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Playoff expansion likely to be permanent
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Post by James Dunne on Sept 17, 2020 9:53:51 GMT -5
Here's the problem. They've incentivized teams who aren't particularly good to become as bad as possible. Instead of punishing teams for tanking, they're just incentivizing mediocre teams not to tank, penalizing the best teams. Relegation and unbundling the draft order from team record would do that, keep the playoff situation where the teams advancing tend to be good, and make the regular season important for every team. A 72-win team is not going to want to bottom out and fall into the relegation pool, and if their draft position doesn't change based on whether they win 70 or 77 games, they're going to try to win 77 games.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Sept 17, 2020 10:10:58 GMT -5
Here's the problem. They've incentivized teams who aren't particularly good to become as bad as possible. Instead of punishing teams for tanking, they're just incentivizing mediocre teams not to tank, penalizing the best teams. Relegation and unbundling the draft order from team record would do that, keep the playoff situation where the teams advancing tend to be good, and make the regular season important for every team. A 72-win team is not going to want to bottom out and fall into the relegation pool, and if their draft position doesn't change based on whether they win 70 or 77 games, they're going to try to win 77 games. I'm not following this "relegation pool" idea. Can you please describe a little more what you mean by it? Thanks.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Sept 17, 2020 12:18:14 GMT -5
I actually like it, maybe they went a little too far with 16 teams. Yet they were by far the crazy lowest before the change. NFL has 14, NBA has 16 and Hockey has 16, while Baseball had ten with two of them just being one game play ins. You needed to do something so half the league didn't tank and actually has something to play for.
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Post by manfred on Sept 17, 2020 12:30:36 GMT -5
I actually like it, maybe they went a little too far with 16 teams. Yet they were by far the crazy lowest before the change. NFL has 14, NBA has 16 and Hockey has 16, while Baseball had ten with two of them just being one game play ins. You needed to do something so half the league didn't tank and actually has something to play for. The problem is you could turn that around and say teams no longer have to play for excellence. So why bother, say, spending a ton to be one of the few in when you can go cheaper and get in anyway? I think the answer to tanking is punish it somehow. Partly, the market should punish it.... teams in tank mode draw badly. And I suspect tanking is lesss rewarding in baseball than football or basketball, both sports where a #1 pick can immediately turn a franchise around. But if it becomes common, maybe baseball needs to go to a lottery system or something.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Sept 17, 2020 12:41:02 GMT -5
I actually like it, maybe they went a little too far with 16 teams. Yet they were by far the crazy lowest before the change. NFL has 14, NBA has 16 and Hockey has 16, while Baseball had ten with two of them just being one game play ins. You needed to do something so half the league didn't tank and actually has something to play for. The problem is you could turn that around and say teams no longer have to play for excellence. So why bother, say, spending a ton to be one of the few in when you can go cheaper and get in anyway? I think the answer to tanking is punish it somehow. Partly, the market should punish it.... teams in tank mode draw badly. And I suspect tanking is lesss rewarding in baseball than football or basketball, both sports where a #1 pick can immediately turn a franchise around. But if it becomes common, maybe baseball needs to go to a lottery system or something. Which teams? I really don't see that problem, spending will still increase your chances. On the flip side couldn't this turn around low market teams that now can have a shot every year? Fans might actually invest in them because they will have something to play for most years. The Marlins from a few years ago might not teardown that team when Jeter buys it because they can make the playoffs. For me more teams spending and trying to win is only going to help the sport. Imagine a crappy team gets in, wins a few games, creates a buzz, gets fans excited and invests in the team the next year. I get why Red Sox fans hate it, it takes away an advantage we had, but for the Sport in general I think it's a crazy good thing.
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Post by kman22 on Sept 17, 2020 13:10:00 GMT -5
I think the issue is that if more than 50% of the teams in the league get into the playoffs, the value of the 162 game season goes down.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 17, 2020 14:03:23 GMT -5
I actually like it, maybe they went a little too far with 16 teams. Yet they were by far the crazy lowest before the change. NFL has 14, NBA has 16 and Hockey has 16, while Baseball had ten with two of them just being one game play ins. You needed to do something so half the league didn't tank and actually has something to play for. If you go beyond 10 teams, you need to either go to 16, or be real creative with the playoff system. With 10 teams, you have 6 teams getting a bye and 4 playing in from the 8. Well, 6 is the number of divisions. It works perfectly.
