Sports things you DON'T miss.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

If we assume that a further round of expansion is coming, with realignment into four 4-team divisions per league, then I remind everyone that a playoff field consisting only of divisional champions would contain eight teams, which is plenty. 

Moreover, the assertion that, if winning the division were the only way to qualify for the post-season, only the big-city teams would ever make the playoffs is highly fallacious, as the Yankees and Red Sox would still be in the same division competing for one place, as would the Dodgers and Giants.  Meanwhile, if we go by one possible realignment after expansion, we'd have a division consisting of Houston, Texas, Tampa Bay, and a Charlotte expansion team; somebody would have to win that division.  The four 4-team-division-per-league alignment ensures that a great diversity of teams would be participating in a champions-only post-season year after year, and that the fans in many cities would be able to remain engaged.

 

When we look at MLS and the CFL, we see leagues in which many of even the most serious fans don't even bother paying attention at the beginning of the season, because the playoff fields in those leagues are so large as to render the regular season utterly meaningless.  This is only marginally less true in the NBA and the NHL, in which the regular season has limited meaning for a handful of teams on the edge of those leagues' enormous playoff fields.

This, to put it mildly, sucks.  And to know that some are eager to push baseball in that direction is profoundly disheartening.   Let us remember that it is the regular season that makes up the vast majority of a fan's experience with his or her team; it is the regular season where most of a fan's memories are made.  The regular season is not just a preliminary to the playoffs (the attitude that prevails in the NBA, NHL, CFL, and MLS); the regular season is the very heart of the matter. The idea that the regular season ought to have real stakes should not be a radical position.

[BBTV]

52 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

When we look at MLS and the CFL, we see leagues in which many of even the most serious fans don't even bother paying attention at the beginning of the season, because the playoff fields in those leagues are so large as to render the regular season utterly meaningless.  This is only marginally less true in the NBA and the NHL, in which the regular season has limited meaning for a handful of teams on the edge of those leagues' enormous playoff fields.

 

But... this isn't happening in MLB.  If anything, more "serious fans" are focused more on the regular seasons since there's so many games going on that matter, even in mid August.  On any given night right now, potentially every game has implications (in the unlikely event that all the teams that are in it are each playing teams that aren't.)

 

If we just did division winners, short of an epic collapse like the 2007 Muts, 4 of 6 divisions are essentially wrapped up.  In the other 2 divisions, there's only 5 total teams in contention.  So only 9 teams have anything to play for and there's a max of 5 games each night with any implications.  21 teams' fans have no reason to care.

 

Under the current system, the 4 presumed division winners as well as 11 other teams have something to play for.  So only 15 teams' fans have no reason to care.

 

So 9 teams that are in it vs 15.  I'm not sure why anyone would want to deprive 6 fan bases from seeing meaningful baseball.

 

 

[AnPheitseog]

Honestly? if we move to 8 divisions in mlb, then a move to 16 playoff teams would be ideal.

 

Three game first round series as they're doing it this year. All games at the division winners field. Hell if you want, do it like Japan does and throw in a ghost win.

 

If you d that, the division winner needs to win 1/2 games at home, and the WC needs to win 2/2 in order to advance.

[BBTV]

Just to make FC's head explode (sorry man!), since the balanced schedule is happening, the divisions don't even matter anymore, and they should shuffle them every year so that teams aren't always stuck playing against the Yankees and Red Sox and any other powerhouses every single year.

 

I'm sure the Blue Jays would welcome a randomly-chosen division of them, the Reds, Giants, Nats, and Royals.

[dont care]

50 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

If we assume that a further round of expansion is coming, with realignment into four 4-team divisions per league, then I remind everyone that a playoff field consisting only of divisional champions would contain eight teams, which is plenty. 

Moreover, the assertion that, if winning the division were the only way to qualify for the post-season, only the big-city teams would ever make the playoffs is highly fallacious, as the Yankees and Red Sox would still be in the same division competing for one place, as would the Dodgers and Giants.  Meanwhile, if we go by one possible realignment after expansion, we'd have a division consisting of Houston, Texas, Tampa Bay, and a Charlotte expansion team; somebody would have to win that division.  The four 4-team-division-per-league alignment ensures that a great diversity of teams would be participating in a champions-only post-season year after year, and that the fans in many cities would be able to remain engaged.

 

When we look at MLS and the CFL, we see leagues in which many of even the most serious fans don't even bother paying attention at the beginning of the season, because the playoff fields in those leagues are so large as to render the regular season utterly meaningless.  This is only marginally less true in the NBA and the NHL, in which the regular season has limited meaning for a handful of teams on the edge of those leagues' enormous playoff fields.

