You can say it's not the same thing, but how is playing simulated games to keep your hitters sharp different then a real game? (####, import fans if you have too..play the Netherlands national team...) Or is the REAL issue getting your players to the ballpark on these days off to put in the work?

Where are you going to get MLB quality pitchers willing to go all out trying to get the batters out?

Answer is, you can't. You don't want to fatigue, or risk injury to your own pitchers. No other team is going to lend you theirs; imagine the headline in the Globe - "John Lester suffers career ending injury helping Yankees prepare for ALCS".

Facing a bunch of AAA/AAAA arms that aren't good enough to care if they get hurt, is not going to get a team ready to face Verlander or Sabbathia.

I'm okay with the champion not being the "best team".

In the 65 20th century World Series before divisional play began, there were plenty of cases where "the best team" didn't necessarily win, and more than a few other times when the second or even third place teams in one league was arguably "better" than the pennant winner in the other league. The whole idea of "best team" independent of actual championships is an interesting statistical exercise, but to take it beyond that and into the Land of Excuses is just silly.

For the record, I do not for a second think that the Cardinals are the best team in baseball this year or last year or even 2006 (although I will argue with people that the post season roster the Cardinals had in 2006 was as good, if not better than the rosters the other teams had. And that the w/l record doesn't reflect the Cardinals true quality either)

Nobody should think that the world series winner is indicative of the best team in the game, but it's a pretty big deal to win the tournament that is known as MLB post season.

Seriously, get a tin foil hat.

Seriously, you are naive.

They added the 5th wild card team because it was the best solution they could come up with to prevent teams from coasting into the playoffs.

Ha. No, they did it to add revenue. Millions in gate receipts, many more millions in TV revenue.

And again opposing something because it creates revenue isn't a legitimate argument.

No one opposes it because it creates revenue. They oppose it because weaker teams get into the playoffs.

Ha. No, they did it to add revenue. Millions in gate receipts, many more millions in TV revenue.

65% of the gate receipt of a one game playoff goes to the players. It's not that much money for the teams, and again, it's just one game. It is not all about the money, to think that, is conspiracy nutters.

Once you started allowing multiple divisions, wild cards, weaker teams were always going to get into the playoffs. From a fan perspective, the one game adds more meaning to the September games, which was one of the complaints.

The whole major league baseball season and the playoffs are simply exercises to make money. The fact that additions or changes are done to make money are 1) ####### obvious and 2) irrelevant as to whether they are good/bad decisions that increase/decrease the pleasure derived.

The argument for the extra wild card game is that it creates more of an incentive for teams to win the division.

It potentially strengthens one division race per league (for instance, this year it had probably weakened the AL a little. There was no coasting, because the AL West and AL East leaders and runners-up were so close). It potentially weakens another (by turning one winner-take-all race into one with a consolation prize). This idea that it does more than improve a single division race per league is bizarre.

65% of the gate receipt of a one game playoff goes to the players. It's not that much money for the teams, and again, it's just one game. It is not all about the money, to think that, is conspiracy nutters.

15% of playoff receipt revenue goes to Bud Selig.

It is not all about the money, to think that, is conspiracy nutters.

More playoff games exist soley to make money. From 2010:

So, for owners, there is money to be made even if your club were to get swept in a given postseason series, but they reap even greater rewards if a series goes beyond the minimum, not just because of the extra games, but because the two teams get 100% of the gate after the Commissioner's Office takes their slice off the top.

More games = more money. It really is that simple. Why do you think they implemented the extra game this year? And rushed to do so, creating an advantage for the wild card team by hosting the first two games of the divisional series?

Once you started allowing multiple divisions, wild cards, weaker teams were always going to get into the playoffs.

More money for more teams. And more money for the networks, who just signed new deals at nearly double the price of the old ones.

Video or board?

Board.

Awesome. I spend hours each week hanging out at Board Game Geek. Do you have any designs with pages on BGG? I'd like to check them out.

As mentioned, EVERY ####### GAME PLAYED IS ABOUT MONEY.

jeezus, you probably think the moon landing was faked, obama was born in kenya, bush created 9/11, that Kennedy was assasinated by more than one gunman, and that global warming is a conspiracy...
People are seriously insane when it comes to Bud Selig and baseball.


