I haven't figured out which team I think was the best of 2011. Perhaps that's because I don't care about that, other than as some academic exercise I have no real interest in unless asked?

Every disparaging comment you've made about the postseason completely belies that claim. You may not care which team is "best", but you sure as hell seem to care an awful lot about making sure it's not necessarily the World Series winner. And for someone who claims to enjoy the postseason as much as you do, you sure have made a lot of negative comments about it---about 4+ years worth, aamof. It's hard to imagine anyone who keeps harping on "meaningless exhibition games" deriving any significant amount of pleasure out of them.

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Since you regard the postseason as essentially a series of meaningless exhibition games, I can see where you're coming from, but to most fans, the winner of the World Series is "the champion", and anything beyond that is just so much cudda shudda wudda.

And that is evidence that most fans are stupid when it comes to this issue, and, as Ray has said, don't understand what they're seeing.

Yes, vaux, that's it. Everyone who doesn't share your jaundiced view about meaningless exhibition games is just stupid. We should really be concentrating on the glories of May matchups between the Royals and the Orioles instead, paying special attention to the cumulative run differentials while we're at it.

The fact that most people think something doesn't make it true. At one time most people thought the sun revolved around the earth. Did that make it true?

Somehow I don't think that Galileo ever opined much on the relative significance of October baseball to pre-October baseball, but then what do I know?

I don't have any objection to the exercise, only to the often-whining tone that somehow it's "unfair" that an "inferior" team like the Cardinals gets recognition as champions, while fans of "better" teams like the Yankees or the Phillies or the Rangers have to sit there and take it.

It is unfair. How can it not be unfair that the winners of 162-game seasons have to be subjected to short series not against teams from other, completely different 162-game seasons that they played in other leagues, but against teams that they themselves have already defeated?

My only response to that is: Who gives a shit whether it's "fair" or not? Of the approximately 103,765,409,331,955,210 "unfair" events that occur on Earth every day we breathe, that particular "unfairness" doesn't even approach second wild card status. It's funny how so few (if any) people actually connected with the game ever piss and moan about the "unfairness" of the wild card. They simply recognize the fact that you can't rest on your regular season laurels in October, and take it as part of the deal, without any noticeable complaint. It's only a handful of armchair critics pining for a return to the days of Bobby Thomson who seem to want to dwell on such utterly trivial matters.

I remember Simmons once did a podcast with Mike Lombardi after Pittsburgh won the 2008 Super Bowl, and his question was if the best team in the NFL had won the Super Bowl. I find this kind of question infuriating. It implies that the best team is always set in stone and that the random nature of playoff results are somehow just a cosmic fluke and nothing more meaningful.

Implies? I'll state my view flat out: at least for major league baseball (I can't speak to the other sports), playoff results are virtually a cosmic fluke and almost nothing more meaningful.

That people here apparently can't live with that obvious truth is not my problem.

The Rams beat the Saints last Sunday. Are they really a "better" team than New Orleans? Who ####### cares? The Rams stomped on their nuts, and that's the only result that ends up truly mattering. It's why you stage the games at all. And if the "better" team doesn't win, that doesn't make it unlucky or unfair. Take your loss like a man don't be a ####### gash about it. The Giant Snatch wasn't luck. It was ####### glorious. I wish the Patriots lost that way every ####### week.

Andy couldn't have said it better himself. He apparently thinks this issue is about being a Man.

But the fact that the Patriots were better than the Giants that year is precisely what makes that Super Bowl so memorable.

That certainly seemed like they cared, a lot.

They were misguided in caring that much.

Yes.

Yep. I'm not sure what the "caring" proves beyond the fact that guys want to play in the postseason and win in the postseason. Professional athletes want to do well when everyone's watching.

What a value judgment. Search your mind for another reason why a competitor on a team might want to do well, maybe it will come to you.


Yes.

Not good enough. How much should they be caring, in your opinion?

It's probably not all that rare that postseason pitching plays a part in arm injuries. It's just difficult for us to identify that as the specific cause, particularly with the lengthy break that follows.

But that won't stop you from pretending that the postseason probably hurts pitchers arms more than the regular season does.

We know very little about what specicfically causes arm injuries to pitchers, even after all this time. Nearly the sum total of what we know is "If he tries to throw this baseball at 100 miles an hour, he might hurt his arm at some point between now and 20 years from now." We know almost nothing else.