This, to put it mildly, sucks.  And to know that some are eager to push baseball in that direction is profoundly disheartening.   Let us remember that it is the regular season that makes up the vast majority of a fan's experience with his or her team; it is the regular season where most of a fan's memories are made.  The regular season is not just a preliminary to the playoffs (the attitude that prevails in the NBA, NHL, CFL, and MLS); the regular season is the very heart of the matter. The idea that the regular season ought to have real stakes should not be a radical position.

Most fans memories are from the playoffs. The regular season isn’t fun when your team is eliminated by the all star break. You are so stuck on this concept that the division is the only thing that matters but to win the wild card could be more important than the division winner who finishes 20 games back of you. Having a wild card also makes the regular season more important by adding 2 more races for teams to compete in if you have a team in your division who are on pace for 115 wins. End of the day having a wild card makes the regular season more fun, and thus only improves the baseball watching experience.

[BBTV]

Heck - shuffle the divisions at the All Star break!.  

 

So if you are a good team, but 15 games back of a ridiculously-good team that got off to a great start, POOF - you might be in a division race at the snap of a finger.  And a division leader with not much competition could all of a sudden find themselves in 2nd place with a hill to climb.

 

DO THE SHUFFLE!

[ManillaToad]

Hey man did you see? The Royals finished 70-92, we're in 24th place! I'm PUMPED for the best-of-three with a home team ghost win coming up, all we have to do is win the elimination game against our interleague pre-All Star break division standings equivalent! October baseball man this is one hell of a season for our boys

[DG_ThenNowForever]

6 minutes ago, ManillaToad said:

Hey man did you see? The Royals finished 70-92, we're in 24th place! I'm PUMPED for the best-of-three with a home team ghost win coming up, all we have to do is win the elimination game against our interleague pre-All Star break division standings equivalent! October baseball man this is one hell of a season for our boys

 

I think you've described the NHL post-season.

[sky1324]

1 hour ago, BBTV said:

Just to make FC's head explode (sorry man!), since the balanced schedule is happening, the divisions don't even matter anymore, and they should shuffle them every year so that teams aren't always stuck playing against the Yankees and Red Sox and any other powerhouses every single year.

 

I'm sure the Blue Jays would welcome a randomly-chosen division of them, the Reds, Giants, Nats, and Royals.

As an Orioles fan, I would welcome any divisional alignment that doesn't get us stuck with two of the biggest teams in baseball, the best team at developing talent in baseball, and a team that can spend when it chooses to. I hate the AL East.

[Needschat]

Being the darkest fan in the stands at a NASCAR race!

[Red Comet]

2 hours ago, ManillaToad said:

Hey man did you see? The Royals finished 70-92, we're in 24th place! I'm PUMPED for the best-of-three with a home team ghost win coming up, all we have to do is win the elimination game against our interleague pre-All Star break division standings equivalent! October baseball man this is one hell of a season for our boys

No, no, no. The Royals seem to be decent as of late but that rough beginning just killed them. If it was up to me, I’d go back to just one wild card. 
 

As for what else I don’t miss, I really don’t miss Kemper Arena. Went to a Brigade game in 2006 and I swear I saw bats flying around the rafters. 

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

3 hours ago, dont care said:

Most fans['] memories are from the playoffs.

 

This cannot be true. The regular season unfolds over many months; the playoffs take a few weeks. It's during the long unfolding of the season that a fan bonds with his or her team.

 

I am fully aware that every fan wants his or her team to win the pennant and the World Series. But acknowledging this is very different from asserting that the season is pointless if your team cannot win the pennant.  To have no shot at a championship is disappointing and frustrating; but that does not make the season pointless. There's still a game every day; there's the point right there.

 

I am sure that some who know that I used to be a Yankee fan will scoff at my saying this. It is true that, during the time when I was a Yankee fan, I had the pleasure of seeing my team win three World Series.

 

But there were also plenty of great times that occurred during the seasons when my team did not win, whether those seasons were spent contending and falling short (1974, 1983, 1985, 1986), or whether those seasons were spent stinking and not coming close to contending (1982, 1989 through 1992).

 

The idea that even the worst of these seasons should be thought of as pointless or worthless strikes me as absurd. (This is the attitude held by current-day Yankee fans; it is what made me not want to identify with them.)

 

Even in the losing seasons, I as a fan still had the journey. I was able to live daily with my team, and to get to know it. Would I have preferred for my team to win a pennant in any of those seasons? Certainly. But even as frustratingly as those seasons played out, they are still cherished memories.

 

Winning is great; winning is glorious. But I daresay that winning cannot serve as the motivation for being a fan of a team. The motivation is the ongoing relationship that one experienced, the emotional bond that one builds.

 

If winning happens, then a fan is entitled to revel in it. But that's all extra. Whereas, the daily fabric of the season, that's the stuff.

 

Anyway, before I get too lost in waxing philosophical in this too-long post, I will mention that I am aware that certain teams' ownerships do a better job at spending than others do. There are two possible solutions to this.

