As a Giants fan, I’m not terribly thrilled with them this year because they broke two-thirds of our outfield…but I’m gonna find it hard to root against them from this point on.
At this point, I’m rooting for Cubs-Astros.
No, just because I’m rooting for the Cubs and it’s fun to watch them hit home runs. That said, shame or not, I still don’t like the 1 game wild card series.
By this logic why seed any tournament ever? Any path will eventually lead you to the best opponents anyway. For the Cards the advantage might have been as simple has having Wainwright back in the rotation.
To confer the benefit of home field advantage on the top seeds. The Cardinals had that advantage and didn’t even play well enough to get to the fifth game.
“Seeding” as a thing was only implemented in baseball in 1995 (well, 1994) when there were enough playoff teams to matter. The only purpose of it is to reward teams with home field advantage. The Cardinals got it, purpose achieved.
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I never really understood that former rule.
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(Referring to the previous rule that WC teams couldn’t play their division’s champion in the first round.)
The idea was that it would seem unseemly for a team to win a pennant race against a divisional opponent and then immediately lose a playoff series to them.
For instance, in 1997, the #1 seed was Atlanta and the wild card was Florida, both in the East. It would have been weird for Atlanta to bury Florida by nine games in the regular season and then promptly be in a position to lose a 5-game series to them. Of course they did lose to Florida… in the NLCS, at which point at least you could say the Marlins had gotten to that point by defeating another team in the playoffs.
It would have been a shame to exclude the Cubs because they won more games than the Mets or Dodgers while playing a much tougher schedule.
Maybe the fairest thing would be to junk the divisional format entirely, play a balanced schedule, and just seed teams according to where they finished in the league. The first two rounds could be best-of-three #2 vs #5 team in the league and #3 vs #4, then the winners of those play best of three to advance to the seven game LCS against the #1 team. Or something like that.
I’ve heard that reasoning. It just doesn’t resonate with me.
If you junk divisions and unbalanced schedules, you don’t really need a postseason tournament at all.
One of the reasons to go to a divisional format in the first place was so that teams wouldn’t be buried so deep in the standings, and (now) give more teams a shot at the playoffs. It’s one thing to be in 5th place in your division, another to be 15th in your league.
With a divisional set-up plus wildcards, usually half or more of the teams in the league have a shot at the playoffs until late in the season. That helps to keep more people interested in a greater number of places.
Baseball is entertainment, not a rigorous way to determine the “best team.” If you wanted to determine the best team, all you would have to do is have all the teams play each other the same number of times, and then select whoever won the most games. The playoffs provide an opportunity for underdogs to upset a team with a better record, and that’s really why we have them.
So the Dodgers are essentially your #2 seed despite having the 4th best record in the NL? To play 162 games, have the best record in baseball and then (potentially) have to play the team with the 2nd best record in baseball is just goofy.
I could live with reinstating the rule that you can’t play a team from your division in the LDS. At least then the worst case scenario is the best record playing against the 3rd best record.
I just checked it out, and the teams which would have made the playoffs under the system I just proposed were the same teams which did in fact make it. The list of teams within 5 games of the last playoff spot on August 15 was also exactly the same. The Pirates and Cubs, however, would have been rewarded for their superior records with home field in the first round.
I didn’t say anything about eliminating playoffs, I just don’t see the point in rewarding teams for finishing at the top of an arbitrarily determined subset of the league. I think most people would rather see a seeding system which maximizes the chances of the best teams meeting each other later rather than earlier in the playoffs.
It’s not arbitrary–those are the teams they play more of their games against. At least, it’s no more ‘arbitrary’ than the idea of two leagues, and the winners of each being entitled to spots in the overall championship.
Yes. The former rule about intradivisional matchups would help do so.
Strangest run I’ve ever seen.
Rangers up, Odor on third, two outs. Choo batting. Martin goes to throw ball back to Sanchez and throws ball into Choo’s hand where it ricochets. Odor comes home.
All 6 umpires get together. Ruling, Odor’s run counts. Rangers go up 3-2. Pandemonium in stadium.
Come on, Toronto fans. Don’t let anyone get hurt here.
Yeah, I literally just tuned in and saw that play. Flukey to say the least. Don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen. Let’s see if it stands. It seems like it should.
That’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever seen. Clear interference by Choo there.
It looked like all of Choo’s body was still in the box.
Agreed. I have no dog in this fight, other than I am passively rooting for the Blue Jays, but that looks to me like the right call.
Yeah, I’d like the Jays to win it, and I wasn’t familiar with that rule, but I think they got it right.
Choo’s expression upon having a ball nail him in the hand was priceless.
If the ump calls time, that should be the end of the play, full stop.
Not only his body but the bat was in the box too. Correct call. Bizarre, but correct.