10/2 Cheering/Venting & playoff bound teams

[Skin Blues]

Vulture saves are hard to predict, I've basically added a bunch of middle relievers in hopes of one or two. Got a vulture win from Ziegler but that doesn't help me at all. Two of my leagues are down to the wire... was leading both a few hours ago but now I'm down by 0.5 pts in one of them. For the most part it's out of my control. Saves and WHIP are the only places I could possibly move up or down in, and all I have for tomorrow is Cliff Lee and 8 relievers. And Vogelsong, but there's no way in hell I'm running him out there. The guy ahead of me in WHIP is at 1.2399 and has maxed out his pitching, and I'm at 1.2400. One ten-thousandth of a WHIP-point back of winning the league.

[thedude]

The way I see it is that the playoffs are largely a crapshoot, anyway, so I'm OK with the one-game playoff.

What difference does it really make whether you eliminate teams in a one-game playoff as opposed to a seven-game playoff? There's a huge amount of randomness and luck involved in either case.

Giving a bye to 6 teams and making 4 others play an extra round is as much an issue as the fact it's only one game. Especially when the 4 teams in danger of being forced to play an extra round happen to be the top 4 teams in the league while the 7th best team is guaranteed a bye. From a fan (and financial) standpoint, it's also a pretty big letdown to have your team dominate all season only to be bumped out after a single playoff game. I suppose all of this is the same as the NFL, which I'm not a fan of at all, so maybe that's why everybody seems to like it.

They didn't dominate. There were teams in their own division with better records. No matter the system there is going to be some luck involved. Is it fair that team X randomly faced team Y when team y was healthy, but team z played team y who was missing several key players?

Is it fair my team faced the Cy Young winner four times while your team never faced him? You are never going make a completely fair system.

This system is exciting since it creates tension at the end if the regular system and then has a high tension post season. That excitement makes it a good system, since excitement is the reason many watch sports.



The NFL plays a 16 game unbalanced regular season and a series of single elimination playoff series. It is the sport that is least fair, but is the most successful.

NCAA basketball? Very unfair...

[AussieDodger]

162 games is far too small of a sample size to be able to draw any meaningful conclusions. The only fair way to do it would be to play a 10-year, 1,620 game season, then at the end of the decade you award the team with the best record the World Series trophy. You could still give the trophy out every year, but each year would be based on a decade's worth of games. So the 2012 World Series goes to the team with the best record from 2003-2012. For 2013, you go back to 2004 to start aggregating records, etc. That would prevent fluke teams like this year's Orioles from having a chance at winning baseball's most coveted trophy. Why should a team that has a decade-long run of futility get to compete for the World Series just because of a good 162 games. Ridiculous. Also, for teams that are strong over a period of many years, having one down year due to injuries and back luck (think: 2012 Red Sox) won't doom them and prevent them from being able to compete year in and year out for the championship. I don't care about these upstarts who string together a few dozen good games once a decade. I want long-term, sustained excellence.

*edited because I'm not real good at the maths.

That is only satisfactory if you're a limp-wristed nancy-boy and only use the small sample of 10 years.
If MLB wanted to run a league like a boss they'd use all-time record. It'll put hair on your chest.
Observe:



Want to be world champion? Win more games.