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5/12-5/15 Red Sox vs. Astros Series Thread
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Post by sox fan in nc on May 16, 2016 9:16:42 GMT -5
(Note: Not trying to make an argument, just trying to answer the question) 4/27/15: Josh Hamilton traded from LAA to TEX 4/05/15: Craig Kimbrel and BJ Upton from ATL to SD for Cameron Maybin, Carlos Quentin, Jordan Paroubeck, and Matt Wisler 5/27/15: Juan Uribe and Chris Withrow from LAD to ATL for Alberto Callaspo, Eric Stults, Ian Thomas and Juan Jaime 5/10/15: BOS sends Edward Mujica to OAK. (Just noted because it's Boston) 4/18/14: Mets send Ike Davis to PIT 4/11/13: Rockies send Aaron Harang to Seattle (not sure when he was last relevant) 4/6/13: Dodgers send Aaron Harang to Rockies 4/21/12: Red Sox send Michael Bowden to Cubs for Marlon Byrd 5/3/12: Padres send Ernesto Frieri to Angels Note that none of those players could pitch in this rotation. Was reading on SB Nation via Nick Cafardo, the Braves Chop Talk that Julio Teheran may/should be made available this summer. I know nothing will be done in May. I do have a fear now that Johnson/Owens are sputtering. Teheran has pitched OK against some pretty good teams (Bos, StL, Wash, LAD). Not sure what it would take to obtain him. Feels like we're just an injury away from catastrophe.
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Post by FenwayFanatic on May 16, 2016 9:36:14 GMT -5
I really hope they don't get rid of the Wild Card game. It's the absolute best thing to watch. It's the only non-sox playoff games that I really pay attention to. I hear the lack of fairness, but really, it you can't even be the best team amongst five, do you have a claim to stake that you were undersold? Plus, this method adds fairness where it counts... by pitting the regular season best record against a team which already used up it's ace. Perhaps there should be three one-game playoffs: Best record gets a bye. Pit the two lesser division winners, and the top wild-card team against the next three teams. And if you stack it by record, then the second best team in the league isn't really getting short-changed much. If you won 98 games and just happen to share a division with a team that won 100, while teams winning 90 and 92 get into the divisional series automatically? Hell yeah you were undersold. That's an absurd system. Also, that's not a hypothetical, it's the 2015 NL. Exactly. This exact scenario occurred in 2004. The Red Sox were a 98 win wild card team and would've been pitted against the 86 win Oakland A's in a one game playoff. Meanwhile the 87 win Twins were a 3 seed. How does that make any sense? Just because they won their "division" you put the second best team in the AL and third best team in the MLB in a one game playoff against an 86 win team? Especially given the fact the AL Central teams don't spend as much and two of the MLB's flagship franchises are in the same division in the AL East.
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redsox04071318champs
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Post by redsox04071318champs on May 16, 2016 12:49:11 GMT -5
If you won 98 games and just happen to share a division with a team that won 100, while teams winning 90 and 92 get into the divisional series automatically? Hell yeah you were undersold. That's an absurd system. Also, that's not a hypothetical, it's the 2015 NL. Exactly. This exact scenario occurred in 2004. The Red Sox were a 98 win wild card team and would've been pitted against the 86 win Oakland A's in a one game playoff. Meanwhile the 87 win Twins were a 3 seed. How does that make any sense? Just because they won their "division" you put the second best team in the AL and third best team in the MLB in a one game playoff against an 86 win team? Especially given the fact the AL Central teams don't spend as much and two of the MLB's flagship franchises are in the same division in the AL East. I get what you're saying but if winning the division is deemed as meaningless, then why bother even having divisions at all? Why not just have a 15 team league kind of like the NBA or NHL has and just draw the playoff line between the 5th and 6th place teams? Then we can compare the two leagues and when the 6th place team in one league is sitting home at 91 wins while in the other league the 5th place team just making the playoffs is at 85 wins, we can still hear complaints? The point is there will always be some inherent unfairness of some sort. I personally hated the wild card when it was created. I was a product of my times. I was too young to have seen the two league ten teams each setup of the 1960s, but it must have been obvious that two post-season teams and 18 also rans made for a lot of bored viewers. I grew up in the 4 division 26 team set up, which I liked. Of course that was set up against the backdrop of balanced schedules which don't aid that format. If winning the division should have cache, and I still think it should, then an unbalanced schedule makes sense. Play your division opponents a lot and make earning the division title mean something. That's the way it should be. If you have 2 great teams in a division, then under the old Wild Card format there's nothing to play for. Winning the division is meaningless. At least with the new system it's important to finish 1st, whether it takes 84 games to do it or whether it takes 104 games to do it. If you win 103 games and finish 2nd, well you get a home game with a chance to advance. I didn't like the Wild Card because of what it did to the integrity of the pennant races. The new system restores it somewhat because if the pennant races don't matter, then why bother playing 162 games? The new system isn't perfect but it beats the hell out of the battle between 5th and 6th place in a 15 team league and it's better than a team not caring if it finishes first or not.
