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With only about a month left in the 2012 baseball season the pennant and wild card and 2nd wild card races are getting interesting.
I don't like baseball, according to some, but I'm pulling for the Dodgers to win the NL West. At 4.5 games behind the Gnats they currently have just a 13% chance of winning their division.
They're a lot close to both of the 2 wild card slots though. If the season ended today the Atlanta Braves and St. Louis Cardinals would be the wild cards. The Dodgers trail Atlanta by 3.5 games and the Cardinals by 1.5 games (though the Cardinals are currently losing to the Mets). The Dodgers' wild card probability is about 14%.
LA has passed up the Pirates in the standings - they lead Pittsburgh by 1 game.
This is where it gets interesting. I'd like to see the Pirates in the playoffs, but not at the expense of LA missing out. So, I can't root for you Pittsburgh. I have no desire to see St. Louis or Atlanta make the post season, so I'm perfectly content to point my mental powers towards their opponents in an effort to control the outcome of those games.
In the NL East the Nationals are a great story. Having lived in DC for 3 years I have a bit of a soft spot for the team and will be pulling for them to win their division and beat every team in the playoffs they encounter that doesn't hail from Los Angeles. I need the Braves to lose, of course, but I'll be rooting for the Phillies to finish the season strong. They have an excellent core of players and I think they'll be back with a vengeance next year and look forward to some Nats/Phillies rowdy-dows as the Phillies try to avoid passing the torch completely to the young Nats.
The NL Central looks like the Reds' to lose. They are the best team and I don't expect anyone to challenge them for the division. Pittsburgh and St. Louis (as mentioned above) stand to stand in between LA and the post season so they must lost. The Brew Crew are an interesting collection of players and I'd like to see them finish up over .500. Chicago's Cubs will have their day under the guidance of Theo, but not yet. They can lose. Houston has a chance to be historically awful. I'd like to see that.
Everyone in the NL West not named the Dodgers can go to hell.
In the AL East, things have gotten interesting as of late. The Yankees, Orioles and Rays are all within sniffing distance of each other. I always root against the Yankees, and it's been working recently. I hope that it will continue to. I hold no real love for the Orioles. As long as their winning threatens New York's chances then I'll cheer for Baltimore. I'm certainly a fan of what the Rays have been doing since 2008 (actually before that when it became clear they knew how to run an organization) and I'd like to see them take the division. I want to root for Boston, but I don't think there's any point in that. They aren't going to the playoffs and if they start winning they might think James Loney had something to do with it and re-sign him. I wish that fate only on the Yanks. Toronto? With no Jose Bautista, there isn't much to make me pay attention.
The AL Central should be an exciting race. I though the Tigers would walk away with the division, but Chicago has gotten resurgent seasons from a few players and Kenny Williams has done whatever it is that he does again to get the White Sox in contention. But, I don't like the White Sox. Detroit all of the way. As with the Rays, the Royals have some interesting things going on. I'd like to see them finish strong and put themselves in good shape for next season.
The AL West is fun as well. Texas and Anaheim were supposed to battle down to the wire. The Angels stumbled and it looks like the Rangers will claim the division. Of course Oakland has come back from the dead and I can't even resist their charm. Go A's.
Who I Want To Make The Playoffs
NL West - Dodgers
NL Central - Reds
NL East - Nationals
Wild Card 1 - Pittsburgh
Wild Card 2 - uhh...no one
AL East - Rays
AL Central - Tigers
AL West - Rangers
Wild Card 1 - A's
Wild Card 2 - Orioles
Who I'll be rooting for
Dodgers
Whoever is playing the Giants
Whoever is playing the Yankees
Nationals
Rays
Who I'll be rooting against
Giants
St. Louis
Atlanta
Yankees
White Sox
Go teams!!!!
*All playoff probability data from the Outstanding Coolstandings.com
I'm rooting for a travesty, hoping it might knock some sense into the heads of MLB, although I've pretty well given up on any hopes for them doing anything other then digging themselves deeper and deeper into the hole they have dug. A travesty like this:
Here's what could happen, if you actually think through the wild card snafu.
Lets say the final standings and win totals are:
Washington 106
Atlanta 105
Cincinnati 100
Los Agneles 98
St. Louis 95.