I think you are imagining things and putting your personal biased perception onto other peoples comments. Not one person on this thread or probably ever in the history of BBTF, has stated that the World Series determines the best team.

Again, it's not necessarily about "best team" but what people think the World Series, to use Andy's word, "proves."

And I can assure you Andy et al think the postseason "proves" more than just "this team mostly got lucky and won." But I'll let Andy explain just what he thinks the postseason "proves." Others are welcome to explain as well.

Oh good grief! You're still on about this? I keep checking in to see if anything interesting breaks out. So far, no.

But that won't stop you from pretending that the postseason probably hurts pitchers arms more than the regular season does.

Were you dropped on your head at some point?

I've never claimed that postseason pitching hurts pitchers more than regular season pitching. I've never implied that. I've never thought it but was afraid to write it.

I believe pitching is a dangerous task. I think the shoulder and elbow can't discern the difference between the important innings of the regular season and the more exhibitiony ones of the postseason, and thus injury can befall a pitcher at any time. The added innings of the postseason opens the pitchers up to risk of injury that their stay-at-home compadres aren't facing. Thus, I think that disregarding those equally dangerous innings thrown in the postseason when we're evaluating them for HoF purposes is quite unfair.

The question I have to ask myself is why am I writing this? Because I know that somehow you'll read what I've written as:

I've never claimed that postseason pitching hurts pitchers more than regular season pitching. I've never implied that. I've never thought it but was afraid to write it.


I believe pitching is a dangerous task. I think the shoulder and elbow can't discern the difference between the important innings of the regular season and the more exhibitiony ones of the postseason, and thus injury can befall a pitcher at any time. The added innings of the postseason opens the pitchers up to a risk of injury that their stay-at-home compadres aren't facing. Thus, I think that disregarding those equally dangerous innings thrown in the postseason when we're evaluating them for HoF purposes is quite unfair.

But that won't stop you from pretending that the postseason probably hurts pitchers arms more than the regular season does.

We know very little about what specicfically causes arm injuries to pitchers, even after all this time. Nearly the sum total of what we know is "If he tries to throw this baseball at 100 miles an hour, he might hurt his arm at some point between now and 20 years from now." We know almost nothing else.

Sticking to a specific case, because it's easy for me to say with certaintude:

In 2002, Robb Nen had an MRI and discovered he had a torn labrum. Obviously, this is a bad thing, but he kept pitching because the Giants were in the World Series. He tore his labrum further. While it was always somewhat dicey that he would recover, pitching in the World Series made his recovery go from dicey to non-existent. I don't believe, and he stated, that he would not have done it in the regular season.

not to be too ignorant or even to pretend for one second that I support Ray's position, but pointing to relatively recent examples of people trashing their potential careers, could be taken as a point in Rays argument about people over valuing the post season.

mind you, I don't completly agree with ray, in that I do think that in todays game and in the past even, that the goal was always two fold(post 1904) win the regular season and win in the post season. The post season has a bigger aspect because of the buzz and of course the small group of competitors....

Sticking to a specific case, because it's easy for me to say with certaintude:

In 2002, Robb Nen had an MRI and discovered he had a torn labrum. Obviously, this is a bad thing, but he kept pitching because the Giants were in the World Series. He tore his labrum further. While it was always somewhat dicey that he would recover, pitching in the World Series made his recovery go from dicey to non-existent. I don't believe, and he stated, that he would not have done it in the regular season.

There are a few cases where players were in effect brainwashed to put their careers at serious risk in an effort to win the luck tournament.

It's never a good thing.

I'll state my view flat out: at least for major league baseball (I can't speak to the other sports), playoff results are virtually a cosmic fluke and almost nothing more meaningful....

But the fact that the Patriots were better than the Giants that year is precisely what makes that Super Bowl so memorable.

So what really gets you off about the postseason isn't the drama, and it isn't the sight of players exceeding or failing to live up to their preassigned "talent level" in the heat of competition, in order to win the highest team award that the sport bestows. None of that sissy stuff. That's for suckers who don't understand what they're watching.

No, the true enjoyment of the postseason is that it gives us the chance of seeing the Washington Generals beat the Globetrotters, and other meaningless comic flukes.

Got it. And you want to be baseball's latex salesman.

And I can assure you Andy et al think the postseason "proves" more than just "this team mostly got lucky and won." But I'll let Andy explain just what he thinks the postseason "proves." Others are welcome to explain as well.

