Not to mention that one of those games went extra innings.
While this is a particularly egregious example, there’s nonsense like this all over the schedule.
The problem is, of course, interleague play.
I am personally okay with interleague play in terms of it being interleague, and was a big supporter when they started it. I like seeing new teams and I like AL teams having to have the pitchers hit and NL teams having to find a DH. But I did not anticipate what an absolute mess it would make of the schedule.
The 1969-1993 era was a golden age of scheduling, really; you could parcel the entire season out in 3-and 4-game series in trips that made a fair degree of sense and balanced the schedule in terms of home/away games, spreading a team’s game against any opponent across the whole season, etc. The 12-team, two division format is as good as it can get, mathematically speaking.
Interleague play just absolutely blows it. No matter what you do, you can’t have a balanced, reasonable schedule that allows for the primacy of the 3/4 game series. There is no way it can be done, and now that the leagues are 15 teams apiece, you need interleague play.
I honestly cannot think of a solution to this problem that would not require a radical realignment or the addition of new teams. If, for instance, you added two new teams and dropped interleague play you could come up with some alignments and schedules that make a bit more sense, though I’m not personally a huge fan of any of them.
Another option would be to retain interleague play but rotate divisional opponents yearly (so goodbye, regional rivalry games) so a team has exactly 15 extradivisional opponents every year no matter what. They play three home and three away against every one of those opponents (90 games) and 9 home, 9 away against interdivisional opponents (72 games, for 162 total.) But to do this fairly you can’t shimmy things so the Yankees play the Mets and the Cubs play the White Sox every year, and those are cash cows - or else you could but it’s too complex for me to grasp, I don’t know. It does however add a complexity to geographic arrangement in that teams will have more or less travel difficulty depending what year it is; the year they play the NL East the Rays will have an easier schedule than the year they play the NL West.
If I were King of Baseball I’d expand the major to 40 teams, and then things would get interesting.
My preferred solution is a radical realignment along geographical lines where MLB becomes five divisions of six teams each. Play 18 games against each team in the same division (90 games), and 3 games each against each team in other divisions, alternating which divisions are home and which are away every other year. (72 games). You get your geographic rivalries emphasized, but everyone’s fans get to see every team play (over a two-year period).
Never happen, I’m sure, but I think it works out great, from a logistical standpoint.
I agree. Some purists would say the league would be watered down, but I think I can live with expansion. There’s so much more access to baseball talent around the world.
What happens to the postseason in your realignment?
You have either 3 or 11 wild card teams bringing the total number of playoff teams to 8 or 16. 11 sounds like way too many to me, but there are currently 4 and I can’t see them cutting down. I guess you could have 6 wildcards with 3 “play-in” games.
Thudlow Boink:
Eight-team, three-round tournament, the five division winners and three best runners-up as wild cards. Seeded by record, with the division winners higher than the wild cards.
You can’t?
If I recall correctly, this is what Bob Costas proposed, seventeen years ago. His track record from that book has been pretty good; I believe he was the first one to suggest the Astros switch, for example.
It’s MY criteria.
There isn’t a set of guidelines as to how to vote for all-stars. For me, it’s as simple as rewarding those players who’ve had the best first-halves. Much like Royals’ fans expressed last season, and you have in this thread, there remain some fans who resort to being a homer when casting their votes and opinions. While such an approach isn’t against the non-existing guidelines, it is absurd.
George Speinger is 5th in the AL in WAR, while in the midst of an outstanding season, and you wish to pass him over simply because he doesn’t play for your team.
Adam Wainwright hit a pinch hit double in the top of the 12th last night to score a couple of runs for the Cardinals against Pittsburgh last night.
Yeah, I was watching the game last night and, as it got late and went into extra innings, I seriously considered turning it off and going and doing something else. I’m glad I stuck around for that!
How boring. I want to see All Stars, not All 1st Halves. That means getting to see Chipper Jones in his final season in 2012 instead of David Wright or Aramis Ramirez. That means seeing a 40 year old Jeter boot the ball around instead of a younger better glove out at SS - because the All Star Game is the summer classic, not the summer mayfly.
No, I really don’t want to pass him over - he’s an awesome player having an awesome season, and is on his way to hopefully having an awesome career. My outfield consists of the best player in baseball, the hottest hitting outfielder in baseball, and a player with a slightly higher 3-year WAR than Springer and who also has played (extremely well) in 25 more postseason games than Springer. I wish there were a postseason WAR stat, because that 3-year number would be even higher. If that makes me a homer, I guess I’ll just have to live with it and my solitary vote that I’ve cast. If you don’t like it, feel free to vote your absurd little first half preference. I’ll be plenty happy to see Yost put Springer in during the 4th or 5th inning, because he’s earned it.
He now has ten RBIs on the season. I believe the last pitcher to have twenty was Ferguson Jenkins back in 1971 or something. I could of course be wrong…
Cueto vs Kershaw ends up with a 3-2 win for Kershaw after Cueto has a bizarre 1st inning. Chase Utley led off the 1st by getting hit by a pitch, took second on a weird “bunt,” jogged to third on a wild pitch, then was sent home on a Cueto balk. Dude looked like he was dancing on one foot out there on the mound, and a pump-fake got him called. It settled into a 2-2 grind with both starters on. Turner settled the game by taking the Giants closer deep over the left field wall top of the 9th. Kershaw goes to 9-1 and fanned 13.
He’s also already tied the season record for games with 10+ Ks and 0 BBs with 6. It’s still June. This could be a season to remember.
Has somebody tied an anchor to the A’s ankles? They are rapidly sinking in the West.
Rays selling their tickets for Friday night for $5 and donating proceeds to families of Orlando victims
http://m.mlb.com/rays/tickets/info/orlando
Kershaw’s numbers don’t even look like a major league pitcher’s numbers. They look like something a high school pitcher would do.
Kershaw’s pitched a hundred innings. For fun I looked up a bunch of the greatest relief pitchers ever to see if any had posted a year like Kershaw has done so far. Not really.
Some relievers have had lower ERAs but none that I can see in 100 innings, and no one ever has had such a stupid K-W ratio.
Currently 3rd in All Star votes for AL 2B, Omar Infante has been DFA’d by the Royals.
Another high dollar infielder was essentially released, Jose Reyes of the Rockies. He served his suspension for domestic violence and Colorado sent him packing. Safe to say the Jays got the better of that trade for Tulo.
Kershaw dominates again.
Although what qualifies for “best” season is a matter of subjectivity, I would argue that Steve Carlton’s 1972 performance for the Philadelphia Phillies might actually qualify. He had an ERA of 1.98 and he won 27 games – the Phillies team won 59 that year. That means that of the incredibly low number of wins the historically bad Phillies had that year, Carlton himself was responsible for half of them. Had he played with even a .500 team maybe he goes 32-5 or 33-4. He struck out 310, and walked 87.
Kershaw hasn’t carried the Dodgers in quite the same way, but the stats nevertheless tell a story of absolutely stunning dominance. Kershaw is on another level entirely. His strikeout - walk ration is not only the best in history, it would be by far the best. It would be superhuman if it continues, and the success he’s had so far essentially guarantees that this particular stat probably ends up no worse than some of the best K-BB ratios in history. But continue the pace and he probably makes that record unbreakable. Kershaw is also on pace to be a potential 300K pitcher, which is rarity among starters in this day and age of pitch counts. Kershaw is a freak.