Baseball: Is this postseason an indictment of the five-game series?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Four five-game postseason series.

Four upsets.

Thus proving the truism that “anything can happen in a five-game series.” So the question for debate is: should we do away with the five-game series? Does it really yield the best two teams for the World Series? Or does it simply denigrate the accomplishents of the regular season? Isn’t a seven-game series a truer test?

(Or am I just a bitter Braves fan?)

Whay are the four best teams in the playoffs now sitting at home? And is that good for baseball?

2

I am a bitter Braves fan (or was a Braves fan, before the strike a few years back). I will say that if a team is truly “all that”, they should be able to get it done in a best-of-five set. Personally, I kind of like it when the underdog is able to bust out. I don’t think the five game series is any worse than the one game tiebreaker for a playoff spot. My vote- not bad for baseball.

3

I think you’re liable to see this sort of reaction anytime there’s a short series, whether it is 5 or 7 games. Both sets are too small to reliably return the ‘best’ team as the winner.

And I don’t think the world is ready for a best of 21 post-season series.

Though I sort of like the playoff format. With the long season (this ain’t football…we do this every day) and the short series oriented post season it makes teams prove that they can do it over the long haul and turn it on when necessary.

4

I think it’s fine the way it is. Could even make it a three-game series, if one really, really wanted to, if only to heighten the do-or-die attitude it’s supposed to foster. I wouldn’t want it longer than it is now, because doing so would serve only to lengthen the season by a few days, and there’s still no guarantee that the best team has won.

5

Hey, if you want the best chance at the 2 best teams, go back to the pre-1969 setup - 1 division per league, that winner goes to the WS. 162 game playoffs.

That said, the longer playoffs are more fair. Teams can hide weaknesses better in short series - 4 man rotations, etc. Even as a Mets fan, I admit it hurt the Braves most years - they’d have the best rotation and depth to 4 and 5 startes - then #5 was on the bench. Helped the D-Backs last year, a rotation of Johnson, Schilling , and… who were those guys again? :slight_smile:

Liked the idea of a playoff FOR the wild card. That way the race between the A’s and Angels would’ve been better - instead of one winning, one wild-card lock, it would put a real premium on winning - the 2 best non-division winners have a 1 game playoff right after the season. They have to burn their aces, and then fly to the division winner. Big bonus for winning, and no wild-card locks.

6

Given the fact that the two defending pennant winners went down in less than five games, do we really think they’d have had a better chance of winning a best-of-seven series?

I hate to say it, but I think the Braves’ era is drawing to a close. Their best pitchers aren’t getting it done (Glavine got shelled in both of his starts against S.F.), and their fans seem to have lost their enthusiasm. The “chop” has been reduced to a listless flailing of little foam rubber tomahawks.

This is apparently the year of the underdogs and Cinderella teams. Why can’t we just enjoy that? That’s part of what makes the game of baseball so great.

7

Itt’s less an indictment of the 5 game series and more an illustration of a trend in most major sports.

One good team can beat any other good team at pretty much any time. It’s not like San Fran is a horrible team. They had a much tougher division to fight through while the Braves put up gaudy numbers against a lot of teams that just didn’t have it this year.

The line between a dominant team and a decent team is blurred, especially when the so-called dominant team is either aging (the Braves/Yankees/Diamondbacks pitching staffs) or using masking tape to hold together problems like the Braves 1B, 2B, 3B, C. The Yankees LF, Bullpen. The Diamondbacks lack of depth, injury.

I’d put forth the only true upset would be the Twins over the A’s, and based on recent A’s playoff history they actually played to form.

8

That’s nothing new. Glavine has always been shelled about as often as not in the playoffs. (And in the All-Star Game too, come to think of it.) I still remember him getting shelled by Pittsburgh way back in '91. Don’t think his latest post-season disaster is a sign he’s “losing it.”

Glavine really turns into Jeckyll and Hyde in these situations. He may get shelled, or he may turn in a gem a la the '95 series.

My problem with the 5-game series is that a team with a deep rotation (i.e. the Braves) has little or no advantage over a team with only a couple of good starters. Depth is more of a factor over 7 games.

Personally, I would be very happy to go back to a four division system.

9

Actually the four best teams in the playoffs are still playing.

Sheesh, you sound like the Steelers did after they lost the AFC Championship game last year, “The best team isn’t playing the Rams in the Super Bowl.”

Really? If the Patriots aren’t better then the Steelers, then how come the Steelers lost?

Talk about refusing to accept reality.

The Braves didn’t have a challenge the entire year until they faced the Giants.

Also, the whole “pitching on less then 4 days rest” thing hurt the teams that are now out on the golf course.

As for Arizona, after Schilling and Johnson, who the f do you have for pitchers?

Keep in mind that back in the day you had to win 5 games to take the World Series.

10

Actually, that was never really a regular situation.

The World Series was a best 5 of 9 in 1903, it’s first year.

Baseball then tried it on a three-year trial basis from 1919-21. After that, they went back to the 4 of 7 format that we all know and love. It’s been that way every year since (except for 1994, of course).

Zev Steinhardt

11

True, but S.F. used four starters to the Braves’ three in the NLDS. Also, look what happened to Arizona, which is essentially a two-pitcher team. They should have won the series in four games (two starts each by Johnson and Schilling). Instead they went three and out. (Sorry–a bit of football on the brain as well.)
As you suggested, it just goes to show what baseball players and fans have always known: it’s a crazy game and anything can happen (regardless of the length of a series or the depth of a rotation).