The postseason doesn't "prove" a damn thing other than one team can call itself the "World Champion". And the regular season doesn't prove a damn thing other than six teams can call themselves "regular season division champion"**, and two more teams can say that they qualified for the first round of the postseason. And to the extent that 100% of Major League ballplayers and 99.99% of their fans would rather walk around with the first honor rather than the latter, the postseason has more "meaning" than the regular season. But I'm sure that Cardinals fans who "understood what they were watching" found 2004 infinitely more "meaningful" than 2011.

**No matter how many or how few games they actually won, and no matter what division they might have been "lucky" enough to be placed in. Funny how that enormous factor of divisional assignment almost never enters into all this talk about "luck", or the fact that for the past decade, the "luckiest" team in baseball has been the Twins, who four times in eight years qualified for the postseason by winning the ALC, in spite of the fact that they won fewer games than a wild card team that was playing in a stronger division. You can talk about the "luck" involved in winning the World Series, and in many years you'd be right. But no "luck" can compare with the luck of being placed in the American League Central every year by sheer accident of geography.

But I'm sure that Cardinals fans who "understood what they were watching" found 2004 infinitely more "meaningful" than 2011.

The Cardinals' accomplishments in 2004 were more meaningful than 2011. Their 2004 team was an elite team; their 2011 wasn't, but happened to luck out in the silly tournament baseball has put together. In the same vein, the 2011 Phillies accomplishments were more meaningful than the 2011 Cardinals'. They never should have been paired together in a best-of-5 postseason series.

I remain perplexed at your deference to mass opinion. All you're saying is that the masses prefer an ersatz award based on luck in a random tournament that doesn't take a lot of effort and attention to follow, over actual accomplishment earned over time, without a lot of identifiable moments of fanfare.

Of course they do. They have neither the attention span nor the discernment to prefer true baseball accomplishments. I fail to see why that sort of thing should be encouraged, though.

The Cardinals' accomplishments in 2004 were more meaningful than 2011.

Baseball accomplishments are not inherently meaningful... people assign them meaning by caring about them, discussing them, and using certain things as their goal (for those actually in baseball). Given this, their championship in 2011 is certainly more 'meaningful' than their NL pennant in 2004.

There are a few cases where players were in effect brainwashed to put their careers at serious risk in an effort to win the luck tournament.

Ha ha, oh man. I think this insane post once and for all proves who actually "doesn't understand what they are watching."

But I'm sure that Cardinals fans who "understood what they were watching" found 2004 infinitely more "meaningful" than 2011.

The Cardinals' accomplishments in 2004 were more meaningful than 2011. Their 2004 team was an elite team; their 2011 wasn't, but happened to luck out in the silly tournament baseball has put together. In the same vein, the 2011 Phillies accomplishments were more meaningful than the 2011 Cardinals'. They never should have been paired together in a best-of-5 postseason series..

Yeah, they should have been paired in a 10,000,000 game computer sim instead. That's where the real wars are fought.

I remain perplexed at your deference to mass opinion.

I'm not perplexed at all by your ignoring the opinion of everyone who plays the game, and 99.9% of the game's fans, since you seem to inhabit a world of your own. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

All you're saying is that the masses prefer an ersatz award based on luck in a random tournament that doesn't take a lot of effort and attention to follow, over actual accomplishment earned over time, without a lot of identifiable moments of fanfare.

You mean "actual accomplishments" like skillfully placing your city at a point on the map where the weakest teams in the league are strategically located, as opposed to winning three straight series against three of the best teams in the game?

Of course they do. They have neither the attention span nor the discernment to prefer true baseball accomplishments. I fail to see why that sort of thing should be encouraged, though.

Obviously the only way to resolve your oh-so-pressing "problem" of inappropriate celebration and underappreciated accomplishment would to eliminate the postseason altogether, and reconstruct MLB into one 30 team league with an evenly balanced 174 game roundrobin schedule, with each team playing every other team 3 times at home and 3 times on the road. You could fit the whole thing into this.

Then you and Ray could synergize your world class insights, plug every pitch of the season into your little computers, and determine which team "should have" won the most games, and declare them the "true World Champions." The winner would be awarded a complete set of legally purchased Hawaiian Five O DVDs.

Of course at some point the Japanese or the Dominicans might want to to get in on the act. But that's for another thread.

