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Just using regular season record doesn't account for differences in strength of the divisions teams play in.
If the Cardinals
were in the AL West and the Rangers were in the NL Central, the Cardinals certainly wouldn't have needed
to have been gifted a playoff birth and Texas would have had a much tougher time winning the division.
That not to say, at all, the the This Time it Counts thing is anything resembling a good idea.
Of course if you switch the best team in one division with the second best team in another division the weaker division will seem stronger and vice versa.
In any series, the home field advantage should go to the team that wins it on their own by some performance criteria.
Or, home field could be offset by some other potential benefit, like the football coin toss where one team gets to choose receive, and the other gets to choose goal to defend.
In the WS, one team could take home field, and the other would then get to choose the game date schedule, and elect to either include travel dates, or play right through. For example, this year the Cardinals could have conceded home field, but chosen to play with enough open dates that Carpenter could pitch game 1, 4 and 7, with normal rest. Or the Rangers could win the toss and give the Cards home field, but elect to play the series on 7 consecutive dates with no open dates.
I have always thought it was the dumbest idea. Why shouldnt a team be rewarded for its performance during the season?
Yeah, I agree. Texas had the better season, without question. In my opinion, Texas was probably the better team than St. Louis, but St. Louis was better for four games. I think home field has a major impact on baseball, especially on the WS, because it affects the way teams play defense and also the way they pitch. It's not like football or baseball where the home field is more psychological; in baseball, it's real. Knowing how to play the outfield; knowing how to play the infield; a pitcher knowing which parts of the field he can make a 'mistake' pitch and get away with it...that's home field in baseball. In the intra-league matchups it matters a little less, because there's familiarity between the league rivals. St. Louis had played in Milwaukee enough to overcome their advantage, but any other team would have had fits.
Nowhere else was this more apparent than in what turned out to be maybe the most critical play of the game, with Nelson Cruz's miscue that allowed the David Freese triple in game 6. In Arlington, he probably makes that play and Texas wins the title. In St. Louis, he doesn't know where the wall is, and he's feeling his way around the park and dealing with the strange lights in the park. I'm not making excuses for Texas. I'm a Cards fan after all, but I do agree that the current format's not fair.
Yeah, I agree. Texas had the better season, without question. In my opinion, Texas was probably the better team than St. Louis, but St. Louis was better for four games. I think home field has a major impact on baseball, especially on the WS, because it affects the way teams play defense and also the way they pitch. It's not like football or baseball where the home field is more psychological; in baseball, it's real. Knowing how to play the outfield; knowing how to play the infield; a pitcher knowing which parts of the field he can make a 'mistake' pitch and get away with it...that's home field in baseball. In the intra-league matchups it matters a little less, because there's familiarity between the league rivals. St. Louis had played in Milwaukee enough to overcome their advantage, but any other team would have had fits.
Nowhere else was this more apparent than in what turned out to be maybe the most critical play of the game, with Nelson Cruz's miscue that allowed the David Freese triple in game 6. In Arlington, he probably makes that play and Texas wins the title. In St. Louis, he doesn't know where the wall is, and he's feeling his way around the park and dealing with the strange lights in the park. I'm not making excuses for Texas. I'm a Cards fan after all, but I do agree that the current format's not fair.
...Plus, it will determine which games the DH will be used.
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