So would I. Maybe if the MLB powers that be would stop delaying contraction, and started thinking more about the game and not so much about the money…

(Yeah, that’s going to happen…)

12

Gonna have to side with WSler. The 4 best teams are still playing.
[sub]I think Oakland is better than Minnisota, but hey[/sub]

It’s not an indictment of the 5 game divisional series, but of the unbalanced schedule.

The Yankees and the Braves were very over-rated. They won a lot of games, but played in very weak divisions. The Angels and A’s didn’t have Tampa Bay and Toronto and Baltimore to whup up on. The Dodgers, D-Backs and Giants didn’t have the Mets, Marlins and Phillies to pad their win counts.

Both western divisions had three teams with at least 90 wins.

All that aside, if a team can’t win a 5 game series, how can they be considered better than the team that did?

13

There should be a new playoff system. And a simple one.

  1. There should be a balanced schedule. With the exception of interleague play, all teams in the league play every other team the same number of games. (so no team gets inflated win totals for whipping up on their weak division rivals)

  2. We forget about division winners. We take the four best teams from each league and rank them according to win total.

14

spooje, the problem is that teams that are bad one year aren’t necessarily bad the next year. The teams in both western divisions are very good now, but someday they won’t be - and perhaps those in the N.L. East will be.

I think that a team should play more games against its intradivision rivals than against teams from other divisions. Some of these rivalries have been in place a long time, and it’s not right to have only a home-and-home series. That’s not fair to the fans of those two cities, if nothing else.

The thing is, what goes around, comes around. People get all up in arms sometimes because a division will appear to be lopsided, but in a few years’ time fortunes have changed.

Regarding #2, that sounds more like a hockey format to me (except they do give the division winners the top seeds); do you really want to emulate hockey? :wink:

15

On one hand, I agree that the better teams are already out of the playoffs. But hey, it’s not like this is a NEW phenomenon. Ever since 1969, when divisions and playoff were introduced, there have been instances of teams that barely played .500 in weak divisions topping superior teams in the playoffs. Remember the 1973 Mets? They only won 82 games in the regular season, but knocked off the far superior Reds in the playoffs.

Look, as I’ve noted in a previous, similar thread, in baseball, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN UPSET!

In football and basketball, a lousy team will almost NEVER beat a great team. In baseball, it happens all the time. Nobody is shocked when a last place team takes a game from a first place team. Heck, nobody is REALLY surprised when a lousy team takes 2 of 3 or 3 of 4 from a great team, in any given weekend series. Sometimes, a great hitter slumps at the wrong time, while a pathetic hitter goes on a tear. Sometimes great pitchers don’t have their best stuff, and sometimes lousy pitchers look like Koufax.

Only over the LONG haul do the best players and teams emerge clearly. But in one game, or in a short series, anything can happen.

Now, I happen to think the only valid way to determine the best team is the old, pre-1969 way. I’d like to see all the teams in each league play each other the same number of times, and I’d like all the teams in each league to compete for the same title.

But realistically, there is absolutely no chance that will ever happen. If ANYTHING, baseball will start allowing MORE teams into the playoffs. And, since there’s no such thing as an upset in baseball, I wager it’s only a matter of time before a team with a sub-.500 record makes it to the World Series.

16

I agree wholeheartedly. Or even going back to 2 divisions per league, and then having the division leaders play for the pennant would be better. 3 rounds of playoffs is too much, and 5-game series are too short. As astorian notes, it is quite common for lousy teams to beat good ones in baseball, and if we are ending up with none of the top teams in the World Series, something is wrong.

Speaking as a Yankee fan, I’m not really sorry they got knocked out so early. I mean, I’m unhappy about it, but at least some others get a chance. (And there will be less yapping about the Yanks “buying” their victories.) And I see it as kind of a revenge for dumping Tino Martinez. They might have gotten Giambi, but he’s at home in his La-Z-Boy while Tino’s still playing. Am I bitter? Yup!

FWIW, I’m pulling for the Twins. Maybe if they win the World Series, they can affort to replace that god-awful Astroturf.

17

… and the white roof, and the trash bag along the outfield fence, and Carl Pohlad…

18

Which teams are these - the intradivision rivalries. 'cause I can think of 2. That’s 4 teams. The rest seem to be either recently manufactured, or utterly non-existant, so it seems that we’re doing this for the benefit of 13% of the teams. But I’m willing to admit that I have probably overlooked something or other, so please point out to me which teams have these strong intradivision rivalries.

[sub]of course I’d also like to dump interleague play and go back to the balanced schedule…[/sub]

19

I think Amarinth means like the Yankess/RedSox/Orioles, Cards/Cubs, Mets/Braves, Dodgers/Giants, etc.

20

The best playoff in sports is the NCAA Tournament. Lose once and you’re out, and the best team going in rarely wins. If you just want to crown the regular season champ, why have playoffs at all?

I think Braves fans should quit worrying about the playoff format or Eric Gregg’s wide strike zone and place the blame where it belongs. Cox brings in Liebrant to pitch to Puckett in game six even though Puckett is hitting over .400 against lefties. Puckett homers, and it’s been downhill ever since.