With 12 teams, now you have 4 byes and 8 teams playing in. Which means 2 division champions need to play in, which will be done by W/L record, which means that teams in a really strong division are likelier not to get a bye.
What I like:
Expand to 32 teams. Each league has two 8-team divisions. Each is subdivided into two four-team half-divisions geographically for scheduling purposes only. You play the 3 teams in your geographic half-division somewhat more often than the other 4. Nothing like the 19 versus 6 or 7 we currently have. It's a small, tolerable degree of schedule imbalance.
I have the math worked out for this, including how interleague play works. It permits a much saner and more balanced schedule. For instance, two-day visits to cities would be eliminated.
12 teams make the playoffs. The four division winners get byes.
That means there are two play-in series in each league, featuring the two division runners-up and the two teams with the next best records (or maybe just the 3 teams with the next best records; you'd have to do a study to see which would be better). They are seeded 1 to 4. Make the tiebreakers for seeds 1 through 3, after head-to-head record, fair. For instance, if the teams are from different divisions, the edge goes to the team from the division with the better overall record. (Record within your own division is backwards!)
The goal of the play-in format is to make it as likely as possible that the better team actually advances. That means playing a longer series, and giving the higher seed one or both of two advantages: getting all the games at home, or actually getting a game or two in hand.
The play-ins last 4 days, which means that a team that pitches their ace in game 162 to win the division gets to use him to start game 1 after their bye. That's a win for everyone.
(If there's a tiebreaker needed to establish the 4 seed? Given the rarity of that, it is played as the first game of a three-team double-header at the site of the 1 seed. That would be fairly awesome.)
A possible 1 vs 4 seed format: a virtual 7-game series where the 1 seed has two wins in hand. All games are in the 1 seed park, so the 4 seed needs to win 4 out of 5 on the road. If the home team wins 2 of the first 3 games, the series is over. If they don't, there's a doubleheader on day 4. The possibilities are really exciting. The pressure on the 1 seed to not play both games of a double-header on the day before they have to start the DS would be intense.
You're less concerned about the better team actually advancing in 2 versus 3, so that could be a best of 5, all at home. Here you'd have the doubleheaders in the two leagues on two different days, day 2 and day 3.
But there are many other ways to do it, some involving travel if the opponents are in the same division, some with 1 game in hand ... you could have multiple formats that are determined by the difference in W/L records of the two teams, plus each division's total W/L record (the fair math of that can be calculated). This would actually be real exciting, where a win on the last day of the season even after you've clinched your seed could give you a bigger edge in your series.
And the DS is expanded to 7 games with one travel day cut.
Note that to get to the CS you need to use your entire starting rotation, just like the regular season! I think that's a big win. One of the things that makes baseball great is the higher variation in game-to-game performance. In this playoff format, every year they'd be some #5 starter pitching a gem, which in terms of impact on winning is the equivalent of a bench guy leading his team in points, rebounds, and assists ... which never happens.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Sept 17, 2020 14:14:18 GMT -5
I think the issue is that if more than 50% of the teams in the league get into the playoffs, the value of the 162 game season goes down. The value of 162 game season goes down for who? The top three teams in each league? At the same time doesn't the value of a long season increase for many more teams? There won't be anymore 50% of the teams are eliminated by the halfway point of the season. Take last year if I looked at the right stats, the Red Sox would have been a 7th seed. Had a three game series with the Yankees, all games at their home park. Maybe I'm crazy but that would add value for me. I would have watched more games, people will go to more games because the games still have meaning. As in seeding and home field advantage, just like all other sports. I would love the chance in a down year to knock the MFY out of the playoffs. The only thing I don't like is three game series in the first round. If I'm making the rules it's best of five, then best of seven for every other round. Not best of three, best of five, then best of seven.
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badfishnbc
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Post by badfishnbc on Sept 17, 2020 14:33:34 GMT -5
The current system is ideal, but I could live with 12 teams (six AL, six NL) if a three-game opening round omitted off days. Go back to 154 games while we’re at it. I can live with it, but it feels cheap. If the Sox win a WS after finishing behind the Yankees, it is not the same as beating them pillar to post. Is that how you felt in 2004?
