106 wins and not winning the division is also absurd
These wildcards are gonna be amazing. Totally pumped
Yeah agree with both. IMO this play-in wild card has to be one of the worst sports ideas of all time. Feels like a shitty marketing gimmick that some MBA who never picked up a bat would think of. I’d prefer 16 teams going forward just because it’s an entertainment product first and foremost. Pretty sure there are a lot of people who don’t watch MLB until the playoffs start anyway. I want to see young, exciting players like the ones on TOR when the bright lights are on. So great job making sure no one will get to watch the team with two viable MVP candidates play meaningful baseball I guess?
Don’t like all of the hockey teams play in the playoffs?
It doesn’t feel incredibly cheap to you that a team that won 106 games and is clearly the best team in baseball is forced into a one-game scenario against a team who won 90 games and is running super hot on win equity?
Not sure but apparently the problem in MLB is the player’s union doesn’t want it b/c they think it will reduce spending. That basically cements my point which is that the 8-team playoff entrenches the big spenders at the expense of smaller market teams in the long run, but also lol b/c if the Rays start dominating the AL East then they’re gonna change their minds real fuckin’ quick.
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Extreme outlier scenario. Would have been way lamer if the Giants and Dodgers didn’t really give a fuck the last two weeks because winning the division was meaningless. A reason they moved to 2 Wild Cards w/ a sudden death Wild Card game is that the Red Sox and Yankees stopped caring about winning the division when they were perennially 2 of the best 4 teams in the AL and there was only one Wild Card that was auto-in.
Yeah I guess I don’t care if the Red Sox / Yankees stop caring if the “solution” is having a one-game playoff in baseball, the sport with the smallest edges and longest regular season. I’d rather just see teams stop caring than turn it into NASCAR or some equally horrible shit designed to manufacture a “race” and interest. The rumor I read for 2022 is a 14-team playoff and I don’t even want to know what kind of horror show they’ve dreamed up for that.
I feel the opposite of you, that the solution to your concern would be the Dodgers being done because they lost over a 162 game sample. They should be grateful that they even get a super high variance game to stay alive.
By this logic, why not just go back to the pre-69 rules and take the best team from each league into the WS then? It’s not fair to the Giants who won 107 games to play in the same stadium as the peasant Braves and their 88 wins.
Correct, those rules are perfect to achieve your stated goal of selecting the best teams as proven by performance over a large sample.
Where did I state this goal?
Guess technically you just lamented the opposite happening. Regardless, it is the best way to determine the most accomplished teams, having any playoffs at all is the corrupting money grab factor. It’s still how domestic European soccer league winners are determined.
once upon a time, neither of those teams would be in the playoffs so ?
I’m really not a fan of expansion for most sports playoffs, it’s just a cheap money grab.
No because I hate the Dodgers, Cardinals, Sox and Yanks and I want them to duel to the death under maximum pressure for my amusement.
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Of course it’s a money grab. It’s an entertainment product first and a sport second. So let’s do a product that makes sense and isn’t some dumb gimmick.
I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make? I’m not debating whether these teams should be in. It’s about the gimmick play-in game. If you don’t like money grabs then you should hate this because it’s a lot dumber than just playing a series.
Saying you’d prefer half the teams in baseball to make the crapshoot playoffs is some take. I think I prefer this method over the previous one if only because it actually gives the division winners an advantage over non division winners, but either one is far superior to even more teams making the playoffs
I like that there’s a painful option that teams really don’t want. It keeps the regular season meaningful.
There’s no home field advantage in baseball. If everyone had already clinched a 5 or 7 game series, they’d probably rest pitchers vs. try to move up one higher seed. But no one wants to play one game for their life.
Half of them starting this season, 16/32. In the 80s it was 16/21 which may be what you are thinking off. There were 3 divisions of 5 and one division of 6. You practically had to finish last in your division to miss the playoffs. But there’s been a lot of expansion since then any they haven’t increased the number of playoff teams.
Really feel like it is short sighted to only consider the most recent season for playoff consideration. Playoff seeding should be based on a weighted average of the past 50 seasons imo.