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One possibility would be to use the NCAA Basketball format. Of the 30 teams, all playing balanced schedules among each other, the top eight are selected and seeded according to their final standings. Then all eight play a 7-game series, 1-seed vs 8-seed, etc. The four series winners do it again, to get down to 2 remaining teams for the 7-game World Series. Even with the silly anachronistic railroad-era travel dates, it could still be completed in 29 days, and 23 days if they played every day the way baseball is supposed to be played.
If you wanted to, you could even pick the 12 top seeds, with the top four getting a bye, and seeds 5-12 qualifying for positions 5-8 in a quick three-game knock-out series. This would give at least 15 teams a mathematical chance to advance in the final few days of the season. There's a significant advantage to the teams that earned the top seeds during regular season play, with the top four immunized against early upsets.
Every once in a while a high seed would be knocked out in an early round, just like in March Madness, but play goes on and the final winner is always judged to have attained the deserved crown by a legitimate means in a large enough sample of games.
For example, this year (assuming equal schedules disregarding leagues), byes would go to WAS, CIN, NYY, and the best head to head SF, ATL or OAK, and I'll rank them alphabetical for this illustration, so ATL.. Quick knock-out three-game series then would be STL@OAK, DET@SFG, LAA@BAL, TBR@TEX. ( LAD, MIL, CWS would just miss.) First game at home of lower seed, they fly to double header at home of higher seed. Winners of those go to 7-game series vs. the top four seeds.
Tell me how an 88 win St. Louis played in a better division and were deserving of playing the Braves? I'd say the Cardinals division was WORSE than the Braves! The Cards played in the same division with the worst team in baseball: the Astros, and the second worst team in baseball: the Cubs. The Pirates also tanked at the end of the season. The Braves played in the same division as the best team in baseball and our worst team in was the Marlins who still had 8 more wins than the Cubs who weren't even the worst team in the NL Central.
Also the Braves played the Cardinals 6 times during the season and beat them 5 of those times. The Braves had 6 more wins than the Cardinals and finished tied for the 4th best record in baseball while the Cardinals finished with 88 wins or tied with the Tigers for the 11th best record in baseball. Two teams that didn't make the postseason had a better record than the Cardinals. By no objective standard should the Cardinals have sniffed the postseason.
I'm a Cards fan, but truthfully, it's hard to disagree with you with regard to the Cardinals vis a vis the Braves. I don't think the Braves should have been in a position where one bad game could have cost them their entire season of work, which it did in this case, unfortunately. I think the fundamental flaw with this year's wild-card format is that a team can be eliminated in one game, which doesn't make sense unless the two teams are statistically tied going into the final game. Clearly, the single-game playoff is a result borne out of Bud Selig's thirst for money.
Despite these obvious flaws, though, there is an argument to be made for a wildcard team or even two. I'm not defending this current format, but the format in year's past was okay, in my view. I do wish that all playoff series would go to a best-of-seven format like the NBA does, rather than just a 3 of 5 series. Again, a short series makes it easier for upsets to occur, which the league likes, I'm sure, but it's not good for the competitive purity of the game.
All of that being said, Atlanta can't make excuses. They had the pitcher that they wanted on the mound, and they had a healthy lineup just like St. Louis did. People are going to moan about the infield fly call for years, but St. Louis was winning that game and they probably would have won it anyway. Let's face it, the Braves have never been clutch in the big games.
The Cards maybe in some trouble now since they are going back to san francisco and the Giants have the momentum
When you are up 3-1 you have to close that out
Meh, game five had 'SF win' written all over it as far as I could tell. Lance Lynn is not really a bona fide starter yet. He throws heat, but he has no other pitches, so once a team goes through the order, he's pretty easy to figure out. He's great as a mid-reliever, but as a starter...not yet. Unfortunately, the Cards rotation really only goes three deep, whereas the Giants could legitimately say that they have a five-man rotation, which will probably reduced to four (minus Bumgarner) if they make it to the WS. Zito, on the other hand, has finally become the pitcher the Giants had hoped he would become - in the last few months of the season.
I had always felt that if the Cards take the Giants that it would happen at AT&T park. My own gut feeling is that this series is going to go the full seven games and that it will be yet another series that comes down to the final inning or two for St. Louis. The question is whether or not they can continue to win like this. History and common sense say that this is unsustainable, but they somehow find ways to keep winning these kinds of series.
Meh, game five had 'SF win' written all over it as far as I could tell. Lance Lynn is not really a bona fide starter yet. He throws heat, but he has no other pitches, so once a team goes through the order, he's pretty easy to figure out. He's great as a mid-reliever, but as a starter...not yet. Unfortunately, the Cards rotation really only goes three deep, whereas the Giants could legitimately say that they have a five-man rotation, which will probably reduced to four (minus Bumgarner) if they make it to the WS. Zito, on the other hand, has finally become the pitcher the Giants had hoped he would become - in the last few months of the season.
I had always felt that if the Cards take the Giants that it would happen at AT&T park. My own gut feeling is that this series is going to go the full seven games and that it will be yet another series that comes down to the final inning or two for St. Louis. The question is whether or not they can continue to win like this. History and common sense say that this is unsustainable, but they somehow find ways to keep winning these kinds of series.
A Game 7 always favors the home team in baseball, hockey, or basketball.
So in order to show me how I was wrong you show me exactly ONE team that has under a 20% chance of making the postseason.
No. That wasn't close to the point that I was attempting to show.
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Also my system doesn't eliminate this excitement at all. A team that on July 15th that has a 20% chance of winning the league could still come back and do it.
