MLB 2021 Season Thread

[Digby]

25 minutes ago, ManillaToad said:

 

Is it better than an even worse hypothetical postseason structure? Yes. It's also worse than the best team in the majors fairly being given a best-of-5 series after they outpaced everyone in the regular season. Is dropping game 3 because of a blown umpire call or a weird bounce, against a team that sucked for over half the season, fun for fans of the team that put together one of its best regular seasons in franchise history?

 

I mean it's all arbitrary at some point. What we think of as fair and normal now is relatively new in the grand scheme; maybe it's also unfair that the 2001 Mariners amounted to nothing or that the curse-breaking season Red Sox shouldn't have been there at all, depending how you look at it. 

 

Alternatively you can just watch European soccer leagues where first-place in the standings is the champ, the end, no playoff format worries at all.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

21 minutes ago, Digby said:

 

I mean it's all arbitrary at some point. What we think of as fair and normal now is relatively new in the grand scheme; maybe it's also unfair that the 2001 Mariners amounted to nothing or that the curse-breaking season Red Sox shouldn't have been there at all, depending how you look at it. 

 

Alternatively you can just watch European soccer leagues where first-place in the standings is the champ, the end, no playoff format worries at all.

 

And even then, they recognize the value of a playoff by having country- and European cups.

 

People like tournaments!

[OnWis97]

2 hours ago, Digby said:

 

I mean it's all arbitrary at some point. What we think of as fair and normal now is relatively new in the grand scheme; maybe it's also unfair that the 2001 Mariners amounted to nothing or that the curse-breaking season Red Sox shouldn't have been there at all, depending how you look at it. 

 

Alternatively you can just watch European soccer leagues where first-place in the standings is the champ, the end, no playoff format worries at all.

I guess I didn't even realize that. I'm surprised there aren't more people calling for that along with ReLeGaTiOn.

 

Then they can play mini-tourneys mid-year that include Triple-A teams, Cape Cod League teams, Dominican teams, and Japanese teams.

 

 

[Digby]

1 hour ago, OnWis97 said:

Then they can play mini-tourneys mid-year that include Triple-A teams, Cape Cod League teams, Dominican teams, and Japanese teams.

Making the Dodgers schlep to play in a field behind Chatham High School would be fun, though.

[Kramerica Industries]

14 hours ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

 

And even then, they recognize the value of a playoff by having country- and European cups.

 

People like tournaments!

 

For real. It's kind of a green apples to red apples comparison, but the Champions League is, essentially, the "playoffs" of European football. Anybody who romanticizes the European model for its purity in domestic play but doesn't acknowledge that is being extremely dishonest. 

[DoctorWhom]

Yankees never did recover from 04 did they?

Haven't won a playoff series against the Red Sox since. 

 

Boone's seat also has to be smoking right now. 

[Ridleylash]

The Yankees jinxed themselves by pouring champagne on that turtle lmfao 

[Kramerica Industries]

7 minutes ago, Ridleylash said:

The Yankees jinxed themselves by pouring champagne on that turtle lmfao 

 

There's really nothing sillier than teams who do the champagne celebrations for merely qualifying for the wild card game and then end up losing that game. Congratulations, you busted out the fizzies for a glorified tiebreaker game (though this one actually was a true tiebreaker game for a rare change). Hope those celebrations don't feel as hollow as they look 48 hours later.

[TrueYankee26]

Another failure in Yankee land Sadly. What Brian Cashman and Aaron Boone are doing isn't working. No pennants let alone rings. Time to clean house.

[Cujo]

Those poor Yankees. With that sky high annual payroll.

 

[Wings2]

Boo hoo. The Yankees lost. Let's just cancel the playoffs now. 

[BBTV]

8 hours ago, Kramerica Industries said:

 

There's really nothing sillier than teams who do the champagne celebrations for merely qualifying for the wild card game and then end up losing that game. Congratulations, you busted out the fizzies for a glorified tiebreaker game (though this one actually was a true tiebreaker game for a rare change). Hope those celebrations don't feel as hollow as they look 48 hours later.

 

But now both teams get to hang "wild card participant" banners!  Doesn't some dopey-ass team do that?

[JayMac]

It has now been a dozen years since the Yankees have won a title. Times are good.

[crashcarson15]

On 10/4/2021 at 11:19 AM, Sport said:

*The biggest problem baseball has right now is too many teams not trying their hardest to win. The Padres are under 500, but every team in this field went out and actually tried to get better this offseason. Almost every team not listed didn't. We had two teams go 52-110 this season! That should worry everyone. If you open the gates more teams will do the math and figure it's worth it to shoot for playoff spots and fewer teams will go through 5-10 year periods of deliberate noncompeting. 