The extra round is there because people were upset that wild card teams path to the world series was the same difficulty as teams who actually won something. Wild cards existed because they went to three divisions and didn't want to do something weird for the post season and the wild card was the simplest solution, but it created problems. Baseball doesn't have the homefield advantage issues that other sports seem to have, so homefield advantage wasn't enough of an incentive for teams to play hard in September. Every year it seemed an article was written about a team coasting into the playoffs. So you have an issue where you are trying to please the masses, and you also are not going to go back to two divisions(that is about the money) so what is the best compromise solution?

The fact that additions or changes are done to make money are 1) ####### obvious and 2) irrelevant as to whether they are good/bad decisions that increase/decrease the pleasure derived.

This. One can certainly imagine scenarios where added games would lose money. If Bud decided to implement a best-of-19 playoff series between the Astros and Cubs to decide the coveted 29th seed in the winterlong daily-tripleheader round-robin Hunt for February, I think that would lose money. Though people might actually pay not to have to watch the games.

The Giants - NY, not SF - not only were a mere 9-7, they were outscored by their opponents in the regular season and won the Super Bowl anyway last year.

When your mediocre team squeaks by and wins a championship, it is an affront to God, motherhood and apple pie. When my mediocre team wins a title, however, it's proof they are scrappy and resilient and morally superior (as am I, of course).

When your mediocre team squeaks by and wins a championship, it is an affront to God, motherhood and apple pie. When my mediocre team wins a title, however, it's proof they are scrappy and resilient and morally superior (as am I, of course).

Anyone really saying that? I think on every thread on this board, everyone knows that the best team doesn't win in the post season. Now if it's my team, I will say that my team is better than your perception of them based upon their actual won/loss record. But that isn't the same thing as thinking your team is superior to them, just saying that it was wrong to dismiss them as a lesser team.

The extra round is there because people were upset that wild card teams path to the world series was the same difficulty as teams who actually won something

I say again, the extra round is in there, by design and Bud's own words, to maintain late season interest for more clubs. It may well do what you claim as well, but that is not why it was added.

I have been on the pro-side of the second WC, as opposed to one. I don't mean this to taunt Texas fans, but we saw this year that losing the West late really hurt Texas--put them in the play-in game, and they lost. To me that is a plus, although there is another side to it.

I don't feel taunted, rr. If there's a "consolation," it's that the Rangers, after mid-September, didn't really look capable of winning much of anything; they just weren't playing well. So I don't have the sense that they were robbed, or lost their superior status to a crapshoot or coinflip. They only had to win one of their last four games to make an ALDS; they lost them all, convincingly.

I say again, the extra round is in there, by design and Bud's own words, to maintain late season interest for more clubs. It may well do what you claim as well, but that is not why it was added.

Bud has liked the idea of 10 playoff teams for a while and had looked into adding it for some time. The design of the system came about because the best teams stopped trying at the end of the season. This killed two birds with one stone. Contrary to what Bud haters like to say about him, he doesn't just come up with an idea and force it onto the league, he takes his time and waits for the demand to happen for him to add his idea to the league.

Bud wants instant replay, but is going about it slowly, he wants more balanced divisions but it's taken several years to arrange for it, he wants silly things like during interleague play, you play by visiting teams rules, and hasn't had that happen yet. (I support that for the second game of the series) etc.


It's a combination of things that allowed it to happen, and it's a good choice, I'm hoping that is the end of it, I think having the play in game going to three games is wrong, I think other silly ideas to balance things out (such as a two game series where the team with the best record starts up 1-0 or having the real playoffs be all home games for the division winner,etc is taking things a little too far)

The Giants - NY, not SF - not only were a mere 9-7, they were outscored by their opponents in the regular season and won the Super Bowl anyway last year.

When your mediocre team squeaks by and wins a championship, it is an affront to God, motherhood and apple pie. When my mediocre team wins a title, however, it's proof they are scrappy and resilient and morally superior (as am I, of course).