Of course it eliminates that excitement. The entire point of your system is to exclude more teams from the possibility of playing for the championship. So, of course, you system will eliminate this excitement for many teams and the fans of those teams.
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But it greatly reduces the unfairness of it.
I disagree. It increases the unfairness of it. As Grandstander pointed out, the 162 (or 168 or 180 or 250) game regular season is unfair. If, over the course of 168 games, Team A has 1 more win than Team B, I am in to way satisfied with Team A being given a 50% chance at a championship while Team B has a 0% chance. Especially since Team B played Team Z while Team Z had AllStars Zip McGee and Chase Rodenburgh and Team A played Team Z after trading for McGee and Rodenburgh.
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Unless you were there to witness that season your opinion on the 1948 season is about as relevant and interesting as watching paint dry.
How is it irrelevant? And how would my age make it irrelevant?
It goes to the point that you system is no more fair than any other.
In 1948 3 AL teams had a better record than the best NL team, yet the NL team had a 50% chance to be declared champion.
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Because my regular season would mean something. Right now under the CURRENT system the regular season is damn near meaningless. There is no point, under THIS system, to have such a long regular season because it means next to nothing.
The current regular season eliminates 2/3 of the teams from competing in the post season tournament. I don't understand why you keep saying that it is meaningless. It also allows about 75 million fans to watch a game in person and makes lots of money for owners, players, and other employees of the teams, and stadiums.
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You can watch those teams online, on TV, cars, planes, and trains make travel possible, etc. This isn't the 1940s were you can only watch the local team so that argument really doesn't hold any water.
Why do you hate us fans so much? Instead of my son and I catching the bus down to Watch the Mariners play the Rockies, instead I can drive 1200 miles. Yeah, that's great. Thanks a lot. I'd call you a greedy SOB, but I'm not sure how this makes you any money. It's pure disdain for the common fan that motivates you Mr. Commish.
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How would you feel about a system where there are no divisions or leagues and every team plays the other 29 teams 6 times for a 174 game season and crowning the team with the best record as champion? That eliminates the flaw in my system while satisfying people like you who enjoy inter-league play so much.
I'd hate it. I enjoy the playoffs and World Series.
I think the fundamental flaw with this year's wild-card format is that a team can be eliminated in one game, which doesn't make sense unless the two teams are statistically tied going into the final game.
So if a team has a bad game on opening day and loses the division by a single game that's an acceptable way for a team to be eliminated from the post season, but if a team loses a single game in October it's unacceptable?
Lance Lynn is not really a bona fide starter yet. He throws heat, but he has no other pitches, so once a team goes through the order, he's pretty easy to figure out.
That's not borne out by the data.
First time through the order hitters are hit .274/.335/.460 against Lynn
Second time through the order hitters are hit .261/.343/.440 against Lynn
Third time through the order hitters are hit .192/.287/.250 against Lynn
*Lance Lynn 2012 Pitching Splits - Baseball-Reference.com
It appears that he got more effective the deeper that he got into games.
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He's great as a mid-reliever, but as a starter...not yet. Unfortunately, the Cards rotation really only goes three deep, whereas the Giants could legitimately say that they have a five-man rotation, which will probably reduced to four (minus Bumgarner) if they make it to the WS. Zito, on the other hand, has finally become the pitcher the Giants had hoped he would become - in the last few months of the season.
I'd say that you've gotten this exactly opposite. The Giants have all kids of rotation issues while the Cards have rotation depth.
First time through the order hitters are hit .274/.335/.460 against Lynn
Second time through the order hitters are hit .261/.343/.440 against Lynn
Third time through the order hitters are hit .192/.287/.250 against Lynn
*Lance Lynn 2012 Pitching Splits - Baseball-Reference.com
It appears that he got more effective the deeper that he got into games.
I'd say that you've gotten this exactly opposite. The Giants have all kids of rotation issues while the Cards have rotation depth.
You're serious? The Giants have Zito, Cain, Vogelsong, Timmy, and Bumgarner. Granted, not everyone's performing well, but not everyone's performing well for the Cards either.
And I'm not sure what stats you're using. The 2012 regular season stats? Those mean absolutely nothing now. He's not even the same pitcher in the 2nd half of the season as he was in his first 10-15 starts. Useless data.
So if a team has a bad game on opening day and loses the division by a single game that's an acceptable way for a team to be eliminated from the post season, but if a team loses a single game in October it's unacceptable?
Why is that?
Flawed logic because the regular season is the regular season. The Braves and Cardinals played in an extra game. There's a big difference, but if you don't get it, there's no point in 'esplainin' it to ya.
The Giants have Zito, Cain, Vogelsong, Timmy, and Bumgarner. Granted, not everyone's performing well, but not everyone's performing well for the Cards either.
Bumgarner's injured. Zito and Lincecum have been terrible most of the season. That leaves Cain and Vogelson to be relied upon.
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And I'm not sure what stats you're using. The 2012 regular season stats?
Yes. The only MLB stats we have on Lynn as a starter.
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Those mean absolutely nothing now. He's not even the same pitcher in the 2nd half of the season as he was in his first 10-15 starts. Useless data.
Oh. I'm sorry. What stats are you using?
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Originally Posted by chickenfriedbananas
Flawed logic because the regular season is the regular season. The Braves and Cardinals played in an extra game. There's a big difference, but if you don't get it, there's no point in 'esplainin' it to ya.
I do get it. I won't bother explaining to you why a game in October is not really different from a game in April.
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