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Post by manfred on Sept 17, 2020 14:54:48 GMT -5
I can live with it, but it feels cheap. If the Sox win a WS after finishing behind the Yankees, it is not the same as beating them pillar to post. Is that how you felt in 2004? Asked and answered.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 26, 2020 2:23:33 GMT -5
I've actually come around to supporting a 16-team playoff. The 162 games should count tremendously, but they should not be the final word for teams that weren't bad.
An ideal playoff format does two things: - Captures the attention of the most possible fans.
- Maximizes the probability that the best teams advance. That's what's fair, but it's also good for baseball because the best teams tend to be the most star-filled.
These are opposing needs. The more teams you add, the more you seem to randomize the result.
How do reconcile the two goals? Pretty easily, actually. You make it incredibly hard for the 7-8 seeds in each league to beat the 1-2, and seriously hard for the 5-6 to beat the 3-4.
This creates four separate pennant races in each league.
There's the race for the .500 clubs to get into the playoffs and have a dream, a prayer, a fantasy, of winning the WS. But some year that will happen when a team plagued by injuries, and/or sporting some brilliant late-season additions, goes on a historic run.
There's the race to get out of that 7-8, takes-a-miracle group into the 5-6 group, where it's not only easier to win your series, but the opponents aren't as good.
There's the race of the good teams to finish 3-4 rather than 5-6, and have the advantage rather than the disadvantage in the handicapping.
And the race among the best teams to get a top-2 seed -- to win their division, if you have 4 x 8, as you should after expansion -- and get almost a free pass into the next round.
So: all series are 7 game series. But in the first round, the higher seeds get one, two, or even three games in hand. I have to work out the math to see what would be fair. But here's an example.
Imagine that making the playoffs as a 7 or 8 seed, with a .500-ish record means you have to sweep 4 games to defeat a division champion (which is to say, the top seeds get three wins in hand). It's almost a formality for the first-place clubs. But imagine the pressure that starts to build if the first-place team loses the first 2 games at home ... which will happen to one of the 4 champs probably 2 years out of 3. And now the series moves to the wild-card team's park, where two more victories would create an epic upset. People would lose their minds.
And I don't think it will be more random (less fair) than the current 5-game DS. In fact, my goal is to create a format where the odds of the weaker team winning by sheer luck are worse than the current DS.
You have not only the trick of giving the higher seed one or more games in hand, but you can also give them more of a home-field advantage. You should be able to create a system where your regular season performance gives you an absolutely fair and appropriate advantage in the first round. And yet you still would have to earn your way into the next round given that advantage.
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Post by manfred on Sept 26, 2020 9:28:26 GMT -5
I've actually come around to supporting a 16-team playoff. The 162 games should count tremendously, but they should not be the final word for teams that weren't bad.
An ideal playoff format does two things: - Captures the attention of the most possible fans.
- Maximizes the probability that the best teams advance. That's what's fair, but it's also good for baseball because the best teams tend to be the most star-filled.
These are opposing needs. The more teams you add, the more you seem to randomize the result.
How do reconcile the two goals? Pretty easily, actually. You make it incredibly hard for the 7-8 seeds in each league to beat the 1-2, and seriously hard for the 5-6 to beat the 3-4.
This creates four separate pennant races in each league.
There's the race for the .500 clubs to get into the playoffs and have a dream, a prayer, a fantasy, of winning the WS. But some year that will happen when a team plagued by injuries, and/or sporting some brilliant late-season additions, goes on a historic run.
There's the race to get out of that 7-8, takes-a-miracle group into the 5-6 group, where it's not only easier to win your series, but the opponents aren't as good.
There's the race of the good teams to finish 3-4 rather than 5-6, and have the advantage rather than the disadvantage in the handicapping.
And the race among the best teams to get a top-2 seed -- to win their division, if you have 4 x 8, as you should after expansion -- and get almost a free pass into the next round.
So: all series are 7 game series. But in the first round, the higher seeds get one, two, or even three games in hand. I have to work out the math to see what would be fair. But here's an example.
Imagine that making the playoffs as a 7 or 8 seed, with a .500-ish record means you have to sweep 4 games to defeat a division champion (which is to say, the top seeds get three wins in hand). It's almost a formality for the first-place clubs. But imagine the pressure that starts to build if the first-place team loses the first 2 games at home ... which will happen to one of the 4 champs probably 2 years out of 3. And now the series moves to the wild-card team's park, where two more victories would create an epic upset. People would lose their minds.
