Comments on: Wasn’t the Wild Card supposed to add playoff race intrigue?

By: masternachos

masternachos — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 22:44:03 +0000

Don't really know why 'question' was in quotation marks... As for 'made it fun,' isn't that just opinion? I mean, I don't watch the World Series and think, 'This is missing something...' I watch the World Series and think, 'This is the World Series. This is awesome!' I HAVE FUN when I watch the playoffs, or the All-Star Game.

By: MLS

MLS — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 18:00:56 +0000

Yeah..but what did good old Henry say about OBP..LOL

By: Johnny Twisto

Johnny Twisto — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 17:49:59 +0000

Sabermetrics was invented when Henry Chadwick decided to tally hits per at bat, rather than assume the best hitter was the guy with the prettiest swing.

By: MLS

MLS — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 17:41:17 +0000

Masternachos...is the "question" even relevant??? What really matters is that the BEST teams played in the W.S....there was NO guessing..NO what ifs....there was NO team just trying to make the playoffs...they had one task and one task ONLY...to win the most games in their respected leagues. Regardless of the attendance...that was THE goal..every team knew it. As I mentioned earlier...what made it really fun was that neither team had played prior to the fall classic! To think about it..All-Star games were fun then too...because it meant something! Today..they have the HR derby...LOL..what a joke! BTW,,sabermetrics was invented by some guy that had some crush on his childhood star and wanted to push his pencil to the limit to show the world his "star" was truly that!

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 17:02:06 +0000

Masternachos' question gets at my earlier point about recalling the past better than it was. People tend to cite a few examples that stick out in their mind and support their gut feeling, but often these examples often do not reflect the true average. In fact this is one of the roots of sabermetrics, where we try to apply real numbers instead of what Joe Morgan's eyes (and sample bias) tell us.

By: Masternachos

Masternachos — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 16:42:12 +0000

Of the X number of seasons before the Wild Card, How many seasons actually 'did' have an exciting pennant race of some kind? Giving examples of famous races doesn't help- I want to know what % of the time there actually WAS a 'pennant race.' And if you look at the data, ballpark attendance in, say, the 1950s was AWFUL compared to today.

By: Michael E Sullivan

Michael E Sullivan — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 15:24:56 +0000

Baseball is never going to do a balanced schedule, and there is one reason: money. Yankees v. Red Sox games make a lot more money, so baseball (and the yankees and red sox) want more of them. Any other set of teams that develop a rivalry or have contenders are in the same position, such as the Cubs and Cardinals, just to a lesser extent. Anytime you have a close pennant race, those team's games are making more money.

As for pennant races, there is an inherent balancing act between having great races and having all excellent teams represented. To some extent races are exciting in large part for the same reasons playoffs are exciting -- because they involve a great team who may have to go home. If you put too many wild cards in the playoffs, then there will rarely or never be any great teams in any danger of missing the playoffs. If you put too few, then you may well have some truly great teams performing excellent all year that get left out in favor of mediocre division winners.

AL 2005 was sort of the best of both worlds, you had a great 4 team race for 3 spots, with a very good team that went home (exciting), but you didn't have 2 of the top 3 or 4 teams left out, they way you might have (and often did) without any wild card.

Adding a second or third wild card would pretty much moot the possibility of a great team missing the playoffs. I don't know where the optimal place to draw the line is and a lot of it depends on your preferences -- would you prefer to see a great team go home because they lose the 162 game race to a similar team in their division -- even if some barely over .500 trash team is making it by winning a weak division, or would you rather see all or almost all the great teams get in?

My personal purist take is that you should get rid of divisions entirely, play a pure round robin or as close as you can get, and simply take the best 1, 2 or 4 teams over 162 seeded in order of finish(*). But that will never happen for the reasons in my first paragraph.

(*) And in my ideal fantasy world, you take 2 teams from each league, and the playoff is best of 9, with the world series best of 11. Next best would be 4 teams with series of 7, 9, 11 games.

By: jiffy

jiffy — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 14:18:58 +0000

@51 There's 300 million people, plus, in the US. If only 10% of them even care about baseball that's still 30 million fans. Then factor in Latin America. Then factor in Japan. Then factor in increasing interest in Europe/Asia. I don't think baseball is going anywhere. Football is king right now, but 80 years ago it was all about horse racing and boxing. There's an ebb and flow, to a degree, but the truth is that baseball has been culturally significant for more than 100 years. I've gone to a number of HS/legion games in the past few years, and, at least in the area I live, there's no shortage of youth interest in baseball.

By: MLS

MLS — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 13:56:54 +0000

Andy I fully agree with you, as well as understand the "points" given. Also, I understand the game is actually in it's infancy and baseball as we know it today..will evolve into something entirely different that we know it today. If there is a point to be raised it is this: when do we as fans, make a statement to MLB..enough is enough? Case in point, the baseball "Gods" got together and developed a system for pitchers to pitch 100 pitchs a game and pitch every 5th game. This, we were told, would "save" a pitchers arm.( Speaking from experience my father was a starter for nearly 15 yrs, pitchers are freaks of nature). There has been absolutely NO proof this is the case. If so, please let me know. Yet, as fans, we allow this travesty to continue. As a paying fan, personally I'd like to get my moneys worth, how about you? Perhaps this will change...but I doubt it. It is way past time to be complacent. My biggest fear (if it hasn't happened already) is that youngsters will become "numb" to baseball. Rather than be viewed as the "elite" sport in America...it will be slipped into the catagory of WWA. Saddens me deeply.

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 11:55:51 +0000

MLS, that's a fair point for students of the game like readers of this blog, but I'm thinking more generally. We in this local community appreciate feats by all teams and players and tend to love the game for itself, beyond our personal allegiances to particular teams. But overall, most fans lose interest when their teams don't sniff the playoffs for 15-20 years.