The Official MLB Offseason Thread

The Game Room
601

I guess I am in the minority. I like it because it makes winning the division a little bit more important. In baseball, home field advantage isn’t terribly important. (Compared to other sports. And only thinking of competitive advantage, and not the issue of the financial advantage of the possibility of extra home games.) But, now, a team with a chance to win a division is going to go after that division to avoid the vagaries of a one game playoff game.
I feel like although this adds one team to the playoff picture. It makes the 162 game season a bit more important, as the having the most wins in the division is important.

I wish the wild card teams had to come from different divisions, though.

To my mind, it’s not perfect. But, not horrible, either.

602

Well, i don’t mean “aren’t baseball fans” in the sense that they don’t like baseball at all. I just mean people who are more interested in the “business end” of the season than in baseball more generally, and who only really take an interest in the game if their team happens to make the playoffs. These are people for whom the precariousness of a one-game playoff is more interesting than the long road of the regular season.

I understand why the league wants to appeal to these people. MLB’s powers-that-be know that they have folks like you and me and most other people in this thread sewn up. We’ll watch baseball whether or not our team happens to be in the playoff hunt, and we’ll watch baseball no matter how much MLB screws with it, because we really love the game.

What they want is the people who watch occasionally or sporadically, and who couldn’t tell you in June how their team is doing, but who get all excited by the prospect of a shot at the playoffs. I’m not criticizing these people for being a different type of fan than i am, and i don’t blame MLB for trying to get more interest (and therefore more money) from such people, but i don’t have to like the changes they’re making in order to do it.

I don’t know; maybe i’m wrong. There are obviously some committed baseball fans who like the idea. I don’t. I like the fact that only 8 out of 30 teams make the postseason.

603

I’m not sure what I think of this idea yet. But I’ve seen a lot of people complain that the previous setup gave too many breaks to the wild card team, and the change addresses that.

604

I am kind of split on this. It increases the importance of actually winning the division and makes the wild card team have to get through the 1 game elimination game and probably extra travel. By keeping it to one day it does not cause a long delay for the teams that did win their divisions. But I guess I would have preferred not having another team in the post-season and just having the wild card team only get game 3 at home. I thought that was a simple way to favor the best divisional team over the wild card team.

605

See, I disagree. They’ll make far more money from dedicated baseball fans, too.

I love my Blue Jays, but the fact is I don’t go as often as I used to in part because the team has won nothing for so long. I’ll watch almost every game on TV, but I might see 3-5 games a year at the dome. It used to be more, before the hopelessness set in. It’s not that I like baseball any less, but there’s still a marginal cost to ticket money that has to be made up by the benefit of meaningful baseball.

If the team was in a playoff race, there’s not a doubt in my mind I’d go to more games. Sure, one guy taking his kid to 2-3 more games isn’t a big deal, but multiply it by many baseball fans and that’s your money.

I don’t have numbers on hand to prove it, but my impression is that casual fans tend to remain casual fans no matter what; dedicated fans, you get more of a multiplier effect by presenting them with a contender. Casual fans won’t even be aware of the possibility of a playoff; you and I tend to take it for granted that people know about this stuff, but most people are totally unaware of, or only vaguely aware of, the performance of the local MLB team. Even people who go to the games - and this isn’t just a Toronto thing, I’ve seen it elsewhere - are not necessarily up to speed on where the home boys are in the standings. They’re just on a date or having fun with friends or whatever. If the casual fan makes a trip to see a game once a year it’s unlikely that will change.

Honestly, my position on this matter is split. I like more playoffs, actually; I liked the wild card playoff expansion, and I think I could stand to see even more. But this PARTICULAR approach is rock stupid, in my honest opinion.

My dream is a full blown 16-team playoff… after an expansion to 36 or more teams, a reduction in the length of the season to 154 games, and the four lower seeds get only one home game in the first round. So my ideal world’s not happening anytime soon. :slight_smile:

606

To hell with baseball. A 1-game playoff is an insult to the sport and all its fans.

