2012 MLB Season

[Kramerica Industries]

If the Yankees can't pull off an incredible comeback, I'm hoping the Cardinals do get to the World Series.

88-74 Detroit vs. 88-74 St. Louis

Who said there wasn't parity in baseball?

[oldschoolvikings]

If the Yankees can't pull off an incredible comeback, I'm hoping the Cardinals do get to the World Series.

88-74 Detroit vs. 88-74 St. Louis

Who said there wasn't parity in baseball?

Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Houston, probably.

[NJTank]

If the Yankees can't pull off an incredible comeback, I'm hoping the Cardinals do get to the World Series.

88-74 Detroit vs. 88-74 St. Louis

Who said there wasn't parity in baseball?

Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Houston, probably.

Hey the Mets prove all the time you can spend money and still suck, its management taht makes the difference

[TheOldRoman]

That said, does it "ruin" baseball? I don't know. It changes it. I was actually thinking about that this morning. In the NHL, everyone LOVES the playoff environment. We talk about teams that are built for the playoffs.

Granted, the Kings were the first 8-seed to win the whole thing (I think), but it's not uncommon for a mid-low seed to make a run. And we don't think twice about it. We embrace it. In hockey the regular season is the struggle to get your ticket punched. And once it's punched, it's a new season. (The NBA does it this way too, but in basketball, the best teams are the best teams and it's rare to see a top seed not make it through.)

I don't honestly have the answer. I'm resistant to it initially, but I don't hate hockey's format, so maybe it just... is. We'll get used to it and maybe in 10 years just accept it. Or maybe not. Tradition does matter, and maybe it will always feel wrong.

I don't dislike the Cardinals, but I do hate the current system. And I am not an old-timer, I am someone who became a baseball fan in the wildcard era. The playoffs are great in hockey. Part of what makes them great is that if your goalie catches fire, you can be really hard to beat. A lot of the times the best team doesn't win. Sometimes an 8 seed plays really well and wins a few series. That's just the nature of the game. Basketball is not as random, and for that reason, the first round it mostly unwatchable.

In baseball, they play 162 games for a reason. While I don't agree that we should go back to the best records going to the World Series or even just LCS's and WS, you have to stop somewhere. The singular wildcard was fine because it still made it difficult to get in, but also threw a bone to a bunch of fanbases which in the old format would have been playing out the string by the middle of August (not just the WC winner, but the teams which are actually in a WC race into late September). I hate the two wildcard format so much because it is so out of the ordinary for baseball. All other playoffs are series, but the first one is just a single game? You don't change the rules. That would be like if the NFL's first round games were sudden death. It makes no sense.

Of course, this will be taken farther to a best of three or five series in the next few years, and within the next ten years they will expand to 16. This is exactly the opposite of what they should be doing. 162 games is more than enough to determine the top 4 teams in the league. It's a long, grueling season. You need to make it meaningful and give fans a reason to watch. I was glued to my TV until the last three days of the season, watching the White Sox fight for the division before their choke. If there were 8 teams from each league, I would have probably watched fewer games in the last month because their spot in the playoffs would have been all-but assured. MLB has a problem with America's ADD as it is. Each year the networks complain that the playoffs had fewer viewers than the year before. Adding more playoffs and dragging the season into November is not the way to increase interest among casual fans.

[BigBubba]

The Seattle Mariners are laughing at how bad the Yankees offense is.

And the Seattle Mariners fans are laughing at the Yankees fans whining.

[cmm]

If the Yankees can't pull off an incredible comeback, I'm hoping the Cardinals do get to the World Series.

88-74 Detroit vs. 88-74 St. Louis

Who said there wasn't parity in baseball?

Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Houston, probably.

The Astros have only been bad for a couple of years. The only teams not to make the postseason since 2001 are Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Toronto. KC and the Pirates have terrible owners (and at least the Royals might finally be turning the corner with one of the best farm systems in the game). The Blue Jays are stuck in the toughest division in baseball.