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Post by jmei on May 16, 2016 13:04:43 GMT -5
The second Wild Card definitely makes it less "fair" and makes the divisons more important in a semi-arbitrary way. But that was intentional. There's a tradeoff between fairness and excitement, and MLB decided to move slightly towards the excitement end of things.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on May 16, 2016 20:06:06 GMT -5
The second Wild Card definitely makes it less "fair" and makes the divisons more important in a semi-arbitrary way. But that was intentional. There's a tradeoff between fairness and excitement, and MLB decided to move slightly towards the excitement end of things. Is it really that much more exciting though? The play-in games themselves are exciting of course, but it doesn't seem like it's actually made that much of a difference in the divisional races. The idea (supposedly) was to put more emphasis on being great/winning the division, but really, the way to put emphasis on greatness would be to ignore these silly five-team divisions entirely when doing your playoff seeding.
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Post by FenwayFanatic on May 16, 2016 20:20:18 GMT -5
Exactly. This exact scenario occurred in 2004. The Red Sox were a 98 win wild card team and would've been pitted against the 86 win Oakland A's in a one game playoff. Meanwhile the 87 win Twins were a 3 seed. How does that make any sense? Just because they won their "division" you put the second best team in the AL and third best team in the MLB in a one game playoff against an 86 win team? Especially given the fact the AL Central teams don't spend as much and two of the MLB's flagship franchises are in the same division in the AL East. Thats an excellent question. I think two leagues with the four best teams getting in is ideal. They can still have divisions for scheduling and travel purposes but have it have no affect on the seeding like in the NBA.
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redsox04071318champs
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Post by redsox04071318champs on May 16, 2016 20:38:20 GMT -5
So what I'm reading, if I'm understanding correctly, is that jmei and the two Fenways would prefer a format more like basketball or hockey where there's a line drawn between the teams on the inside and the ones on the outside looking in - in this case it would be 2 fifteen team leagues where finishing in the top 5 is all that really matters?
Or have some sort of silly division setup where it wouldn't matter if you finished first if you weren't among the top 5 of the league or something like that?
I personally don't like the way the NBA does it. Like I sited in my earlier example a 6th place team in the NL that doesn't make the post-season could have a better record than the 5th place playoff bound team in the AL, so you'd still have the unfairness issue.
Personally, I'd be fine if we went back to the format from 1969 - 1993. Eliminate the Wild Card teams altogether and go back to two divisions in each league. Make 1st place really matter. And to place important on it, have a very heavily unbalanced schedule, so whoever finishes in 1st earned it because they were superior to the other 6 or 7 teams in the division.
I'm of the opinion that a division shouldn't have less than 6 teams in it or more than 8 teams in it. Less than 6 waters down the competition pretty drastically while more than 8 teams makes for too many also-rans. Ideally if and when baseball expands to 32 teams, and one day they will, I think the 4 division setup makes the most sense.
But I know we're not going to turn back the clock so all the above won't matter. It's just my preference.
As much as I loved the results from 2004, the fact is that the Sox really didn't catch the Yankees in the regular season when should have had to. In 2007 the Yanks didn't catch the Sox in opposite fashion. It's almost like they gave up when they got to within 1.5 games because they wanted to set up for the post-season, which shows how devaluing the regular season pennant races are.
I think if you're younger the idea of a "pennant race" is antiquated, but I like the feeling of earning something special over 162 games (and if you make it because you were better than everybody in your division, all those other teams in your division don't.) Then you play other teams that met the same criteria.
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