Ha ha, oh man. I think this insane post once and for all proves who actually "doesn't understand what they are watching."

I wouldn't say "brainwashed" necessarily, because that -- like the rest of the thread -- ignores the money the playoff winners take home. Tastes have changed to the point where the media and the masses persist in the cliche that "they just want to win" and similar hoohoo (*), but the reality is that, in 2009, a World Series winners' share was $365,000, and the losers' share was $265,000. Not only is the $90,000 difference a helluva lot of money, but the shares themselves are a helluva lot of money.

A miniumum salary guy basically doubles his pay if his team wins the World Series. And three hundred sixty-five large is a lot of coin even if you're making 10 million.(**)

(*) Unlike more honest, less corporatized, more mature times when WS winners admitted how much they wanted the money they'd get if their team won.

(**) And as practically every married guy out there knows, a World Series share -- like every one-off bonus -- is perceived much more by their spouse as "the guy's own money," rendering it even sweeter to the guy that earns it.

Yeah, they should have been paired in a 10,000,000 game computer sim instead. That's where the real wars are fought.

No need for that, either; the regular season of actual games made it clear that the Phillies were an unambiguously better team and one that earned its entitlement to compete in the postseason.

And as practically every married guy out there knows, a World Series share -- like every one-off bonus -- is perceived much more by their spouse as "the guy's own money," rendering it even sweeter to the guy that earns it.

More brilliant psychological psychic insight.

No need for that, either; the regular season of actual games made it clear that the Phillies were an unambiguously better team and one that earned its entitlement to compete in the postseason.

You keep saying stuff like this but the Cardinals absolutely and unquestionably "earned" the right to be in the playoffs. You know how I know?

BECAUSE THE RULES SAY SO!!!

It's not like the Cardinals cheated or the rules were changed mid-stream to help the Cards. They entered the season with two very clear paths to the post-season;

1. Win the division
2. Have the best record among teams that do not win the division

You can ##### about it all you want but to say the Cardinals didn't "earn" their post-season berth is simply wrong. You and Ray don't like the post-season set up. We at least be intellectually honest enough to admit that the World Series is much more desired than a division or pennant by MLB players and that with the rules that currently exist the Cardinals were quite entitled to a spot in the post-season.

EDIT: I think Lassus may have messed up the strikethrough feature though it could just be a creative statement on his opinion on my post.

There are a few cases where players were in effect brainwashed to put their careers at serious risk in an effort to win the luck tournament.

Ha ha, oh man. I think this insane post once and for all proves who actually "doesn't understand what they are watching."

No. Go back and read post 259. It's very disturbing.

The postseason doesn't "prove" a damn thing other than one team can call itself the "World Champion".

My point exactly, Andy. If only people behaved as if they understood that.

No. Go back and read post 259. It's very disturbing.

Disturbing to you or not, it is insane to say that Nenn was brainwashed in any way, shape, or form.

Would a player in the 50's risking injury in the final days of a pennant race be just as disturbing to you?

Whooops.

Sorry, guys. I'll email Dan to see if he can fix these.

Robb Nen had a cranky motion and a chronically creaky shoulder. He pitched in the 2002 regular season with a sore shoulder, first complaining of pain on Septmeber 1. After the season, he had two arthrosopic surgeries that didn't work, and serious surgery in May 2003 that he never came back from.

The first surgery was in November 2002 and was termed "diagnostic," and thought to be just cleaning out "wear and tear." He did not pitch in the 2002 World Series with a labrum he knew was torn.

I wouldn't say "brainwashed" necessarily, because that -- like the rest of the thread -- ignores the money the playoff winners take home. Tastes have changed to the point where the media and the masses persist in the cliche that "they just want to win" and similar hoohoo (*),

(*) Unlike more honest, less corporatized, more mature times when WS winners admitted how much they wanted the money they'd get if their team won.

When those "more honest" players were roaming the playing fields of October, the minimum salary was $6,000, and a World Series winning share could be nearly double that, as it was in 1959. With today's minimum salary of $514,000, even a $365,000 winner's share is going to be far less important to a player's family budget than that much lower winner's share was BIT"MH"D of yesteryear. Inflation aside, you can live a hell of a lot better on 514,000 2011 dollars than you could on 6,000 1959 dollars.

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The postseason doesn't "prove" a damn thing other than one team can call itself the "World Champion".

