# MLB: October 2017 — Welcome to the Postseason **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [October 1, 2017, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-october-2017-welcome-to-the-postseason/797735 "2017-10-01T15:14:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 33
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-october-2017-welcome-to-the-postseason/797735/641 "2017-11-01T03:44:55Z")
> [@Asimovian](#): > > I laughed at your taunt despite being in a precariously fragile state. You can relax now.😃 ---
**Author:** ![Rhiannon8404](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhiannon8404/32/17929_2.png) [@Rhiannon8404](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhiannon8404)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-october-2017-welcome-to-the-postseason/797735/642 "2017-11-01T03:45:03Z")
Well, shit. I have to work tomorrow night. I was really hoping it would all be over tonight. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-october-2017-welcome-to-the-postseason/797735/643 "2017-11-01T03:46:39Z")
Jansen was flawless. Don’t underestimate how well the manager knows the readiness of his players. Roberts counted on Morrow and Jansen to throw big innings, and throw them they did. Beltran struck out on a pitch literally above his nose. They noted that tomorrow will be the first World Series Game 7 ever held in Los Angeles, which is quite something, but in fact Los Angeles has only ever been in one World Series Game 7, in 1965, and that was in Minnesota. Every other Series they have played since moving to LA - 1959, 1963, 1966, 1974, 1977, 1978, 1981, 1988, none went 7 games. They played two Game 7s in Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, losing both. ---
**Author:** ![harmonicamoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/65b543/32.png) [@harmonicamoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmonicamoon)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-october-2017-welcome-to-the-postseason/797735/644 "2017-11-01T04:04:25Z")
This is working out as I have planned it. I wanted a seventh game. More baseball=more fun. And the Astros win tomorrow! Life is good! ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-october-2017-welcome-to-the-postseason/797735/645 "2017-11-01T04:40:40Z")
Well then, I’m glad I’m wrong. Dodgers have the same magic Cubs did last year. They’re winning this tomorrow. Either way, what’s your picks? Who wins, final score and how many different pitchers do we see combined? My guess: Dodgers 8-5. A nail biter until the eighth with a three-run homer by Seager/Turner/Taylor/whoever, 13 pitchers total. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-october-2017-welcome-to-the-postseason/797735/646 "2017-11-01T04:41:38Z")
> [@harmonicamoon](#): > > This is working out as I have planned it. > > I wanted a seventh game. More baseball=more fun. > > And the Astros win tomorrow! > > Life is good! Yes! ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-october-2017-welcome-to-the-postseason/797735/647 "2017-11-01T07:47:54Z")
Let’s hope that tomorrow’s game is the last World Series game played in November. The season starts earlier next year and it won’t run into November, barring something extraordinary. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-october-2017-welcome-to-the-postseason/797735/648 "2017-11-01T11:13:04Z")
> [@OldGuy](#): > > I don’t think Clevelnd’s getting Verlander would have made much of a difference except for not having to face him if they met Houston. Pitching wasn’t their problem. Kluber didn’t pitch like he did during the season, but I’m not starting Verlander over him in any case. I was really just paying Verlander a compliment, but in that scenario, no worries about Kluber in game five because it wouldn’t have lasted that long. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-october-2017-welcome-to-the-postseason/797735/649 "2017-11-01T13:02:22Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > I actually have been liking Smoltz’s commentary. It’s Buck I can do without. I am grateful merely for the absence of Tim McCarver. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-october-2017-welcome-to-the-postseason/797735/650 "2017-11-01T13:18:32Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > I am grateful merely for the absence of Tim McCarver. Yes, a bery good thing. Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, together they were Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-october-2017-welcome-to-the-postseason/797735/651 "2017-11-01T13:25:33Z")
So, who’s gonna be this year’s Mr. November? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-october-2017-welcome-to-the-postseason/797735/652 "2017-11-01T13:39:27Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > So, who’s gonna be this year’s Mr. November? 😃 I’m assuming that the Dodgers, trailing 4-3 heading into the 9th, will spy a heavily medicated Adrián González being [wheeled into the dugout](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-geR-e20NWw0/ViVAYjNQUAI/AAAAAAAADbQ/w-LG1JwCTx8/s1600/lecter.jpg). Leading off the bottom of the inning, Andre Ethier will pinch hit and line a double into the right-field corner, but after Taylor and Seager fail to move him over, and with Justin Turner having gone cold in the series, a desperate Dave Roberts will turn to “El Titán,” hoping that his back holds up long enough to get off just one good swing… ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-october-2017-welcome-to-the-postseason/797735/653 "2017-11-01T13:58:23Z")