And I don't think it will be more random (less fair) than the current 5-game DS. In fact, my goal is to create a format where the odds of the weaker team winning by sheer luck are worse than the current DS.
You have not only the trick of giving the higher seed one or more games in hand, but you can also give them more of a home-field advantage. You should be able to create a system where your regular season performance gives you an absolutely fair and appropriate advantage in the first round. And yet you still would have to earn your way into the next round given that advantage. It would be interesting in a fantasy league or something, but it seems overly Byzantine for real life. Playoffs are meant to be a clean slate — having teams get in but then badly hampering them seems unsporting. I mean, the usual outcome... the greatly advantaged team wins... becomes a sort of boring interlude on the way to real competition. In effect the only possible excitement is the once in a blue moon comeback. The only rationale for expanding the playoffs is revenue — it keeps fans paying for mediocre teams that might slide in anyway. But these first round games would not be especially alluring — not until at least a series reaches game 6 or even 7. Even with the switches it’s lipstick on a pig. I am surprised though that they don’t expand by two teams and divide into 4 divisions of 4. Then you get 4 division winners, 2 wild cards, same expanded playoffs but with teams “earning” it as much as now. East, South, North, West. Not saying it is a great idea, but it does what they want and keeps it a bit more traditional.
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Post by incandenza on Sept 26, 2020 10:06:09 GMT -5
I've actually come around to supporting a 16-team playoff. The 162 games should count tremendously, but they should not be the final word for teams that weren't bad.
Well, you've come around to supporting an idea about a 16-team playoff, but not anything that MLB would ever actually do. Out of curiosity, are there any sports leagues in the world that do the 'spot one team a couple of wins in a playoff tournament' format?
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ericmvan
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Posts: 8,922
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 26, 2020 11:12:20 GMT -5
I've actually come around to supporting a 16-team playoff. The 162 games should count tremendously, but they should not be the final word for teams that weren't bad.
An ideal playoff format does two things: - Captures the attention of the most possible fans.
- Maximizes the probability that the best teams advance. That's what's fair, but it's also good for baseball because the best teams tend to be the most star-filled.
These are opposing needs. The more teams you add, the more you seem to randomize the result.
How do reconcile the two goals? Pretty easily, actually. You make it incredibly hard for the 7-8 seeds in each league to beat the 1-2, and seriously hard for the 5-6 to beat the 3-4.
This creates four separate pennant races in each league.
There's the race for the .500 clubs to get into the playoffs and have a dream, a prayer, a fantasy, of winning the WS. But some year that will happen when a team plagued by injuries, and/or sporting some brilliant late-season additions, goes on a historic run.
There's the race to get out of that 7-8, takes-a-miracle group into the 5-6 group, where it's not only easier to win your series, but the opponents aren't as good.
There's the race of the good teams to finish 3-4 rather than 5-6, and have the advantage rather than the disadvantage in the handicapping.
And the race among the best teams to get a top-2 seed -- to win their division, if you have 4 x 8, as you should after expansion -- and get almost a free pass into the next round.
So: all series are 7 game series. But in the first round, the higher seeds get one, two, or even three games in hand. I have to work out the math to see what would be fair. But here's an example.
Imagine that making the playoffs as a 7 or 8 seed, with a .500-ish record means you have to sweep 4 games to defeat a division champion (which is to say, the top seeds get three wins in hand). It's almost a formality for the first-place clubs. But imagine the pressure that starts to build if the first-place team loses the first 2 games at home ... which will happen to one of the 4 champs probably 2 years out of 3. And now the series moves to the wild-card team's park, where two more victories would create an epic upset. People would lose their minds.
And I don't think it will be more random (less fair) than the current 5-game DS. In fact, my goal is to create a format where the odds of the weaker team winning by sheer luck are worse than the current DS.