Atlanta has a better record than the other 3 teams, and in addition has had to play Washington, clearly the superior opponent, more times than any of the other 3. Furthermore, Atlanta has already played St. Louis 6 times, and beaten them 5 out of 6. And Atlanta has had to use their best pitcher on the final game, hoping to win the division, while St. Louis clinched their spot and coasted the laslt two days. By what definition of fiarness is it now necessary for Atlanta to have to play still another game against a rested St. Louis in order to affirm their qualifications for playing in the post season, after having already beaten them 5 out of 6 and won 10 more games in a stronger division, and finished ahead of two other teams that need not win another game to earn a playoff spot?
The only reason there was ever a wild card, was to make allowances for the division configurations, which were always arbitrary and frivolous, and enable a team to play postseason if they won more games than a division leader. The whole philosophy of the wild card is now completely disregarded and thrown out the window,
In short, if one WC team wins more games than a division winner (thus satisfying the fairness objective of having a WC concept in the first place), why on earth should they need to justify their earned reward by beating a team that did NOT win more games than a division winner?
Baseball is facing a formidable assault on the perception of their fairness, and all they can think of to do is keep making it more unfair.
why on earth should they need to justify their earned reward by beating a team that did NOT win more games than a division winner?
.
The above question could be applied to any post season pairing where one team has won more regular season games than the opponent. Why should the team with the greater number on wins just get declared champion?
Your argument cancels the entire concept of a post season at all....why should any team with fewer regular season victories get a chance to be champions?
It doesn't matter, you aren't going to be happy no matter what MLB does because the absolute morality you bring to the table is not possible. Either there is a post season, or whoever wins the most regular seasons games is the champ. There cannot be a post season where everything is utterly equal unless all the teams involved won exactly the same number of games.
In short, any post season, no matter how you structure it, will feature seemingly unjust match ups, it is not avoidable.
Why don't you design and offer us what you think would be the perfect post season set up. After your labors, I will simply go back through past seasons, applying your structure, and will easily produce numerous examples of unfairness which would have arisen.
You bring a sense of black/white morality to a situation which is actually grey.
The above question could be applied to any post season pairing where one team has won more regular season games than the opponent. Why should the team with the greater number on wins just get declared champion?
Your argument cancels the entire concept of a post season at all....why should any team with fewer regular season victories get a chance to be champions?
It doesn't matter, you aren't going to be happy no matter what MLB does because the absolute morality you bring to the table is not possible. Either there is a post season, or whoever wins the most regular seasons games is the champ. There cannot be a post season where everything is utterly equal unless all the teams involved won exactly the same number of games.
In short, any post season, no matter how you structure it, will feature seemingly unjust match ups, it is not avoidable.
Why don't you design and offer us what you think would be the perfect post season set up. After your labors, I will simply go back through past seasons, applying your structure, and will easily produce numerous examples of unfairness which would have arisen.
You bring a sense of black/white morality to a situation which is actually grey.
I'm not looking for black and white morality, I'm looking for a visible effort to give the appearance of some element of fairness. Originally, there were two leagues, whose season schedules were completely separate, who played a post-season series to determine superiority. That principle could be restored very simply, except that the hole has been dug far to deep to even see daylight, what with fluid and arbitrary divisions and meaningless inter-league play.
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.
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".
I'm not looking for black and white morality, I'm looking for a visible effort to give the appearance of some element of fairness. Originally, there were two leagues, whose season schedules were completely separate, who played a post-season series to determine superiority. That principle could be retained very simply, except that the hole has been dug far to deep to even see daylight, what with fluid and arbitrary divisions and meaningless inter-league play.
Four 8-team leagues, inflexibly fixed, with no interleague play, would yield four league champions, who have never played each other. 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.
That's unfair because as a fan living in a city in which one of the teams played I'd have no opportunity to watch any of the other teams without traveling.
Do you hate actually watching baseball?
I enjoy it and enjoy seeing players from all teams
That's unfair because as a fan living in a city in which one of the teams played I'd have no opportunity to watch any of the other teams without traveling.
So, travel. Last week you were in Kansas City, even though interleague play brings the Royals to your city. You have no right to demand that the teams "fairly" come to you. MLB has no obligation to take Derek Jeter to Atlanta to display him once every three years.
I had to travel to Chicago, to see Ted Williams. 200 miles in a 1948 Studebaker on 2-lane roads. No big deal. If it's important to you, you do it.
So, travel. Last week you were in Kansas City, even though interleague play brings the Royals to your city. You have no right to demand that the teams "fairly" come to you. MLB has no obligation to take Derek Jeter to Albuquerque to display him.
I'm lucky. I do have to opportunity to travel. Lots of people don't.
You know that baseball is a business, right?
Is it baseball that you hate or just the fans of it?
What does baseball have to gain by restricting fans' ability to watch the most popular players?
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