 

The first and most direct solution is to get better owners. The teams ought to be able to kick out the slug owners, and bring in owners who will be willing to keep up with the competition by spending appropriately.

 

The other possible solution is to equalise all teams' spending power by means of revenue sharing. This approach has the downside of rewarding owners' past bad behaviour; but at least it ensures that there will be no advantages going forward, and no more cases where a team thinks that it has to trade a star at the end of his contract because it won't be able to sign him.

 

What is not an appropriate solution is to cheapen the regular season by expanding the playoffs to non-champions and thus reducing the importance  of winning a divisional title.

 

[neo_prankster]

One thing I definitely don't miss:

 

The Commanders' previous names.

[BBTV]

With all due respect, you have no idea what it's like to not be a Yankees fan.

[sky1324]

Isn't revenue sharing already a thing in the MLB? I feel like I heard something about the A's opting out of it, for whatever reason. Either way, I'd much rather have a salary cap and its underappreciated yet very necessary cousin, the salary floor. It forces the cheapskates running Oakland, Pittsburgh, Cincy, and other small-market teams to actually put some money into their roster while the  cap prevents teams like the Yankees, Dodgers, and Red Sox from spending the GDP of a small country just to lose in the LCS (as funny as that is).

 

And yeah, the regular season is longer than the playoffs, but I'll tell you that this year is the most fun I've had as an Orioles fan and it's because they're winning. Watching losing baseball is miserable. A long season full of getting blown out every night as your team sells off any remotely good players for a few single-A prospects that might be good in a couple years. It sucks. It's even worse for a small-market team, who actually needs to draft well and develop talent and can't spend billions on big names. Watching terrible season after terrible season is a great way to lose casual fans. Maybe it's not pointless, because you'll get to see some young guys playing well maybe, and maybe you'll play spoiler or have a nice game, but on the whole, being a fan of a losing baseball team is far and away the worst punishment in the sports world. Playing for something, even if it is the third wildcard spot in a bloated playoffs, gets people invested. Unlikely championship runs are the stuff of legends, like the 2019 Nats run or the 07 NY Giants.

[chcarlson23]

1 hour ago, BBTV said:

With all due respect, you have no idea what it's like to not be a Yankees fan.

Yeah the regular season feels fairly irrelevant if your team folds in the opening round of the postseason… As most Minnesotans would know. 
 

Those down years are so much easier stomach when you can remember celebrating a championship less than 5 years ago. Or even remember one. Out of all my favorite teams, they’ve either never won, or they won before I could remember/was born. 
 

Also at the end of the day it’s entertainment sports. If your team isn’t winning it’s substantially less fun…

[Red Comet]

11 minutes ago, chcarlson23 said:

Yeah the regular season feels fairly irrelevant if your team folds in the opening round of the postseason… As most Minnesotans would know. 
 

Those down years are so much easier stomach when you can remember celebrating a championship less than 5 years ago. Or even remember one. Out of all my favorite teams, they’ve either never won, or they won before I could remember/was born. 
 

Also at the end of the day it’s entertainment sports. If your team isn’t winning it’s substantially less fun…

 

And you know? As I get older, I don't really feel like I have the time to invest in fandom like I did as a teenager or a young college student. I don't have time to watch the Royals attempt to play wiffleball anymore. I don't have time to watch Mizzou be mediocre anymore. Hell, I barely have time to watch the Chiefs anymore unless it's a big game. Can't tell you how many times I've fallen asleep watching teams like the Jets or the [Redacted]/Football Team/Commanders play in the past few years and those are games involving my team too. At this point, the only time I'm watching football and the Chiefs aren't involved is usually involving the Bills or Chargers or other teams that are actually a threat to the Chiefs. 

[BBTV]

3 hours ago, Red Comet said:

 

And you know? As I get older, I don't really feel like I have the time to invest in fandom like I did as a teenager or a young college student. I don't have time to watch the Royals attempt to play wiffleball anymore. I don't have time to watch Mizzou be mediocre anymore. Hell, I barely have time to watch the Chiefs anymore unless it's a big game. Can't tell you how many times I've fallen asleep watching teams like the Jets or the [Redacted]/Football Team/Commanders play in the past few years and those are games involving my team too. At this point, the only time I'm watching football and the Chiefs aren't involved is usually involving the Bills or Chargers or other teams that are actually a threat to the Chiefs. 

maybe you should have grown up in New York. Then you’d have a true appreciation of the system. 
 

 

/sarcasm

[JerseyJimmy]

On 8/12/2022 at 3:10 PM, AnPheitseog said:

Honestly? if we move to 8 divisions in mlb, then a move to 16 playoff teams would be ideal.

 

lmao no, the NFL had this figured out for the longest time - 8 division winners, 4 wild cards. simple as.

 

then again there's my personal opinion that winning your division shouldn't lock you into a playoff spot. divisions should only exist for scheduling and travel purposes. case in point: 2005 Padres.