My point exactly, Andy. If only people behaved as if they understood that.

But who here has been arguing otherwise? Has anyone here conflated a World Series title with proof about which team is the "best" in any sort of sabermetric sense?

Of course more attention is paid to the World Series winner than to the team with the best regular season record, but that's because the World Series has a 108 year tradition behind it as the culmination of the baseball season; because to win the World Series requires beating three of the best teams in baseball in consecutive series; because every team sets winning the World Series as its ultimate goal; and of course because the World Series is shown in prime time over the course of up to night evenings. Given all that, what would you expect? Complaining about that is like complaining that the Grand Slam winners in golf are accorded more publicity than the winner of the year-end lowest score average. You'd be making a valid technical point, but at the same time you'd be completely missing the overall picture.

When those "more honest" players were roaming the playing fields of October, the minimum salary was $6,000, and a World Series winning share could be nearly double that, as it was in 1959. With today's minimum salary of $514,000, even a $365,000 winner's share is going to be far less important to a player's family budget than that much lower winner's share was BIT"MH"D of yesteryear. Inflation aside, you can live a hell of a lot better on 514,000 2011 dollars than you could on 6,000 1959 dollars.

Just so no one's confused, the ratio between minimum salary and winners' share has been essentially the same since at least 1970. I wasn't really talking about 1959 in my remarks, more like the 1970s. I wasn't alive in 1959.

The minimum salary in 2009, the year I used, was $400,000.

The bottom line is that a World Series winners' share is a helluva lot of money -- enough by itself to put the recipient into the now-famous "one percent" of the American economy. Pretending it's simply pocket change is beyond ridiculous.

Of course more attention is paid to the World Series winner than to the team with the best regular season record, but that's because the World Series has a 108 year tradition behind it as the culmination of the baseball season;

Yes ... but you're brushing off the fundamental break in that tradition wrought by the wild-card, which your beloved masses either don't comprehend or don't care about. It's still called the World Series, but it isn't what the World Series has traditionally been.

Just so no one's confused, the ratio between minimum salary and winners' share has been essentially the same since at least 1970. I wasn't really talking about 1959 in my remarks, more like the 1970s. I wasn't alive in 1959....

Well, if you're talking only about the minimum salary players, how many of those even get into the World Series to begin with? The World Series is nearly always decided only by players who earn well above that amount.

The bottom line is that a World Series winners' share is a helluva lot of money -- enough by itself to put the recipient into the now-famous "one percent" of the American economy. Pretending it's simply pocket change is beyond ridiculous.

The average U.S. salary in 1970, adjusted for inflation, was $43,765.93 in today's dollars.

The minimum ballplayer's salary in 1970, also in today's dollars, was $69,432.99, or 158% of the average U.S. salary.

The average ballplayer's salary in 1970, also inflation-adjusted, was $169,549.57, or 387% of the average U.S. salary for that year.

The median U.S. income for 2010/11 is approximately $46,000.

The minimum ballplayer's salary is $514,000, or 1117% of the median U.S. income.

The average ballplayer's salary in 2010 was $3,014,572, or 6553% of the median U.S. income.

And of course most of the star players are earning far more than the average salary.

The bottom line is that to pretend that the World Series money means even remotely as much to today's ballplayer as it did in 1970 is so far beyond ridiculous as to call into question the sanity of the person advancing the argument.

Of course more attention is paid to the World Series winner than to the team with the best regular season record, but that's because the World Series has a 108 year tradition behind it as the culmination of the baseball season;

Yes ... but you're brushing off the fundamental break in that tradition wrought by the wild-card, which your beloved masses either don't comprehend or don't care about. It's still called the World Series, but it isn't what the World Series has traditionally been.

Right, and music hasn't been the same since the Beatles broke up and Michael Jackson shed his Afro. The world ain't never been as good as it used to be.

And I'm sure that those 1987 Twins were more "worthy" before they entered the postseason than they were after they'd won the World Series. That's the only logical conclusion to be read into your worship of "divisions champions" titles that are derived by the purely arbitrary assignation of teams to divisions of unequal strength, but then I guess that from your POV some forms of luck are less damnable than others.

And I'm sure that those 1987 Twins were more "worthy" before they entered the postseason than they were after they'd won the World Series. That's the only logical conclusion to be read into your worship of "divisions champions" titles that are derived by the purely arbitrary assignation of teams to divisions of unequal strength, but then I guess that from your POV some forms of luck are less damnable than others.