You have not only the trick of giving the higher seed one or more games in hand, but you can also give them more of a home-field advantage. You should be able to create a system where your regular season performance gives you an absolutely fair and appropriate advantage in the first round. And yet you still would have to earn your way into the next round given that advantage. It would be interesting in a fantasy league or something, but it seems overly Byzantine for real life. Playoffs are meant to be a clean slate — having teams get in but then badly hampering them seems unsporting. I mean, the usual outcome... the greatly advantaged team wins... becomes a sort of boring interlude on the way to real competition. In effect the only possible excitement is the once in a blue moon comeback. The only rationale for expanding the playoffs is revenue — it keeps fans paying for mediocre teams that might slide in anyway. But these first round games would not be especially alluring — not until at least a series reaches game 6 or even 7. Even with the switches it’s lipstick on a pig. I am surprised though that they don’t expand by two teams and divide into 4 divisions of 4. Then you get 4 division winners, 2 wild cards, same expanded playoffs but with teams “earning” it as much as now. East, South, North, West. Not saying it is a great idea, but it does what they want and keeps it a bit more traditional. 1) Actually, they're not clean slates. We give a home-field advantage to the better team. We reward the best teams by letting them play the worst teams. Giving wins in hand is radical, but it's deciidely not Byzantine. It's incredibly straightforward.
2) But we have that "usual outcomes" scenario every year in the NCAA, when the talent advantage of 1 seeds over the 16 seeds in each regional bracket is huge.
These teams usually get slaughtered. Last time it was 85-62, 87-49, 71-56, and in a thriller, 88-73.
Which is true?
- The fans of these last-seed teams are indifferent to getting into the tournament because their odds of beating one of the four best teams in the country are essentially nil. The fans of the top 4 teams usually don't watch because they almost always win.
- The fans of the 16 seeds are psyched because, who knows what might happen? They can dream. The fans of the top seed watch because they can't rule out a crazy loss, and they take the margin of victory to be a sign of how well the team might play going forward.
Now, it's not a perfect analogy, because the 16-seed sort of teams can go years between tournament berths. But the 8 seeds in this plan would have much better chances of winning a series, because sometimes they would actually be as good as the 1 seed. A 1 seed that has lost their #1 starter, and an 8 seed that made the playoffs because they called up the next HOF pitcher on August 1 -- that changes the pitching matchups in every game.
And of course, because the starting pitcher is 30% of your team in terms of impact on winning (excluding the fact that elite pitching actually does beat elite hitting, in general), and because their performance is so variable, every game is very credibly competitive.
3) Four-team divisions are an awful idea. Any random set of 4 teams might have three great teams, 4 mediocre to lousy teams, whatever. You do have (rarely-mentioned) divisions for scheduling, which means there's a slight schedule imbalance within each of your four 8-team conferences.* But taking the top 2 teams from each conference is much better than arbitrarily giving the equivalent of a top seed to the team with the best record in a strictly geographic grouping of four teams, no matter how weak they are collectively.
*The divisions would only matter in playoff seeding tiebreakers. Tie goes to the team whose division had the better W/L record. I'd make that the first tie-breaker and make head-to-head the second. Head-to-head is way too random, because the pitching matchups are accidental. (Within division, it's still the first tiebreaker and run differential is the second.)
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Post by manfred on Sept 26, 2020 11:26:34 GMT -5
It would be interesting in a fantasy league or something, but it seems overly Byzantine for real life. Playoffs are meant to be a clean slate — having teams get in but then badly hampering them seems unsporting. I mean, the usual outcome... the greatly advantaged team wins... becomes a sort of boring interlude on the way to real competition. In effect the only possible excitement is the once in a blue moon comeback. The only rationale for expanding the playoffs is revenue — it keeps fans paying for mediocre teams that might slide in anyway. But these first round games would not be especially alluring — not until at least a series reaches game 6 or even 7. Even with the switches it’s lipstick on a pig. I am surprised though that they don’t expand by two teams and divide into 4 divisions of 4. Then you get 4 division winners, 2 wild cards, same expanded playoffs but with teams “earning” it as much as now. East, South, North, West. Not saying it is a great idea, but it does what they want and keeps it a bit more traditional. 1) Actually, they're not clean slates. We give a home-field advantage to the better team. We reward the best teams by letting them play the worst teams. Giving wins in hand is radical, but it's deciidely not Byzantine. It's incredibly straightforward.
2) But we have that "usual outcomes" scenario every year in the NCAA, when the talent advantage of 1 seeds over the 16 seeds in each regional bracket is huge.
These teams usually get slaughtered. Last time it was 85-62, 87-49, 71-56, and in a thriller, 88-73.
