Changes to baseball

J_V · #1 10-27-2006, 11:30 PM

Shorten the regular season by 20 games and play 15 game postseason series'. That way, the best team might win the world series more than occasionally.

kolotoure · #2 10-27-2006, 11:34 PM

I'd rather it be exciting then the best team winning every year

Jack of Arcades · #3 10-28-2006, 04:22 AM

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I'd rather it be exciting then the best team winning every year

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There's exciting, and then there's the prospect of having a crummy series because you have inferior teams competing for the title (in a cold and rainy environment...).

If the MLB post-season could be more on the level of football's we'd have it perfect. The Super Bowl almost always has the best team from at least one conference, and sometimes a great team from the wild card spot ('05 Steelers, '00 Ravens) can win it all.

Because at this point we're approaching NBA levels of wasted time, where they spend a month eliminating the 12 teams we know they're going to eliminate anyway. As it stands we're spending April to October establishing who the best teams are, then we pick 8 teams - some of them who occassionally *haven't* established themselves as one of the best teams are - and essentially roll dice to see who becomes champion. It's anti-climactic and tragic to have such an undefinitive post-season to the most definitive season in sports.

sublime · #4 10-28-2006, 04:26 AM

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It's anti-climactic and tragic to have such an undefinitive post-season to the most definitive season in sports.

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such a great quote.

Jack of Arcades · #5 10-28-2006, 04:30 AM

And it's not like it always fails, but baseball deserves better.

THAY3R · #6 10-28-2006, 04:45 AM

Go back to 2 divisions in each league and then a 7 game Championship series, and a 9 game World Series.

crockpot · #7 10-28-2006, 04:43 AM

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It's anti-climactic and tragic to have such an undefinitive post-season to the most definitive season in sports.

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yes, but what's anyone going to do about it?

let's say team A is a 55-45 favorite over B in each game. this roughly equals a very realistic 7-8 win edge over a full season.

team A wins series:
5 game series: 59.3%
7 game series: 60.8%
9 game series: 62.1%

will an extra 1-2% really make it better? the only solution, then, is to have fewer playoff teams, and you're going to have a hell of a time telling baseball to go in that direction.

Jack of Arcades · #8 10-28-2006, 04:53 AM

A few steps toward the right direction...

1) Completely balanced schedule. The unbalanced schedule + wild card = huge joke.

2) Get rid of the facade of having two leagues and just integrate them already, picking the top 8 teams for the playoffs....

OR 3) Make it a divisionless league and take the top 4..

I could see an argument for taking MORE teams although I don't know how well a bye system would work in baseball, so it'd be 16 (which would be a joke). MLB needs to figure out some way for rewarding the best teams, like the NFL.

prohornblower · #9 10-28-2006, 03:26 PM

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It's anti-climactic and tragic to have such an undefinitive post-season to the most definitive season in sports.

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Yeah, the Braves should have won 2-3 championships during their "run". Let's completely change the structure of the otherwise best sport because of that.

I'm kidding. But seriously, I really don't care. The playoff structure is fine the way it is. I think the problem is that some managers still have the regular season mentality, and don't know how to manage a short-series. Perhaps if the benches/bullpens were allowed to be deeper for the playoffs, there would be less variance???

I don't know.

shemp · #10 10-28-2006, 03:40 PM

lol @ anti-climactic-tragic-aments