It wasn't arbitrary, it was based on geography. It was also known ahead of time, and comprised of teams playing the same schedules. Winning more regular season games than the other teams in it was a laudable and rightly-celebrated accomplishment -- one whose significance wasn't entirely squashed by not winning additional championships, as it is today. It's not just that wild cards are let in that's changed for the worse; it's the fact that the accomplisments of the tournament champion vitiate the accomplishments and championships of everybody else. It's not just that the Cardinals' championship is celebrated; it's that no other championships are -- even when those championships are much more substantive.

And yes, the 1987 Twins were a worthy participant in the 1987 postseason involving only champions, since they were a division champion. Since they were worthy of eligibility for the games that determined which champion got to append "World's" to their already-championship resume, they were worthy of doing so once they won two series against the other champions.

I don't know what you mean by "more" worthy.

The bottom line is that to pretend that the World Series money means even remotely as much to today's ballplayer as it did in 1970 is so far beyond ridiculous as to call into question the sanity of the person advancing the argument.

It doesn't mean "as much." It does, however, mean far in excess of nothing.

one whose significance wasn't entirely squashed by not winning additional championships, as it is today.

It is not entirely squashed today, otherwise everyone would rate the Braves' and Phillies' 2011 as equal failures (or the Sox and Yankees, etc).

It is not entirely squashed today, otherwise everyone would rate the Braves' and Phillies' 2011 as equal failures (or the Sox and Yankees, etc).

I'm not sure the popular perception holds there to be much, if any, difference between the Braves and Phillies. The primary feature of both is that of "also-ran." And the Phillies are seen by many as "not good enough to do it in the postseason" or possessors of some intangible "flaw."

And I'm sure that those 1987 Twins were more "worthy" before they entered the postseason than they were after they'd won the World Series. That's the only logical conclusion to be read into your worship of "divisions champions" titles that are derived by the purely arbitrary assignation of teams to divisions of unequal strength, but then I guess that from your POV some forms of luck are less damnable than others.

It wasn't arbitrary, it was based on geography

Which has no more to do with a team's merit than their religion or beer preferences. If that 1987 Twins team had switched cites with Toronto prior to the season, the Blue Jays would have been the champions and the Twins would have been 4th place also-rans.

It was also known ahead of time,

As are the rules determining post-season eligibility today, if you didn't know that.

and comprised of teams playing the same schedules.

And playing those same schedules, the team with the 5th best record in the American League was somehow deigned to be a "champion". Yet to you this seems to be less inequitable than the 102-win Oakland A's being allowed into the postseason.

Winning more regular season games than the other teams in it was a laudable and rightly-celebrated accomplishment -- one whose significance wasn't entirely squashed by not winning additional championships, as it is today. It's not just that wild cards are let in that's changed for the worse; it's the fact that the accomplishments of the tournament champion vitiate the accomplishments and championships of everybody else. It's not just that the Cardinals' championship is celebrated; it's that no other championships are -- even when those championships are much more substantive.

Who's stopping you from celebrating the Phillies or (according to BB-Ref) an even better team, the Yankees? I'm certainly not hanging my head in shame vicariously because the Yankees happened to lose to the Tigers in a hard fought series, and I certainly don't think that they should have merged the three divisions into two and let the Yankees and the Rangers bypass the first round of the postseason. The postseason is what it is, and what it is is the result of trying to balance two competing interests: The interests of traditionalists to see the two teams with the best records in their leagues meet in the World Series, vs. the interests of baseball not to see too many teams out of postseason contention by Labor Day or even earlier.

Look, as a Yankee fan, part of me would love to see baseball revert to the pre-1969 format, which would enhance the chances of the Yankees making it to October, especially since they'd then have even more incentive to go into overdrive in their talent acquisition. I would be perfectly happy to see the Yanks meet the Phillies or the Mets or the Cardinals or the Dodgers or the Giants in a baseball version of King on the Hill about 5 or more times every decade---I LOVED baseball in the Stengel years when I was first following the game, and seeing the Yankees in the World Series almost every year was simply a given. Who cared about the Indians and the clown teams behind them?