162 games in the season, and the team which built a 17 game lead over the 2nd wild card has to play a 1-game gimmick against a basement dweller or the basement dweller gets in the playoffs ahead of them. 162 game season, and a team with a 6-game lead over a team in their own division has to play them in a 1-game play-in game. All so we can replace an awesome playoff race between Boston and Tampa (win and you’re in, lose and you’re out) with a sucky play-in race (win and you’ll have a chance to field 10 grounders before the buzzer sounds to get in the playoffs).

Rotations? Bullpens? What are those? Throw the ball through the clown’s mouth and you’re in the playoffs. His eyes start blinking and everything.

3 games would be an insult. 1 game is just sick.

607

I have mixed feelings about the second wild card. But: Per SABR, here are what would have been the second wild card teams for the last 10 years.

2002
NL Wild card: San Francisco, 95-66 (lost WS). 2nd wild card: Los Angeles, 92-70.
AL Wild card: Anaheim, 99-63 (won WS). 2nd wild card: Boston, Seattle, both 93-69.

2003
NL Wild card: Florida, 91-71 (won WS). 2nd wild card: Houston, 87-75.
AL Wild card: Boston, 95-67. 2nd wild card: Seattle 93-69.

2004
NL Wild card: Houston, 92-70. 2nd wild card: San Francisco, 91-71.
AL Wild card: Boston, 98-64 (won WS). 2nd wild card: Oakland, 91-71.

2005
NL Wild card: Houston, 89-73 (lost WS). 2nd wild card: Philadelphia, 88-74.
AL Wild card: Boston, 95-67. 2nd wild card: Cleveland, 93-69.

2006
NL Wild card: Los Angeles, 88-74. 2nd wild card: Philadelphia, 85-77.
AL Wild card: Detroit, 95-67 (lost WS). 2nd wild card: Chicago, 90-72.

2007
NL Wild card: Colorado, 90-73 (lost WS). 2nd wild card: San Diego, 89-74.
AL Wild card: New York, 94-68. 2nd wild card: Detroit or Seattle (both 88-74)

2008
NL Wild card: Milwaukee, 90-72. 2nd wild card: New York, 89-73.
AL Wild card: Boston, 95-67. 2nd wild card: New York, 89-73. (Note: White Sox and Twins had one-game playoff to decide divisional title. Twins held season-series edge on White Sox, and both teams had same end-of-season record as second wild card Yankees. How would MLB have decided that?)

2009
NL Wild card: Colorado, 92-70. 2nd wild card: San Francisco, 88-74.
AL Wild card: Boston, 95-67. 2nd wild card: Texas, 87-75.

2010
NL Wild card: Atlanta, 91-71. 2nd wild card: San Diego, 90-72.
AL Wild card: New York, 95-67. 2nd wild card: Boston, 89-73.

2011
NL Wild card: St. Louis, 90-72 (won WS). 2nd wild card: Atlanta, 89-73.
AL Wild card: Tampa Bay, 91-71. 2nd wild card: Boston, 90-72. (Note: Under new rules, Atlanta, St. Louis, Boston and Tampa Bay all would have become wild cards, nullifying final-day excitement of 2011 regular season.)

Note that there are no basemen dwellers here, and the record of the second wild-card is usually pretty close to the first, and no worse than 85 wins.

608

It’s not like there haven’t been a lot of 1-game playoffs before.

No “basement dwellers” are getting in this way. Let’s at least deal with reality.

609

Depends on your definition of “pretty close”. In the last 15 years, the number of games the 2nd wild card has trailed by:

17
12
8
8
7
7
6*
6*
6*
6
5*
4*
4*
4
4
3*
3
3
2
2
1*
1
1
1
1
1
1

*: same division

3 times the wild cards were tied and already played a tiebreaker.

The average lead is 4.59 games. Median is 4. Maximum is a 17 game lead. 8 times the second wild card is in the same division as the first. 6 of those times the first wild card had a 3+ game lead in the same division.

Are you referring to tie-breakers? Between teams that tied in the regular season?

610

Yeah, but these arise under the particular circumstances of a tie in the standings. With the new system, in most cases two teams with unequal records will be facing off in a one-game playoff.

This is certainly true. To be honest, if you want to avoid a situation where teams with a mediocre record make the playoffs, the way to do that would be to get rid of divisions altogether.

