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Old 09-06-2012, 10:27 AM
 
Location: Victoria TX
42,579 posts, read 86,655,442 times
Reputation: 36642

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Quote:
Originally Posted by filihok View Post
I'm lucky. I do have to opportunity to travel. Lots of people don't.

You know that baseball is a business, right?
Everybody gets time off, which they can spend according to the importance they place on their selection of leisure activities.

You know that the success of a business depends on the public perception of the quality of a product, right? And that quality of product, in part, depends on a perception of fairness of game and championship outcomes, right? And many, many businesses have failed for no other reason than because they placed their profits above the reasonable expectations of their consumers.
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Old 09-06-2012, 10:42 AM
 
Location: Parts Unknown, Northern California
48,564 posts, read 23,999,864 times
Reputation: 21237
jtur88
Quote:
Here is my design, which required no labors at all, because it was used successfully, with no whining, for a half a century, except for an adjustment for population and talent pool expansion. Four 8-team leagues, inflexibly fixed, with no interleague play and a perfectly balanced schedule within, would yield four indisputable league champions, who have never played each other nor tainted each-other's records. A 7-game semi-final and a 7-game World Series would do nicely to fairly establish a legitimate champion, with each of the four teams having an equal opportunity to emerge as the champion, with no prior season play shedding any light on comparative superiority. I await your numerous examples of unfairness. Thank you for the easy challenge. And yes, I will be very happy if MLB does this.
No need to search for examples, right away you would be facing the problem of second place finishers in some divisions having better, perhaps much better records than one of the other division winners. You are trading one injustice for another, masked by the fact that you may market all eight of your post season teams as "champions" even if there is another team missing from the post season which had a superior regular season.

Your idea provides a seeming order, but is actually no different than the post season setup which was in place from '95 until this season...except for the the cosmetic "divison champs only" dynamic.

Quote:
MLB has abdicated on fairness, in order to give more fans the hope that their team can prevail in an increasingly unfair resolution, because fairness ho longer has any value. The less fair the championship, the more hope for a championship by fans with money clutched in their fists, who will pay and pay as long as there is a glimmer of hope. For the also-rans, we have gone from "Wait til next year" to "Wait til October".
You will have to hold off on statements such as the above until you can trot out a system of genuine, not cosmetic fairness.
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Old 09-06-2012, 10:47 AM
 
Location: Albuquerque, NM
13,290 posts, read 15,243,278 times
Reputation: 6658
Quote:
Originally Posted by jtur88 View Post
Everybody gets time off, which they can spend according to the importance they place on their selection of leisure activities.

You know that the success of a business depends on the public perception of the quality of a product, right? And that quality of product, in part, depends on a perception of fairness of game and championship outcomes, right? And many, many businesses have failed for no other reason than because they placed their profits above the reasonable expectations of their consumers.
MLB draws third highest Interleague attendance ever | MLB.com: News
Quote:
Major League Baseball drew 8,742,577 fans to Interleague games this season, marking the third highest total in the 16-year history of Interleague Play, it was announced today. The average attendance at MLB’s 252 Interleague games, 34,693, is 15.8 percent higher than this season’s current intraleague average of 29,957
It appears that fans enjoy watching teams they don't typically get to see.

It also appears that you are now arguing for what you were arguing against in this thread
Baseball on Televsion. What happened?
restricting fans' access to games
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Old 09-06-2012, 12:44 PM
 
Location: Victoria TX
42,579 posts, read 86,655,442 times
Reputation: 36642
Quote:
Originally Posted by Grandstander View Post


You will have to hold off on statements such as the above until you can trot out a system of genuine, not cosmetic fairness.
MLB has made it abundantly clear that the primary (if not only) reason for divisional play and wild cards is to expand the opportunity for the championship to teams lower and lower on the order of regular-season success. Under the guise of making it "more exciting" (read: better for ticket sales) to have more teams getting a quick and fatal shot at a team that proved itself better over the regular season. But as long as teams are not playing equal schedules, all other considerations of fairness are moot.

In what way is a playoff system that rewards success over 6 months on an equal playing field "cosmetic" fairness, rather than genuine?

Rather than repeatedly challenging me to propose a fairer competition (which I have done), you should be trying to defend the fairness of your fifth-place team that doesn't lead any ad-hoc division in a league of unequal schedules getting a series of sniping attacks on teams already shown to be a dozen wins better than they are. Not fairness to the fans who live in the wrong market (like filihok) or a market with second-rate teams (like you and me) but fairness to the spirit of competitiveness in which championship opportunity is earned through superiority of play.

Last edited by jtur88; 09-06-2012 at 12:57 PM..
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Old 09-06-2012, 02:38 PM
 
Location: Parts Unknown, Northern California
48,564 posts, read 23,999,864 times
Reputation: 21237
Quote:
Originally Posted by jtur88 View Post
Rather than repeatedly challenging me to propose a fairer competition (which I have done),.
No you didn't, you offered an alternative which has the chance of producing alternative unfairness.

Besides, even if they adopted your plan, you would soon be griping about some consequence which arose from it.

The problem isn't the playoff structure, the problem is your pathology of personality. You love to be outraged.