[Magnum]

Of course, this will be taken farther to a best of three or five series in the next few years, and within the next ten years they will expand to 16. This is exactly the opposite of what they should be doing. 162 games is more than enough to determine the top 4 teams in the league. It's a long, grueling season. You need to make it meaningful and give fans a reason to watch. I was glued to my TV until the last three days of the season, watching the White Sox fight for the division before their choke. If there were 8 teams from each league, I would have probably watched fewer games in the last month because their spot in the playoffs would have been all-but assured. MLB has a problem with America's ADD as it is. Each year the networks complain that the playoffs had fewer viewers than the year before. Adding more playoffs and dragging the season into November is not the way to increase interest among casual fans.

The best place to start would be cut down the Regular Season to 154 games and to begin Postseason play in late September.

I don't think the 2nd Wild Card was a "must have" for Major League Baseball, though I understand it adds drama and revenue. If MLB decides to expand the Wild Card Game, I think it would just further drag on the Postseason to the point where more people will get sick of it. First off, these two teams are either 2nd or 3rd place teams and the truth is, they don't deserve 3 games. It should remain a 1 game fight to the finish because 1) It'll push teams to win the division even more and 2) we won't be sitting here on Halloween handing out candy and watching the World Series at the same time.

[Epiphanic]

If "they play 162 games for a reason", why not just go back to a single table format? If your problem is that a team can win the World Series without winning their division, then the logical conclusion is that we get rid of the wild card altogether.

If we keep the wild card, but what makes one wild card superior to two wild cards? The comparison to the 16-team format in hockey more apt than people realize. People think that it's exciting that the best team doesn't necessarily win. That's especially true in baseball. Baseball is probably the most "random" of all the major sports. That is to say that difference between the best and worst teams in baseball is much smaller than in sports like hockey or basketball. Coupled with the fact that the playoffs are a "crapshoot," and it's not really surprising that we've seen wild cards that have won the World Series.

[ElwoodCuse]

It's pretty simple, the more teams MLB lets into the playoffs, the better the odds of random teams winning the World Series are so they can continue to stick their fingers in their ears and pretend the game's financial structure isn't hilariously broken, and that teams with lots of money don't have an inherent advantage over teams that don't (PS it is and they do)

[The_Admiral]

I'm not sure what that Leitch article accomplished beyond reiterating that Popular Internet Sportswriter And Gossip Impresario Will Leitch is a Cardinals fan, which is common knowledge for anyone who's been digesting sports on the internet since 2005. You like your team, were happy when they won, but can't understand how others resent you for it. I like the Chicago Blackhawks, was happy when they won, and couldn't understand how others resented me for it, but I didn't make a fortune leaking drunk texts and dick pictures alongside boilerplate I-outstripped-my-redneck-high-school-peers-but-aw-shucks-I'm-just-a-regular-guy-at-heart prose, so nobody hires me to write for New York magazine, much less gives any flying f-ck what I think about anything. The democracy of the internet giveth and the democracy of the internet taketh away.

[Kramerica Industries]

It's pretty simple, the more teams MLB lets into the playoffs, the better the odds of random teams winning the World Series are so they can continue to stick their fingers in their ears and pretend the game's financial structure isn't hilariously broken, and that teams with lots of money don't have an inherent advantage over teams that don't (PS it is and they do)

Again, payroll advantages are only advantages if the front office knows how to use it.

As I posted a few months ago, the #2 payroll team has missed the playoffs six times since 2001. That's every other season. The majority of $100M payroll teams have missed the playoffs in that time.

The American League had the following win totals this year: 95, 94, 93, 93, 90, 89, and 88 comprising the top half of the league. Three of those teams were the A's, Orioles, and Rays. The high-payroll Rangers missed the playoffs by losing to the low-payroll Orioles, in Arlington, no less.

Again, I don't think people realize how much more parity there is in baseball than there is in the other big three sports in North America. There's been more randomness in MLB champions since the Yankees' latest dynasty than there has been in any other sport.

[Epiphanic]

There's been more randomness in MLB champions since the Yankees' latest dynasty than there has been in any other sport.

Yet with the exception of 2008, the Yankees have made the playoffs pretty much every year since 1996. And they've had the best record in baseball many of those years. Yet since they've only won one World Series in the past decade no one really cares too much.

