AussieDodger wrote:I would rather see more inter-league baseball. Say if all the AL teams played all the NL teams for one series of 3. Then it can't be unbalanced. Interleague = 48 AL vs AL = 114 I think 114 is still a massive amount of games to show who has supremacy in the AL. I'm thinking the match-ups will be for the good of the game. Pujols vs Beckett, Sabathia vs Mets, Lincecum vs Sox/Yankees etc.
Variety baby!
Well, it would be tempting to see if each and every NL team could finish the season with a losing overall record.....
Another huge farce... in basically every sense of the word.
It's like baseball can't decide if it should be an exhibition or if they want it to matter. Make up your minds already!!!
You want a fan-voted exhibition, where it's all nice and fuzzy and all the casual fans can pretend like they're real baseball fans, and somehow their uneducated opinion matters? Fine, leave it the way it is, but it can't decide anything (let alone the freaking World Series), can it?
You want a true "All Star" game, with legitimate league-leading guys to compete in a real game that's going to impact the World Series? Get rid of the every-team minimum, let the managers decide who's going to play and start, and let's make this thing a real competition. Who cares if the casual fan doesn't understand why Jeter isn't starting, or why Ichiro isn't batting twice per inning. If it's going to count for something, the players in it better damn well be chosen by someone who knows what the hell they're doing!
Don't touch the Wildcard. Easily the best thing that's happened to regular season baseball. Ever.
AussieDodger wrote: Whoever wants the wild card taken away should be tazered to death and then drowned in monkey feces.
Heaven forbid winning your division actually meant something.
You are right it should mean something , but............... If one division has a 97 game winner and 96 game winner, and another division is won by someone with 83 wins, wouldn't you like to see a window to the play-offs for the 96 win team? They are certainly deserving of it for reaching that level of excellence.
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AussieDodger wrote: Whoever wants the wild card taken away should be tazered to death and then drowned in monkey feces.
Heaven forbid winning your division actually meant something.
You are right it should mean something , but............... If one division has a 97 game winner and 96 game winner, and another division is won by someone with 83 wins, wouldn't you like to see a window to the play-offs for the 96 win team? They are certainly deserving of it for reaching that level of excellence.
I actually like the Wild Card for the excitement it adds to the final several weeks of the regular season. As a fan, it helps me enjoy more of the league outside of my own team. However, it devalues what it means to make the playoffs, IMO. In order to remove it, however, you'd have to revamp the entire system all together. So, in short, I am not advocating that it be removed.
AussieDodger wrote: Whoever wants the wild card taken away should be tazered to death and then drowned in monkey feces.
Heaven forbid winning your division actually meant something.
You are right it should mean something , but............... If one division has a 97 game winner and 96 game winner, and another division is won by someone with 83 wins, wouldn't you like to see a window to the play-offs for the 96 win team? They are certainly deserving of it for reaching that level of excellence.
Under that logic, it shouldn't be a wild card: it should be a qualifier. Every team over X wins makes the playoffs. Because what if there was a team that won 95 games? Wouldn't they be, "certainly deserving it for reaching that level of excellence"?
What baseball does right, and the NBA does wrong, is make it very difficult to make the post-season. More teams making the playoffs doesn't make it more exciting: it just makes it more dilutive. More teams have a chance? They all have a chance: they all play in the regular season. The only thing more playoff series does is put more $$ in the MLB coffers (which is why it was a Bud idea) and make it so that almost all of the, "post-season" counting records are owned by modern-day players.
0-3 to 4-3. Worst choke in the history of baseball. Enough said.
Matthias wrote:What baseball does right, and the NBA does wrong, is make it very difficult to make the post-season. More teams making the playoffs doesn't make it more exciting: it just makes it more dilutive. More teams have a chance? They all have a chance: they all play in the regular season. The only thing more playoff series does is put more $$ in the MLB coffers (which is why it was a Bud idea) and make it so that almost all of the, "post-season" counting records are owned by modern-day players.
Well, I was with you right up until that last sentance... you're right about the $$ thing, a definite bonus for the ownership.