Baseball’s postseason, at least during my lifetime, can be divided into five eras, defined by the postseason structure: up to 1968: WS only. 1969-1984: best-of-5 playoffs and WS 1985-1993: best-of-7 playoffs and WS 1995-2011: 8-team postseason 2012 to now: 10-team postseason I went to Baseball [Reference.com](http://Reference.com) to get the dates of the last games of each year’s WS from 1969 to the present. And for each of the four eras in that timespan, I averaged the dates of those concluding games. (I did not take into account the length of the WS. Worth a redo using the Game 4 date, but someone else can do that.) I excluded 1981 (extended postseason due to strike), 1989 (earthquake delay), and 2001 (9/11 delay). Last game of WS, average date: 1969-1984: October 18.26 (Yeah, I went to 2 decimal places.) 1985-1993: October 24.25 1995-2011: October 27.13 2012-now: October 30.67 Each addition has unsurprisingly extended the baseball season further into October (or in several recent cases, November), but it surprised me to find that extending the LCS by two games in the mid-1980s made a bigger difference than adding more rounds later on. Of course, that might’ve been due to a small sample and the variable length of the WS. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-october-2017-welcome-to-the-postseason/797735/654 "2017-11-01T15:30:35Z")
Your calculations don’t take into account the structure of the best-of-five and best-of-seven playoffs. 2-2-1-1-1 v 2-3-2 and 2-2-1 v 2-3, etc. That might have had an effect, too. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-october-2017-welcome-to-the-postseason/797735/655 "2017-11-01T15:42:37Z")
Tonight is my 13yo nephew’s baseball championship game, starting at 6. There’d better not be anyone streaming game 7 and sharing the results. I hope to be home around 8 PDT to watch it without knowing any results. I’ll be staying away from here after 5 Pacific too. The last two game 7s went to the visiting team, the Cubs in 2016 and the Giants in 2014. Let’s get three straight tonight! ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-october-2017-welcome-to-the-postseason/797735/656 "2017-11-01T15:44:40Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > There is no reason Pitchf/x would require such a change. They set it to the batter’s height now. How does that get done? > [@MLB](#): > > The Strike Zone is that area over home plate the upper limit of which is a horizontal line at the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants, and the lower level is a line at the bottom of the knees. The Strike Zone shall be determined from the batter’s stance as the batter is prepared to swing at a pitched ball. The “top of the uniform pants” measured where? Front or back? (It’ll be higher in the back when the batter is slightly bent in his stance). Bottom of the knee measured how? (How do you tell exactly where that is?) Who makes these determinations? Some human in charge? Or does PITCHf/x do it automatically? These are important questions, since the claimed accuracy is to within less than an inch. ---
**Author:** ![Rhiannon8404](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhiannon8404/32/17929_2.png) [@Rhiannon8404](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhiannon8404)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-october-2017-welcome-to-the-postseason/797735/657 "2017-11-01T16:49:48Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > Tonight is my 13yo nephew’s baseball championship game, starting at 6. Good luck to your nephew’s team! ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-october-2017-welcome-to-the-postseason/797735/658 "2017-11-01T17:50:30Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > How does that get done? Same way the umps do it; someone just looks at the guy in the batter’s box and figures out what the lines are. > [@](#): > > These are important questions, since the claimed accuracy is to within less than an inch. The accuracy is what it is. The question of where to draw the strike zone is a separate question from how accurate the system is. You could draw the strike zone to be between the knees and once inch above the knees if you wanted, or to be from head to toes and five inches off the outside edge of the plate. No matter what you do the system will know where the pitch was, and will call it a strike or a ball with near-perfect consistency based on what you define the strike zone as being. You can argue over whether the guy setting the strike zone height is gonna get it right or not, but at least it’ll be consistent within the at bat, and you certainly can’t get inside or outside wrong. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-october-2017-welcome-to-the-postseason/797735/659 "2017-11-01T18:44:30Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > Let’s hope that tomorrow’s game is the last World Series game played in November. The season starts earlier next year and it won’t run into November, barring something extraordinary. Given the scheduling of the postseason, I am not sure it is possible to have Game 7 of the World Series scheduled before 11/1 every year without some years having at least one wild card game in September. On the other hand, IIRC, after the earthquake in 1989, one of the reasons given for considering moving the rest of the series to San Diego was so that they wouldn’t end up having to play Game 7 in November… ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-october-2017-welcome-to-the-postseason/797735/660 "2017-11-01T23:58:25Z")
Dear Houston Astros, This year, the MVP in the World Series will be awarded the recently-renamed Willie Mays World Series Most Valuable Player award. For the love of all that is good and holy, you cannot let that person be a Dodger. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-october-2017-welcome-to-the-postseason/797735.md?page=32) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-october-2017-welcome-to-the-postseason/797735.md?page=34)