And you really don't get that MLB is a business, not some national resource which belongs to everyone. Baseball is a game, MLB is a business.
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Old 09-06-2012, 04:29 PM
 
Location: Albuquerque, NM
13,290 posts, read 15,243,278 times
Reputation: 6658
Quote:
Originally Posted by jtur88 View Post
MLB has made it abundantly clear that the primary (if not only) reason for divisional play and wild cards is to expand the opportunity for the championship to teams lower and lower on the order of regular-season success. Under the guise of making it "more exciting" (read: better for ticket sales) to have more teams getting a quick and fatal shot at a team that proved itself better over the regular season. But as long as teams are not playing equal schedules, all other considerations of fairness are moot.

In what way is a playoff system that rewards success over 6 months on an equal playing field "cosmetic" fairness, rather than genuine?

Rather than repeatedly challenging me to propose a fairer competition (which I have done), you should be trying to defend the fairness of your fifth-place team that doesn't lead any ad-hoc division in a league of unequal schedules getting a series of sniping attacks on teams already shown to be a dozen wins better than they are. Not fairness to the fans who live in the wrong market (like filihok) or a market with second-rate teams (like you and me) but fairness to the spirit of competitiveness in which championship opportunity is earned through superiority of play.
Sounds reminiscent of this proposal you made.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jtur88 View Post
My dream divisions would be four 8-team leagues:
American : Bos, NYY, Tor, Clev, Det, CWS, KC, Minn
National: Mets, Phil, Pitts, Cin, Cubs, StL, Milw, Colo.
(The above two would preserve as close as possible the historic AL and NL.)
Southern: Balt, Wash, Atl, Fla, TB, Hou, Tex,
Western: Sea, SF, Oak, LA, Ana, SD, Ariz.
(An open space in the Southern and Western for expansion.)
Let's see how that'd work out
in 2011:
the Yankees would have won the American league with 97 wins
the Phillies would have won the National league with 102 wins
the Rangers would have won the Southern league with 96 wins
the DBacks would have won the Western league with 94 wins

The Milwaukee Brewers with 96 wins, as many as the Rangers, 1 less than the Yankees and 2 more than the DBacks would have missed the playoffs.

Now, of course, with your proposal that teams would only play intraleague games, each team's record would be different, but you're not eliminating any problem.

The second best team in any league might well be better than the best team in any other league.
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Old 09-06-2012, 05:26 PM
 
Location: southwestern USA
1,823 posts, read 2,119,196 times
Reputation: 2440
Id like to see an Orioles-Nationals world series.

Think about the amazing beltway hype and pub buz this series would generate.

I havent spent much time in Baltimore, and I am not an Orioles fan-----yet it would be fun to see them make a run in the post season.
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Old 09-06-2012, 05:30 PM
FBJ
 
Location: Tall Building down by the river
39,605 posts, read 58,838,685 times
Reputation: 9451
Quote:
Originally Posted by filihok View Post

I;m rooting for the Cardinals from this point on to make the playoffs. The Phillies play 3 crappy teams coming up and that means the Cards have to play some good baseball the next 2 weeks.

The next 3 series for the Phillies is the Rockies, The Marlins, and the Astros. I think they can win about 6 or 7 of those games so the cards have to step their game up.
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Old 09-06-2012, 06:06 PM
 
Location: Victoria TX
42,579 posts, read 86,655,442 times
Reputation: 36642
Quote:
Originally Posted by Grandstander View Post
No you didn't, you offered an alternative which has the chance of producing alternative unfairness.

Besides, even if they adopted your plan, you would soon be griping about some consequence which arose from it.

The problem isn't the playoff structure, the problem is your pathology of personality. You love to be outraged.
What I described is the system that was in use from the day I was born until I was 30 years old, and in modified form within the framework I described until I was 55, and I never whined about it once. It was fair within any reasonable expectation. If the Yankees won too goddam many times for my liking, the fault did not lie in the fairness of the methodology of choosing teams for post season play.

My pathology is that I pick and choose what to be outraged about, calling things the way I see them.

Quote:
Originally Posted by filihok View Post
Sounds reminiscent of this proposal you made.


Let's see how that'd work out
in 2011:
the Yankees would have won the American league with 97 wins
the Phillies would have won the National league with 102 wins
the Rangers would have won the Southern league with 96 wins
the DBacks would have won the Western league with 94 wins

The Milwaukee Brewers with 96 wins, as many as the Rangers, 1 less than the Yankees and 2 more than the DBacks would have missed the playoffs.

Now, of course, with your proposal that teams would only play intraleague games, each team's record would be different, but you're not eliminating any problem.

The second best team in any league might well be better than the best team in any other league.
Yeah, putting six more teams in there including teams with wins down in the 80s would improve it, right? OK, if you have to have ten teams in the playoffs, then just forget about the leagues or divisions and put the ten winningest teams in the playoffs. If you need 20 teams in the playoffs, just put the top 20 teams in the playoffs. Do it fair.

Last edited by jtur88; 09-06-2012 at 06:28 PM..
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Old 09-06-2012, 06:19 PM
 
Location: Parts Unknown, Northern California
48,564 posts, read 23,999,864 times
Reputation: 21237
Quote:
Originally Posted by jtur88 View Post
What I described is the system that was in use from the day I was born until I was 30 years old, and in modified form within the framework I described until I was 55, and I never whined about it once. .
And then they went and created the American League and it has been all downhill since.
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