But come on... post-season counting records? Honestly, who the heck cares about that? I know baseball records are the most revered records, and it's history is so rich and important, but sometimes this sport just gets so antiquated and stodgy that it makes me laugh. The baseball "elite" are nothing more than a bunch of crusty old guys who get off on nostalgia. They're the same reason why the Hall of Fame/Steroid garbage has gotten so much run in the media.... making things more important than they really are.
Anyway... back to regularly scheduled bickering... unless we're ready to completely scrap the current system and re-align the teams into four or eight divisions (like football), the Wildcard is absolutely necessary. It essentially saves the last month+ of the season from being completely meaningless in just about every division other than the AL East.
What can I say: when Fox starts going nutso because such-and-such player, "just set a record for the number of hits in one postseason" it annoys me. Or in the NFL when Emmitt Smith becomes the career rushing leader and noone mentions that for 13 years, there were 12 games/season and then until 1978 there were 14 games/season. Instead everyone just gets into, "And that's a record!!!" without contextualizing it.
0-3 to 4-3. Worst choke in the history of baseball. Enough said.
AussieDodger wrote:You are right it should mean something , but............... If one division has a 97 game winner and 96 game winner, and another division is won by someone with 83 wins, wouldn't you like to see a window to the play-offs for the 96 win team? They are certainly deserving of it for reaching that level of excellence.
Under that logic, it shouldn't be a wild card: it should be a qualifier. Every team over X wins makes the playoffs. Because what if there was a team that won 95 games? Wouldn't they be, "certainly deserving it for reaching that level of excellence"?
What baseball does right, and the NBA does wrong, is make it very difficult to make the post-season. More teams making the playoffs doesn't make it more exciting: it just makes it more dilutive. More teams have a chance? They all have a chance: they all play in the regular season. The only thing more playoff series does is put more $$ in the MLB coffers (which is why it was a Bud idea) and make it so that almost all of the, "post-season" counting records are owned by modern-day players.
So are you in favor of the wildcard or not? I understand and agree with your statement that more teams don't necessarily make it more exciting, but too few (i.e. pre-wildcard) penalizes worthy teams that did in fact do well enough in the regular season to qualify (e.g. a 97 win team in one division being excluded while an 81 win team from the other division makes it in). I think the wild-card is the perfect mix - 25% of the teams make it in and the wildcard chase is very exciting. Obviously the division races are not always as important, but its a worthwhile sacrifice.
"The government cannot give to anyone anything that it does not first take from someone else"
bigh0rt wrote:I actually like the Wild Card for the excitement it adds to the final several weeks of the regular season. As a fan, it helps me enjoy more of the league outside of my own team. However, it devalues what it means to make the playoffs, IMO. In order to remove it, however, you'd have to revamp the entire system all together. So, in short, I am not advocating that it be removed.
still, having only 8 teams in both the AL and NL is a small percentage (the smallest in all sports). i couldnt imagine only 2 teams from each league making it nowadays. 90 % of baseball would be "rebuilding".
I think that Interleague Play has run its course, and has become a nuisance, especially with regard to the unbalanced schedule brought about by it. The Braves, for example, had to play Boston, Detroit, Minnesota, and Cleveland last year, while Philly got Detroit, Cleveland, ChiSox, KC, and Toronto. There are enough games there to make a difference in the final standings. MLB should adopt a similar schedule to the NFL in regards to cross league play: every team in a division plays the entirety of another division in the other league, cycled every three years, plus one series against the equal-ranked team in one of the other divisions, cycled every other year. So in the NL East you'll have the top four teams play the AL West, but the Phillies in addition might draw the Red Sox while the Braves draw the Twins. I also like the one game crosstown natural rivalry idea. One game wont mess up the schedule or be a detriment to the season balance.
On Wild card:
I like the Wild Card in general. It gives teams a chance to make the playoffs when they are good but in a division with a superior team. What I dont like is that the nature of baseball allows for too many wild card teams to make it to the World Series because they are hot or get lucky breaks. I would either expand the first round to seven games, or make the first round entirely in the superior team's ballpark. No home games if you are a 3rd or 4th seed. That might balance things a little more and put more importance again on those 162 games a team played in the regular season.
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by Noggy » Tue Feb 05, 2008 11:48 am 