 

I think this year's really brought me around on the concept of playoff expansion in general, primarily on two points:

• While a little cathartic, the Cubs' fire sale was bad for baseball. In most sports, the big-brand team having a perfectly average season in the last year of a window will shake things up a little and try to make a run, not entirely tank and throw in the towel at the deadline.
• If you  win 90 games, you should make the postseason. It is an objectively very good year, and I worry about the future of baseball in small markets when teams like 2019 Cleveland (93 wins) or 2021 Toronto and Seattle (91 and 90 wins, respectively) aren't rewarded for very good seasons. Being in the AL East or NL West in particular seems like a long-term death sentence in the current structure; the Blue Jays did everything right, had a fantastic season, and still missed out.

 

I've seen this thrown around on Twitter a bit, and I think a 14-team playoff with a best-of-3 first round would be the perfect balance. All of the actually good teams are going to make the postseason in any given year, but you're unlikely to have a sub-.500 team. The bye for the top seed in each league rewards the best team over 154/162 games and gives them an escape from the randomness; it also gives appeal to an actual pennant chase at the top of the standings. The postseason is achievable for all but the worst teams — 22 teams would've been within 5 games of their league's No. 7 seed on July 30. The top Wild Card team gets to host a series, and you can even do things like the NBA used to, where the top Wild Card can be seeded ahead of division winners, which is great for avoiding Dodgers/Giants in the NLDS.

 

I don't have a vote, but if I did, that's mine.

[TrueYankee26]

Now we can enjoy another fluky Red Sox run to the title. At least if the Yankees won they would have folded like origami as usual against the Tampa Bay Rays and the baseball world would enjoy another year with no Yankees and Red Sox title. The Yankees lost their way. Every year the HR or bust approach ends their World Series hopes and dreams. As I said on the last post, changes need to be made. And if Cashman does not do it he will have to go too. Uncharacteristically poor offense and Gerrit Cole's struggles vs Boston did them in. And what the hell Nevin thinking sending Judge??

 

As for my prediction of who will win, I say Cardinals surprise the Dodgers and keep their hot run dating back to September going. Incredible team. Dodgers are strong and I won't be surprised if they throttle the Cardinals either, but going with the white hot team.

[Sport]

41 minutes ago, crashcarson15 said:

words

 

I worry about byes in baseball and whether that's actually a reward, but that sounds like a good system. It's still relatively exclusive and with some built-in bonuses for division winners (literal cash bonuses and rules-based bonuses like total homefield in round 1, maybe you only need to win 2 out of 5?, hidden landmine as I previously mentioned, etc) so you still have incentives to win your division. 

 

But I'll still go with 16 teams because more often than not the 8 seed won't have a losing record especially if teams know from the jump that the top 8 get in. Some of those losing records through the years that would've been the 8 seed are the result of teams packing it in and trying out young prospects because they're out of the race. 

 

Baseball's team-building strategy and structure is not dissimilar from the NHL and it's been a long time since a team snuck into the Stanley Cup Playoffs where I said "wow that's actually a bad hockey team." I think after a few years the baseball eco-system would adjust and you'd be able to find 16 good baseball teams to field a 16 team tournament. 

[tigerslionspistonshabs]

On 10/4/2021 at 2:19 PM, tigerslionspistonshabs said:

Playoff predictions?

 

AL WC Game- Yankees over Red Sox

 

ALDS

Yankees over Rays

Astros over White Sox

 

ALCS- Yankees over Astros

 

 

AL Wild Card Game- Cardinals over Dodgers

 

NLDS

Giants over Cardinals

Braves over Brewers

 

ALCS- Giants over Braves

 

World Series- Yankees over Giants

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wow, I'm out before it even started lol. 

[goalieboy82]

12 hours ago, DoctorWhom said:

Yankees never did recover from 04 did they?

Haven't won a playoff series against the Red Sox since. 

 

Boone's seat also has to be smoking right now. 

they did win one WS since then (2009).  

[BBTV]

5 hours ago, crashcarson15 said:

Being in the AL East or NL West in particular seems like a long-term death sentence in the current structure; the Blue Jays did everything right, had a fantastic season, and still missed out.

 

Since there aren't separate leagues anymore, and there's not TV deals on a conference level like there is in the NFL, what about shuffling the deck every year?

 

I'm not suggesting putting the Mariners in the NL East, but maybe some system where all the East teams get randomly drawn into two Eastern divisions each year, same with Central and West?

 

So next year, the NL East could be:

Toronto

Philadelphia

Miami

Atlanta

Boston

 

AL East

NYY

NYM

Baltimore

Tampa Bay

Washington

 

Then the following year it's shuffled up again.  Could create a little more randomness and prevent teams from being perennially trapped behind high-spending clubs.

 

Could maybe even do it by "seeding".  So the top two AL East teams get split up, and the top 2 NL East teams get split up, and then just shuffle after that.  That way you're guaranteed that the randomness won't just have you behind Boston and NYY anyway.

[Sport]

The AL East is kind of the argument against realignment. In fact, every team in the AL East has won the division in the last ten years even including the historically hapless Orioles. The same cannot be said of the AL West, NL East, NL Central, or NL West. The only other division with that kind of parity is the AL Central. 

 

I think the answer is moving to 4 divisions of 7/8 teams, but not because the Blue Jays would be less likely to get stuck behind the Yankees and Red Sox.