team is probably a lot more likely to advance as an 8-seed to the Cup finals because a lot depends on how hot your goalie is. The 2012 Kings didn't even win half their games and hoisted the Cup as an 8-seed. But America doesn't like hockey, so nobody cares.

[gehringer_2]

3 minutes ago, chasfh said:

the higher-seeded teams almost always wins because there's hardly any luck involved in that sport.

No kidding. I think that is the real reason they schedule back-to-backs in the NBA - so the fatigue factor injects at least a little bit of randomness into the outcome against the better teams.

[Tiger337]

26 minutes ago, Tenacious D said:

I’ll worry about all of this when the Tigers win their division and get a bye.  Until then, I don’t give a ****.

I like baseball beyond the Tigers, so I do give a ****.  

[oblong]

I know this has been discussed earlier but in a season covering 6 months and playing nearly every day is there a big difference between a 90 and 100 win team?  I know perceptually there is. But come a series in October do you really know who is better?  It’s 1.5 wins a month over that time and given changes in the makeup of a team….

[lordstanley]

Robbie Grossman reaches on a throwing error and then comes around to score to give Texas an early 3-0 lead. 

[Tiger337]

Just now, oblong said:

I know this has been discussed earlier but in a season covering 6 months and playing nearly every day is there a big difference between a 90 and 100 win team?  I know perceptually there is. But come a series in October do you really know who is better?  It’s 1.5 wins a month over that time and given changes in the makeup of a team….

A team could also be a different team than it was earlier in the season.  However, what I like about the baseball regular season is that they play every day for six months and being able to get through all the injuries and all the little slumps for six months and finishing 10 games better than someone else should count for something.  If hundreds of runners run a marathon, there probably isn't that big of a difference between the top 6 runners, but the guy that gutted out the 26 miles is the winner.   Following that up with a bunch of one-mile runs wouldn't change that.