2013 MLB Discussion Thread, Redux

[CS85]

*hurls self out of window*

[dbadefense1990]

To add to the whole "everyone but Missouri hates the Cardinals" subject, it doesn't help the list of teams they've beaten over the last 10 years. They've had a tendency to beat teams which have generally immediately gone back to irrelevancy:

2004 Astros (and nearly again in 2005)

2006 Mets

2006 Tigers

2011 Brewers

2011 Rangers

2012 Braves

2012 Nationals

2013 Pirates

2013 Dodgers

It's too early to tell whether the Dodgers, Pirates and even Nationals can compete in the postseason in the near future, but for other teams such as those Mets, Brewers and Rangers, their luck ran out after their fateful encounters against St. Louis. The Astros got past them in 2005 (this after the infamous Pujols-Lidge disaster in Houston in Game 5), but we're too exhausted after two NLCS matches with them, and we're promptly swept by the White Sox, who had more rest and came up with the more clutch hits. Those Braves and Tigers did come back to compete in the future, but lost to clearly-inferior Cardinals teams in their matches with them.

It's that fear Dodgers, Pirates, Nationals and other fans have of them, that their one, great chance at baseball glory will be squashed by the Cardinals with nightmarish precision. Such a loss be so devastating, that their once-in-a-generation team will be relegated back to the basement, that they'll always have that one shot at winning, but being denied because of one championship-affluent team: the St. Louis Cardinals.

Not even the Yankees have had such a track record of denying a diverse set of teams their one chance at glory.

[OnWis97]

It's a shame that the teams involved in the World Series are such a turn-off for people. From a pure baseball perspective, this match-up is a really good one. Based on their regular season records, this World Series will have the two best teams in the game facing off for all the marbles. Isn't that how it's supposed to work out? It makes me wonder how many of these same people who are unhappy with a Cards - Red Sox WS will end up in one of the football threads complaining because the two best teams in football (College and/or NFL) are sitting home while lesser teams play for the title. I can see it now...

The 8-8 Cowboys win the NFC East while a 10-6 team doesn't make the playoffs. That will result in the inevitable "the NFL needs to fix this so 8-8 teams don't get in at the expense of a better team" argument. (Kinda like when 7-9 Seattle won the NFC West a few years back, ruined New Orleans' season, and the NFL in the process.) The outrage will escalate with every Cowboys win in the playoffs culminating in a complete boards meltdown when the 8-8 Cowboys face the 9-7 New England Patriots in the Super Bowl while 13-3 Denver and 12-4 Seattle are sitting at home. The cries of "a championship should feature the best teams, not two teams who got hot at the right time" will ring throughout the boards-land. Of course some smart-ass like infrared41 will reply with "that's funny, you weren't saying anything of the sort when the two best teams in baseball were in the World Series."

Just an observation.

This is a good point. As someone that likes to have my team (Go Twins, ugh) and not have second favorites, this is more than watchable. After all, that's kind of what a 162-game season is for...it appears that the two best teams are in it. So it should be good baseball and a deserving winner.

And hey, it's going to be great from a uniform perspective! (though not as great as 2004)

However, I admit that I don't hold to my ideal of not caring who wins and I had other teams I was pulling for. Pittsburgh and Oakland would have been better stories and the other teams have not won it for a while (or ever). So while it is a good match-up, I don't feel compelled to cheer for either team. Obviously their fanbases are not of the "long suffering" variety and for me; I just cannot get as excited about either winning it as I would some other teams.

But oh well...I'd rather the Pirates be there, or the A's, or Tigers...but I am not a fan of those teams, so I can get on board with a good series.

In short, if this goes 7, I'll be in front of my TV enjoying the drama and not caring who wins.

[hbgoo1975]

All I have to say is Go Red Sox!

[Kramerica Industries]

Not even the Yankees have had such a track record of denying a diverse set of teams their one chance at glory.

This is true - the Yankees just beat the Rangers and Mariners and A's and Twins in the playoffs every single time instead. They didn't torch the rest of the league; they just picked four unlucky schmucks and decided to torment them (2010 ALCS excepted).

[dbadefense1990]

Not even the Yankees have had such a track record of denying a diverse set of teams their one chance at glory.

This is true - the Yankees just beat the Rangers and Mariners and A's and Twins in the playoffs every single time instead. They didn't torch the rest of the league; they just picked four unlucky schmucks and decided to torment them (2010 ALCS excepted).