Which is true?
- The fans of these last-seed teams are indifferent to getting into the tournament because their odds of beating one of the four best teams in the country are essentially nil. The fans of the top 4 teams usually don't watch because they almost always win.
- The fans of the 16 seeds are psyched because, who knows what might happen? They can dream. The fans of the top seed watch because they can't rule out a crazy loss, and they take the margin of victory to be a sign of how well the team might play going forward.
Now, it's not a perfect analogy, because the 16-seed sort of teams can go years between tournament berths. But the 8 seeds in this plan would have much better chances of winning a series, because sometimes they would actually be as good as the 1 seed. A 1 seed that has lost their #1 starter, and an 8 seed that made the playoffs because they called up the next HOF pitcher on August 1 -- that changes the pitching matchups in every game.
And of course, because the starting pitcher is 30% of your team in terms of impact on winning (excluding the fact that elite pitching actually does beat elite hitting, in general), and because their performance is so variable, every game is very credibly competitive.
3) Four-team divisions are an awful idea. Any random set of 4 teams might have three great teams, 4 mediocre to lousy teams, whatever. You do have (rarely-mentioned) divisions for scheduling, which means there's a slight schedule imbalance within each of your four 8-team conferences.* But taking the top 2 teams from each conference is much better than arbitrarily giving the equivalent of a top seed to the team with the best record in a strictly geographic grouping of four teams, no matter how weak they are collectively.
*The divisions would only matter in playoff seeding tiebreakers. Tie goes to the team whose division had the better W/L record. I'd make that the first tie-breaker and make head-to-head the second. Head-to-head is way too random, because the pitching matchups are accidental. (Within division, it's still the first tiebreaker and run differential is the second.)
But those 16-seed teams have virtually always won a conference. They are rarely “wild cards.” And... as someone affiliated with a “Cinderella” school, I can say that making the tourney at all is a windfall financially (in fact, being one-and-done is better financially than making it a few rounds, great as it is for the fans). For little schools, the banner is enough. I don’t know that baseball fans will feel quite as proud of streaks of making the first round. Anyway, it is apples and oranges. The NCAA is trying to spread the wealth (literally and metaphorically). For most participants, a championship is not even a dream.... being there, maybe a win, if a miracle happens, reaching the second weekend... all great. I am not advocating the 4-division plan. Just saying if they expand the playoffs, it might be a good reason to expand, too.
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Post by alexcorahomevideo on Sept 26, 2020 11:31:25 GMT -5
I'm seriously beginning to wonder if Manfred is doing this to justify expansion into Nashville. 2 more teams would certainly make sense if the playoffs are going to stay this way.
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Post by manfred on Sept 26, 2020 11:36:01 GMT -5
I'm seriously beginning to wonder if Manfred is doing this to justify expansion into Nashville. 2 more teams would certainly make sense if the playoffs are going to stay this way. Is Nashville next up? I could see Vegas (with a dome, I’m guessing).
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Post by rjp313jr on Sept 26, 2020 11:39:55 GMT -5
Baseball is smart to do this from a ratings perspective. It’s very much a local game and this puts more meaning on those games for more trams. Most people don’t care about the games that don’t include their team. They won’t watch them, which is why the playoff and WS ratings are pretty poor and in decline.
Eric, I like your thought process but I think giving wins to a higher seed is too much. Maybe another home game so it’s a 5-2 split. Let it go 2-2-3 in the first round for the higher seeds.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 26, 2020 11:55:27 GMT -5
Baseball is smart to do this from a ratings perspective. It’s very much a local game and this puts more meaning on those games for more trams. Most people don’t care about the games that don’t include their team. They won’t watch them, which is why the playoff and WS ratings are pretty poor and in decline. Eric, I like your thought process but I think giving wins to a higher seed is too much. Maybe another home game so it’s a 5-2 split. Let it go 2-2-3 in the first round for the higher seeds. Giving wins to a higher seed because they are playing teams that would not otherwise be in the playoffs at all is not too much. It is, in fact, the only way to justify letting in teams 13-16.
Making the best teams in baseball win even a 7 game series against a .520 sort of club in order to advance is just a recipe for grief, which is why nearly everybody hates it (including me). I'll be calculating the odds that the weaker team can win by sheer luck. It's going to be too large for comfort.