The worst record that Ichbin Dubist found among teams that would have made the playoffs under the new system was 85-77 (2006 Phillies). That is a record equal to, or better than, the division-winning 2008 Dodgers (84-78), the division-winning 2007 Cubs (85-77), the division-winning 2006 Cardinals (83-78), and the division-winning 2005 Padres (82-80).

While i understand the appeal of divisions, and the excitement of a division race, i would actually support a requirement for a minimum number of wins for a division winner to advance to the playoffs. I think that maybe 86-76 would be a decent record, but would be willing to listen to another number. If you win the division with at least 86 wins, you makes the playoffs as normal; if you win the division with fewer than 86 wins, you miss out, and the next playoff spot goes to a wild card team. This would keep the excitement of divisions—and it might also add some tension as the leader of a mediocre division struggled to get to the 86-win level—but would also prevent teams barely above .500 from making the postseason.

611

Just to be clear:

My complaint is not really with the quality of the 2nd wild card, nor even specifically with how much they trail the 1st wild card (often in the same division).

My complaint is with the enormous disrespect and disregard being shown for the game and its fans by having teams which may be 17 games apart playing what amounts to a tiebreaker game.

The season is 162 games long. You can’t play all that and then have a “tiebreaker” between a 102 win team and an 85 win team. You can’t play all that and have a “tiebreaker” between teams 6 games apart in the same division. If you want to expand the playoffs, then you have to find a way to do so while preserving the integrity of the game. This does not.

Like I said, I would consider even a 3-game playoff to be an insult given both the size of MLB rotations and bullpens, and the increased importance of luck in a shorter series. 1 game is beyond an insult, it’s unthinkable.

612

I don’t like the possibility of this happening, either, but it isn’t “disrespectful” to the fans. It’s a playoff system, they aren’t forgetting anyone’s birthday.

Lest we forget, it’s inherently unfair to boil a 162-game season down to a playoff series, too. Patently mediocre teams have won the World Series as a result; the 1987 Twins, 2000 Yankees, and 2006 Cardinals were all just-okay clubs that got hot at the right time while better teams didn’t make the playoffs. Shit happens.

Personally I’d prefer a proper playoff series, too, but nobody’s being insulted. and look at it this way; **we are talking about two teams that failed to win their division during the 162-game season. ** The team with the better record has, in a sense, nothing to complain about. They LOST their division; they’re lucky to be granted a chance at a play-in game. This just enhances the benefit of winning your division, thereby, in a way, giving more meaning to the 162-game season.

613

Because I like to link to things that I have read that are pertinent to the discussion:

Here is a great article by Joe Sheehan on SI.com about the new wild card system. He is against it.

614

A well written article indeed, except for the call for contraction. The world does not need less MLB. It needs more.

615

Bad news for the A’s out of MLB offices. They said no to San Jose. So they will either continue to suffer in Oakland or maybe decide it is time to move on yet again to another state. I could see Portland in their future. I doubt they will build a stadium in Oakland.

616

What Exit:

Is Portland really a better destination than Sacramento, San Antonio or Austin? And that’s assuming they want to stay in the west - North Carolina and Tennessee might also be viable markets for Major League Baseball, all three other major sports have a team in each of those states.

617

Hell, couldn’t Philly support another team? Philadelphia Athletics - has a nice ring to it.

618

BTW, Bud Selig denies the reports that an absolute “no” has been concluded.

619

Portland just comes up often when talk of teams moving is mentioned. Tennessee probably cannot support a baseball team but I do agree N. Carolina is viable.

San Antonio/Austin is interesting. Does Houston have no claim to that area?

Sacramento makes sense but then I still cannot understand how the Giants have rights over San Jose when Oakland is just as close. It would be like the Yanks being able to block the Mets moving back to Manhattan.

:slight_smile:

620

I’m not sure North Carolina is viable. Charlotte is the biggest city and there is very little support for having a MLB team here. They are in the process of breaking ground on a new minor league stadium in the downtown area (White Sox affiliate, Charlotte Knights, who currently play just a few miles across the border in SC.) It’s not a huge baseball town. They’d probably do fine on weekends and when the Yankees came to town ( :stuck_out_tongue: ), but they would struggle on weekdays, particularly in the hot, humid summer months. The Raleigh area might do better.