Well that's the thing: at least the teams New York comes across are able to get back to the postseason on a more consistent basis than the teams St. Louis has beaten. For some reason, the teams the Cardinals beat have had trouble trying to just get back to the postseason. Those Athletics and Twins (for good measure the Angels and Tigers also, teams who've had good fortune against the Yankees) were just on the receiving end of quirky playoff rules in the 1st wildcard era (1995-2011).

[Epiphanic]

[...]but with the current playoff system as is, we're seeing the flaw of "best team at the right time". I mean, gee whiz, good for you for getting hot at the right time and all that crap, but as it is, I tend to learn more about who the best team is when they have the best record after 162 games than what one team did over an isolated 11-19 game stretch filled with off-days that essentially eliminates the concept (or problem) of having depth on the bench, rotation, and bullpen.

This reminded me of something Joe Posnanski (maybe it was Rob Neyer, I can't remember) said a while back. Because the nature of the baseball playoffs are subject to such randomness, what if there were two champions each year? The team with the best record in baseball after 162 would be crowned as the best team in baseball or something (given an equivalent of the NHL President's Trophy) and the winner of the playoffs would be crowned World Series champion. It's really just semantics, but if we care about which team was truly the best, that's something to consider.

[Kramerica Industries]

Posnanski wrote something back around May or June with regards to how American professional sports structuring strays from what you see in European domestic football leagues, where there is no playoff system necessary since every team plays a home-and-away match against the rest of the league, but I don't think he truly factored in the Champions League aspect in all of that - the UCL is essentially the playoff system of European football, and the domestic leagues serve as the "divisions" by which teams can qualify. And even over there, flukes can happen (see: Chelsea in 2012).

As far as that particular idea, I just don't think it could ever fly. By this point, we (North Americans) are so conditioned to the notion that regular seasons matter only with determining who will reach the playoffs. The President's Trophy is a major accomplishment in the NHL, but I don't think anyone actually gives much of a crap about it. Only two teams who won the Trophy have gone on to win the Cup since, jeez, like the mid-'90s or something, and if I were to randomly throw out "who won the 2002-03 President's Trophy", I'm not sure how many people would be able to get it right without looking it up (HINT: it's not the Red Wings). The best team in MLB in the regular season, record-wise, has only won the World Series three times since the '90s began.

No system is perfect, but we can probably do a fair bit of good to the MLB structure and eliminate some of the randomness a bit by cleaning things up. That means eschewing this ridiculous Wild Card game, making LDS rounds best-of-7, having the four teams seeded according to record (no auto-#4 for the WC team, in other words) and playing them 1/4 and 2/3, instead of having that little nuance where "#1 can't play #4 if they are in the same division". Is randomness fun? Yeah, sometimes. Anarchy can be fun, too. But lets save those for the early rounds of the NCAA basketball tourney in March. They might be fun, but some of us are also more interested in seeing the best teams playing for all the marbles at the end of the season (although, WRT to 2013, that contradicts me completely, but whatever). Maybe the '06 Cardinals were the bad luck version of the previous two versions that won 100+ games, but that doesn't really excuse that an 83-win team won the World Series. That should NEVER happen.

[McCall]

First off, they eliminated the "no #1 seed vs WC if they're in the same division" rule starting with last years playoffs. I agree wholeheartedly with seeding 1-4 regardless of WC because there are plenty of times the WC team has a better record than the other division winners except their own (I always go back to the 102-win 2001 A's). I don't think the LDS needs to go to best-of-7. The playoffs didn't need to be extended, just corrected. They shouldn't be going into November. MLB should never have more than 8 teams in the playoffs.

[Kramerica Industries]

I know they eliminated that with their 2012 modification. I was advocating using the 1995-2011 format WITH those changes amended to that (although, upon re-reading that, I see that I didn't exactly make this perfectly clear. My mistake). I favor best-of-7 for two reasons:

1) Consistent with the LCS and World Series rounds (don't know why we need differing round lengths in MLB)

2) Helps eliminate some of the randomness

I don't see this being much of a problem with the problem of November baseball, either. Remember that, thanks to the Wild Card games this year, the AL season ended on Sunday, 9/29, and didn't begin until the following Friday! That's too much wasted time, which is rather appropriate since MLB seems to be quite the perfect example of a league that operates in the face of inefficiency.