And you really can't add a whole extra round of full 7-game series without throwing in at least 2 doubleheaders ... or starting the season a few days earlier with all the games in warm-weather cities or domes (which may be a good idea regardless). The games in hand reduce the wild-card series to a 4 or 5 day period on the calendar.
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Post by rjp313jr on Sept 26, 2020 12:32:27 GMT -5
Baseball is smart to do this from a ratings perspective. It’s very much a local game and this puts more meaning on those games for more trams. Most people don’t care about the games that don’t include their team. They won’t watch them, which is why the playoff and WS ratings are pretty poor and in decline. Eric, I like your thought process but I think giving wins to a higher seed is too much. Maybe another home game so it’s a 5-2 split. Let it go 2-2-3 in the first round for the higher seeds. Giving wins to a higher seed because they are playing teams that would not otherwise be in the playoffs at all is not too much. It is, in fact, the only way to justify letting in teams 13-16.
Making the best teams in baseball win even a 7 game series against a .520 sort of club in order to advance is just a recipe for grief, which is why nearly everybody hates it (including me). I'll be calculating the odds that the weaker team can win by sheer luck. It's going to be too large for comfort.
And you really can't add a whole extra round of full 7-game series without throwing in at least 2 doubleheaders ... or starting the season a few days earlier with all the games in warm-weather cities or domes (which may be a good idea regardless). The games in hand reduce the wild-card series to a 4 or 5 day period on the calendar.
If you give them more than one game in hand then it all turns into a farce and even that kind of is. Other sports have an 8 team playoff field and the 8 seed plays the 1 seed. In hockey, 8 seeds actually win some series. It actually makes the playoffs more interesting not less.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Sept 26, 2020 12:54:21 GMT -5
I've actually come around to supporting a 16-team playoff. The 162 games should count tremendously, but they should not be the final word for teams that weren't bad. Well, you've come around to supporting an idea about a 16-team playoff, but not anything that MLB would ever actually do. Out of curiosity, are there any sports leagues in the world that do the 'spot one team a couple of wins in a playoff tournament' format? I think spotting a 1 or 2 seed in a playoff tournament is the only fair thing in this scenario. I actually had that idea a page or so back, but no in the real world that wouldn't happen and because it won't there is no real justification beyond financial in which the idea of expanding the playoff format to include 16 teams which is just about anybody around .500 or better makes any sense whatsoever. This is another horrible idea by MLB.
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Post by DesignatedForAssignment on Sept 26, 2020 12:57:49 GMT -5
1 TB 2 OAK 3 MINN 4 CLE 5 NYY 6 HOU 7 CHW 8 TOR
under my system: TB V. CHW OAK V. TOR MINN V. HOU CLE V. NYY
avoid same division matchups
Or 1 TB 2 MINN 3 OAK 4 CLE 5 NYY 6 HOU 7 CHW 8 TOR
under my system: TB V. CHW MINN V. TOR OAK V. NYY CLE V. HOU
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Post by Papi's Gift on Sept 26, 2020 14:34:16 GMT -5
I've actually come around to supporting a 16-team playoff. The 162 games should count tremendously, but they should not be the final word for teams that weren't bad.
Well, you've come around to supporting an idea about a 16-team playoff, but not anything that MLB would ever actually do. Out of curiosity, are there any sports leagues in the world that do the 'spot one team a couple of wins in a playoff tournament' format? I think the Japanese leagues do, at least in one round. The first place teams in the Central League and the Pacific League get first round byes. The second and third place teams in each league play each other in best of three series. Those two winners play the first place team in their league in a 6 game series, with the league winner starting with a win in hand, i.e. they need only 3 wins while the winner of the earlier series needs 4. The two winners of those league championship series then play a "normal" best of 7 games in the Japan Series for the national championship.
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Post by unitspin on Sept 26, 2020 15:03:10 GMT -5
I'm seriously beginning to wonder if Manfred is doing this to justify expansion into Nashville. 2 more teams would certainly make sense if the playoffs are going to stay this way. More teams is going to be a hard sell to other owners. When so many teams depend on league money just to keep the lights on.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Sept 26, 2020 17:27:51 GMT -5
#1 vs #8 in NBA playoffs are 67-5 since 1983/84. I don't ever hear #8 seeds that don't want to be there or people talking about ending that because it's so bad.
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