While of course all it really means is that the team that won peaked at the right time, while the team that didn't win peaked way too early. Or it might just mean that the team that won was a different team than it was in June, and in fact by October (or Feburary) was the "best" team.

If anyone has a formula to sort all that out, please let us all know. Meanwhile, flags fly forever while most regular season "winners" are only dimly remembered. How horribly unjust.

BDC,

I know many Texas fans feel that way, and that is what their announcers* were saying late.

But my point was more macro with the Rangers simply being the example. Under the old system, Texas would have been the WC** playing the Yankees best-of-5. Under this one, they were in a riskier spot. As a fan, I like that--there should be a real cost for losing the division.

The counter of course is that under the old system, Descalso, Kozma and Co would have been sitting at home. To me, the first scenario is better in terms of competitive ecology but YMMV.

*Texas' radio guys are really good, particularly Nadel.
**I think that they actually might have had to play a tiebreaker with the Orioles, but the point is the same big-picture.

The money and more interest in more markets are great windfalls, but the rushed implementation (just one year after the Yankees/Rays "pennant race") and limited impact (just one extra game for each league, which has been necessary under the prior system anyway) suggest that second wild card is primarily a reaction to the corrosive impact of the previous one wild card system on regular season competition.

I think that they actually might have had to play a tiebreaker with the Orioles

Yes, so actually the league would have had precisely the same postseason picture. But you're quite right; if they'd clinched a sole Wild Card at some point, then the rest of the season has no stress for them. It's still possible to clinch a division title early and then coast, but clinching any part of a Wild Card has become rather meaningless in itself, if you've still got a division title to play for.

Actually it's complicated, and we haven't seen all its implications yet, have we? Let's say you clinch half a Wild Card, and the team ahead of you has clinched the division. Your last series is against a team still fighting for an undecided division – or worse with the new 15-team leagues, interleague against some desperate contender in the other division. Your situation can't get any better or worse, so you must rest up for the play-in. Then Bud starts moaning about the Integrity of the Game :)

Such scenarios we have had possibly with us since the AL went to odd-team divisions in the late 1970s, of course.

Actually it's complicated, and we haven't seen all its implications yet, have we?

No, not even close. There are all sorts of issues, mostly small ones and some that will only happen on very rare occasions, that will crop up now that we've solved that one problem.

I don't mean this to taunt Texas fans, but we saw this year that losing the West late really hurt Texas--put them in the play-in game, and they lost.

The Rangers' season would have turned out exactly the same under last year's playoff format. Exactly.

The Rangers' season would have turned out exactly the same under last year's playoff format. Exactly.

I recalled that and put it in a later post; either you didn't read that part or ignored it. The larger point holds, however.

There are all sorts of issues, mostly small ones and some that will only happen on very rare occasions, that will crop up now that we've solved that one problem

I'm sure Tony LaRussa's already thought of some way a team will someday be forced to throw a game to make the postseason :)

I'm sure Tony LaRussa's already thought of some way a team will someday be forced to throw a game to make the postseason :)

You joke, but you could be in a position to throw a game to get a preferred playoff opponent. If you're looking at a season where the two wild cards are quite strong and the third division features a very weak winner in a race that goes down to the wire (say, like the year the Pads won the West at 82-80), then you might prefer the second seed to the first. Not saying it would ever happen, but it is a theoretical possibiliity now where it didn't exist previously.

I thought this morning of a situation where you'd be pretty much obligated to throw a game in the hopes of home-field advantage. St. Louis (with guest-manager TLR :) has clinched a Wild Card, but Cincinnati has clinched the Central Division. Washington and Atlanta are tied for first after 161 games; both have clinched at least the second Wild Card. St. Louis plays Washington and Atlanta plays whoever. St. Louis holds the HFA tiebreaker against Atlanta but not Washington, a situation that can't change today. The Cardinals don't control the situation, but they have to lose to Washington; HFA is an advantage, however tenuous and small we know it to be here at BBTF. By losing, they either get HFA outright against the Braves, or (even nicer in some ways) force a playoff game between the Braves and Nationals to precede the play-in.