[worcat]

Also for anyone looking for some fun facts, the only players from the 2004 World Series between the Cardinals and Red Sox that still remain with their clubs are David Ortiz (BOS), Yadier Molina (STL) and Adam Wainwright (STL). Both teams have come so far since then.

[pcgd]

I bet if you look across all of baseball you'd see similar numbers. 1 or 2 guys still playing for the same team 9 years later.

Its crazier to see how many people are still on the roster from each of their last championships:

St. Louis (2011): 7 players remain

Boston (2007): 5 players remain

[worcat]

Just shows how both clubs can repeat success with different lineups and not relying on the same core players.

[STL FANATIC]

Also for anyone looking for some fun facts, the only players from the 2004 World Series between the Cardinals and Red Sox that still remain with their clubs are David Ortiz (BOS), Yadier Molina (STL) and Adam Wainwright (STL). Both teams have come so far since then.

That's true of the active roster.

Chris Carpenter is also still around technically, though coincidentally, he also missed the 2004 post-season. And then, of course, there's Mike Matheny who was the Cardinals starting catcher in 2004 and now is obviously the manager. And using that logic, John Mabry (then bench player, now hitting coach) and Jose Oquendo (then 3B coach, still 3B coach) should get a mention, too I suppose.

But now I've probably taken it too far. Probably most teams, at least once who've had success, can find those ties if you look at coaching and front office staff.

[McCall]

Well you can almost add in Matheny as he played for the Cardinals in 2004.

[TheOldRoman]

I bet if you look across all of baseball you'd see similar numbers. 1 or 2 guys still playing for the same team 9 years later.

Its crazier to see how many people are still on the roster from each of their last championships:

St. Louis (2011): 7 players remain

Boston (2007): 5 players remain

THAT is crazy. Even with the fluidity of bullpens, it's crazy that 18 players from that team are gone two years later.

[JayMac]

To add to the whole "everyone but Missouri hates the Cardinals" subject, it doesn't help the list of teams they've beaten over the last 10 years. They've had a tendency to beat teams which have generally immediately gone back to irrelevancy:

2004 Astros (and nearly again in 2005)

2006 Mets

2006 Tigers

2011 Brewers

2011 Rangers

2012 Braves

2012 Nationals

2013 Pirates

2013 Dodgers

It's too early to tell whether the Dodgers, Pirates and even Nationals can compete in the postseason in the near future, but for other teams such as those Mets, Brewers and Rangers, their luck ran out after their fateful encounters against St. Louis. The Astros got past them in 2005 (this after the infamous Pujols-Lidge disaster in Houston in Game 5), but we're too exhausted after two NLCS matches with them, and we're promptly swept by the White Sox, who had more rest and came up with the more clutch hits. Those Braves and Tigers did come back to compete in the future, but lost to clearly-inferior Cardinals teams in their matches with them.

It's that fear Dodgers, Pirates, Nationals and other fans have of them, that their one, great chance at baseball glory will be squashed by the Cardinals with nightmarish precision. Such a loss be so devastating, that their once-in-a-generation team will be relegated back to the basement, that they'll always have that one shot at winning, but being denied because of one championship-affluent team: the St. Louis Cardinals.

Not even the Yankees have had such a track record of denying a diverse set of teams their one chance at glory.

You can add the 2011 Phillies to your list. They have fallen off the face of the earth since the Cardinals beat them.

[ninersdd]

Hell, the Giants struggled this year, and they slayed the dragon last October.

[STL FANATIC]

I bet if you look across all of baseball you'd see similar numbers. 1 or 2 guys still playing for the same team 9 years later.

Its crazier to see how many people are still on the roster from each of their last championships:

St. Louis (2011): 7 players remain

Boston (2007): 5 players remain

THAT is crazy. Even with the fluidity of bullpens, it's crazy that 18 players from that team are gone two years later.

Yep.

But again, there are a handful of guys who are injured or just underperforming (or a combo) and left off the roster that were around in 2011. Chris Carpenter, Rafael Furcal, Jason Motte, Jaime Garcia, Jake Westbrook, and Fernando Salas.

[The Six]

Ken_Rosenthal

Lincecum gets $35M for two years from #SFGiants, according to source.

LOL the Giants just love overpaying their players. It's such a sentimental franchise. Plus, they get off easy this way: when people complain that they don't go after the big name free agents, they can just say they tied up all the money in bringing back the old players.

On a nice note, at least my Lincecum jersey won't become outdated.