Which is something we should think about. You have to be in October to win October, and if we really want the regular season to "mean something" again, that would likely result in the Yankees being in and winning more World Series than they already do.

[Green]

There's been more randomness in MLB champions since the Yankees' latest dynasty than there has been in any other sport.

Yet with the exception of 2008, the Yankees have made the playoffs pretty much every year since 1996. And they've had the best record in baseball many of those years. Yet since they've only won one World Series in the past decade no one really cares too much.

Which is something we should think about. You have to be in October to win October, and if we really want the regular season to "mean something" again, that would likely result in the Yankees being in and winning more World Series than they already do.

Yankees spend their money right

[TheOldRoman]

It's pretty simple, the more teams MLB lets into the playoffs, the better the odds of random teams winning the World Series are so they can continue to stick their fingers in their ears and pretend the game's financial structure isn't hilariously broken, and that teams with lots of money don't have an inherent advantage over teams that don't (PS it is and they do)

Actually, it's the opposite. Bud made up the second wildcard for one primary reason: the existence of the Tampa Bay Rays. Thrice (2008, 2010 and 2011) the pesky Rays had to make the playoffs and deprive America of both of our beloveds, the Red Sox and Yankees making the playoffs. Had there been two wildcards those years, both teams would have made it. In 2008 and 2010 when the Rays won the division, it would have lead to a tantric media orgasm of a wildcard play-in game between the two. A decade plus of the media pushing nothing but Yankees and Red Sox has lead to the nation as a whole not watching the playoffs unless one of those two teams is involved. The extra wildcard increases the chances both teams will make it in. And really, nobody saw the Red Sox finishing last this year. Probably 9/10 seasons with this format will result in both teams getting in.

[TheOldRoman]

There's been more randomness in MLB champions since the Yankees' latest dynasty than there has been in any other sport.

Yet with the exception of 2008, the Yankees have made the playoffs pretty much every year since 1996. And they've had the best record in baseball many of those years. Yet since they've only won one World Series in the past decade no one really cares too much.

Which is something we should think about. You have to be in October to win October, and if we really want the regular season to "mean something" again, that would likely result in the Yankees being in and winning more World Series than they already do.

The regular season means something with eight playoff teams, with roughly a quarter of the league making it in. Having a team finishing nine games out of first place and six games behind the other wildcard win the world series doesn't look good. The second wildcard was a bad decision, but as I said, it will get worse when they eventually go to 16 teams. As I said, baseball is different from hockey in that they play twice as many games. Every night for six months. The season HAS to mean more than the regular season in hockey. The White Sox/Tigers games meant something because one of those teams wouid miss the playoffs. Knowing that your team has clinched a playoff spot in early September is going to devalue those late season games, but also make midseason games mean much less.

[ninersdd]

Vengeance: After Holliday drilled Scutaro on the bases, he makes a flub on a hit by him which leads to the bases being cleared, and its 5-1 SF!

[Epiphanic]

The regular season means something with eight playoff teams, with roughly a quarter of the league making it in.

Why is that your cutoff? Why is one wild card okay, but not a second?

[Kramerica Industries]

One wild card makes an even four-team playoff field.

And playoff fields only logically work with factors of four, when there is a best-of-X series involved.

Baseball is a sport where a winner-take-all game between two teams with uneven records, does not make any sense. And having one game like that decide whether the preceding 162 were of any meaning is inane.

If Selig and his men want to punish the wild card team under a best-of-5 LDS, there's only one logical solution to me - strip them of a home game. Either a 2-1-2, or a 1-4 format. It's ludicrous that the Braves did much better overall and head-to-head than the Cardinals, but because the Cardinals won a single game under different pretenses on the Friday after the season ended, it was the Cardinals who advanced to October baseball.

[Magnum]

Well good, the Giants made the NLCS worth watching. I almost thought this week was going to be dull.

[FiddySicks]

Matt Holliday is a dirty punk, but at least Scutaro was ok. Great game last night. The Giants played amazing and the crowd was electric. Ryan Vogelsong pitched amazing in what was by far the biggest start of his career. It was a great bounce back from game one, and I'm very confident about the rest of this series.