But ya know what? The world doesn't necessarily revolve around the interests of 5 teams. There are fans in 25 other cities to consider as well. And although in a my perfect world we'd revert to 8 teams per league, the Dodgers and Giants back where they belong in New York, $1.50 general admission seats behind the plate, and World Series games all played in the afternoon, the people who are trying to make the game a bit more enjoyable outside the palaces of the permanent contenders have those other teams to consider as well.

It is not entirely squashed today, otherwise everyone would rate the Braves' and Phillies' 2011 as equal failures (or the Sox and Yankees, etc).

I'm not sure the popular perception holds there to be much, if any, difference between the Braves and Phillies. The primary feature of both is that of "also-ran." And the Phillies are seen by many as "not good enough to do it in the postseason" or possessors of some intangible "flaw."

If you don't think that the 2011 Red Sox are subjectively** viewed as one of the all-time failures of baseball for what they did in September, you must have spent September on the Cricket Think Factory of Pakistan. And the only reason that the Braves aren't viewed in the same light as the Red Sox is that the Braves fan base is made up of tomahawk-waving zombies. As Babu would put it: They are not human.

**I say "subjectively" only because if I don't, you or Ray will come back with "I bet the Orioles or Kansas City would have loved to 'fail' like the Red Sox did," posting the standings as proof of their position.

If you don't think that the 2011 Red Sox are subjectively** viewed as one of the all-time failures of baseball for what they did in September, you must have spent September on the Cricket Think Factory of Pakistan.

I don't think history will treat them in that fashion. All they missed out on was a chance in the playoff crapshoot; it's not as though they choked away a championship. As that becomes clear with the passage of time, the "wild card" race they fell short in will be seen as the bubblegummy thing it really was.

If you want to check what I said in real time about the matter, it was that neither the Red Sox or Rays deserved the opportunity to knock out any of the three division champs in a short series.

Which has no more to do with a team's merit than their religion or beer preferences.

OK, I'll stipulate that teams aren't assigned to divisions on the basis of merit.

And playing those same schedules, the team with the 5th best record in the American League was somehow deigned to be a "champion". Yet to you this seems to be less inequitable than the 102-win Oakland A's being allowed into the postseason.

I've never had a problem with a second place team not making the postseason, and never will. There's nothing "inequitable" about the winner of a preset agglomeration of teams making it to the baseball postseason, even if it happens to have a worse record than a non-winner of another agglomeration. You've happened upon a solution in search of a problem.

If you don't think that the 2011 Red Sox are subjectively** viewed as one of the all-time failures of baseball for what they did in September, you must have spent September on the Cricket Think Factory of Pakistan.

I don't think history will treat them in that fashion. All they missed out on was a chance in the playoff crapshoot; it's not as though they choked away a championship. As that becomes clear with the passage of time, the "wild card" race they fell short in will be seen as the bubblegummy thing it really was.

Well, all you have to do is convince most Red Sox fans that what they saw was nothing but an optical illusion. The horror wasn't in missing the wild card; the horror was in how they missed it, in all the glorious details---game after game, night after night, inning after inning, pitch after pitch, choke after choke, beer after beer, chicken wing after chicken wing, 4 inning start after 4 inning start, blown lead after blown lead, ulcer after ulcer, sleepless night after sleepless night, nightmare after nightmare, blaming the chemistry, blaming the starters, blaming Girardi's substitutions, blaming Bard, blaming Papelbon, secondguessing Francona, the mocking predictions of coolstandings.com, the zombielike sangfroid of "It's Over. It's Always Been Over" DiPerna, the Curse of John Lackey.

So many days. So many nights. So much fun. And all because of the wild card. How can you not love the wild card?

Vaux and others, you may be interested to learn what Andy posted in the CJ Wilson thread, after denying here that people don't place undue emphasis on postseason performance:

Well, his postseason record as it exists sure isn't going to help him. That's not a judgment, just a fact.

His statement speaks for itself.

That statement merely reflects the fact that it's not going to help Wilson's bargaining position that he's been knocked around in the postseason. It doesn't mean that the Cashmans or the Epsteins are really going to think he's going to repeat those performances for them, and "not going to help" doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to hurt him in the end, but it's hardly something that any half-brained negotiator isn't going to mention when he sits down with Wilson's agent. Perhaps you think otherwise.

What I think is that your statement is an admission that people, including yourself (otherwise you wouldn't have made the comment), derive heavy meaning from postseason stats.

The only mystery is why you're denying it.

All things being equal, I'd rather have a player with a demonstrated record of successful performnace in the postseason, especially if I were the GM of a team that's in the postseason nearly every year. The only mystery I can see is why you apparently wouldn't.

You continue to prove my point, with every statement you make.

All things being equal, I'd rather have a player with a demonstrated record of successful performnace in the postseason, especially if I were the GM of a team that's in the postseason nearly every year. The only mystery I can see is why you apparently wouldn't.

"I wouldn't" care about this for the same reason I don't care about shoe size.

Cliff Lee gave up 12 runs in his first 64 postseason innings, for a 1.68 ERA.

He then gave up 15 runs in his next 18 postseason innings, for a 7.64 ERA.

Vaux and others, you may be interested to learn what Andy posted in the CJ Wilson thread, after denying here that people don't place undue emphasis on postseason performance:

Well, his postseason record as it exists sure isn't going to help him. That's not a judgment, just a fact.

His statement speaks for itself.

Just curious Ray: Forget special meaning, why shouldn't CJ Wilson's postseason stats the last year have any meaning?

You want to thoroughly disregard the postseason because of its small sampleness. But Wilson's postseason record actually covers a nice chunk of his total performance. His postseason starts represent 11.5 percent of his two-season total, and his playoff innings represent 10.9 percent of that total. When you factor in the postseason results, his ERA for the two seasons jumps from 3.13 to 3.32.

If you look at the postseason as more information on CJ Wilson's pitching ability (rather than insights into his character, heart and Morrisness), then you can come to the conclusion that he's a little bit less effective than his two-season sample of regular season starts alone suggests. And that very well could cost him a little money.

It doesn't make the postseason results more than their worth. But it also doesn't pretend they never happened.

Players who flop in the postseason: The new market inefficiency!

Yeah the postseason gives us more information, unlike shoe size, which is pretty obvious to anyone except those that don't understand what they are watching.

I don't understand the obsession with the pythagorean stuff, I really don't, except for its use in some sort of fantasy games. It would be much more interesting and accurate IF every single team maintained the exact same roster during the entire year and any element of outside luck was removed by having balls and strikes as well as safe/out calls determined by computer.

As it stands, Pythagorean stuff is an approximation and a guess of how thing "should" have gone given other teams' records and a specific team's runs scored and runs allowed.

Why you should consider it the most accurately method of determining a team's excellence, I do not get.

Every one of you knows quite well that each regular season is polluted not only by in season interleague games, but by extremely unbalanced schedules, so that you can't factually compare records or accomplishments. You insist that you do by mathematical computations which supposedly equalize seasons based on calculations. However, these are just as much guesses as the Pythagorean guestimates.

You know only too well that supposedly lousy teams win the 3 round playoffs knows as The World Series.

As for its import, the World Series no longer is a contest between the best teams in 2 leagues, because there haven't been only 2 leagues for a very long time. Once you introduce "divisions", there are in actuality FOUR leagues, not two.

The World Series as currently staged is considered "important" because ballplayers still crave that Ring, because it creates attention and because it generates a great deal of money, which is what ballplayers and owners want. Only a statistically insignificant few people care about who the supposed best Pythagorean team was in any given year. As those few generate significantly less attention and cash than the majority, their opinions will be drowned amidst the roar of the crowds.

And, like it or not, sportswriters, most of the public and many ballplayers themselves judge other ballplayers and teams by their performances "under pressure" in the postseason.

Just curious Ray: Forget special meaning, why shouldn't CJ Wilson's postseason stats the last year have any meaning?

You want to thoroughly disregard the postseason because of its small sampleness. But Wilson's postseason record actually covers a nice chunk of his total performance. His postseason starts represent 11.5 percent of his two-season total, and his playoff innings represent 10.9 percent of that total. When you factor in the postseason results, his ERA for the two seasons jumps from 3.13 to 3.32.

If you look at the postseason as more information on CJ Wilson's pitching ability (rather than insights into his character, heart and Morrisness), then you can come to the conclusion that he's a little bit less effective than his two-season sample of regular season starts alone suggests. And that very well could cost him a little money.

It doesn't make the postseason results more than their worth. But it also doesn't pretend they never happened.

I wouldn't object to adding them in as part of his total record, but, then, they came against a different caliber of competition. So just blindly adding them in and weighting them the same seems incorrect to me.

All of this is utterly irrelevant to my point.