delusions of grandeur Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 Okay, I'll admit it, I haven't watched baseball all year (burnt out and have a hard time watching since Bobby Cox retired), but what is this crap about a second wildcard that you play one game to decide who's the actual wildcard? Clearly a ratings ploy by the MLB, because that's freaking ridiculous that you could have a better record all season, even be a division winner in another division, and then have your playoff spot decided by a SINGLE game after 160 of them? This is exactly the case for the Braves, as they've already clinched the wildcard, but now have to hold our breath for a 1 game series. What total BS.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Puddy Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 Completely agree and the crazy thing is how pretty much every media outlet has deemed it quite the success. Is has supposedly added a bunch of interest in the playoff race. Well that's all fine and dandy unless I'm the first qualifier and I beat the second qualifier by 4 or 5 games in the standings. Why the hell should I have a play-in game? If this is what they want then at least make it a 3-game series. Problem with that is the season ends too late as it is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delusions of grandeur Posted October 3, 2012 Author Share Posted October 3, 2012 Completely agree and the crazy thing is how pretty much every media outlet has deemed it quite the success. Is has supposedly added a bunch of interest in the playoff race. Well that's all fine and dandy unless I'm the first qualifier and I beat the second qualifier by 4 or 5 games in the standings. Why the hell should I have a play-in game? If this is what they want then at least make it a 3-game series. Problem with that is the season ends too late as it is. Yet another reason they need to shorten the season. By the time the playoffs roll around, everyone is fully entrenched in football mode. I had already boycotted most all playoff games that the Braves weren't in since their last ratings ploy to make a meaningless exhibition game decide world series homefield advantage, and I'd be tempted to do the same here, if it weren't the fact that it's so damn consequential to my team, and despite my disgust with it, will indeed be interesting... Same goes for bowl games where I've tried my best to not watch games I don't care about because of the way the BCS has screwed the Dawgs and refused to cater to the vast majority's demand for a fair playoff (until recently), but they know they've got us by the balls on the games we wanna watch. I gotta say I'm getting pretty damn tired of all my favorite sports just saying, screw the fans or what's fair, we're gonna put whatever crap product we think you'll still watch and shove it in your face. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bier Meister Posted October 3, 2012 Share Posted October 3, 2012 baseball is meant to be played as a series. I can justify a one game playoff in case of a tie at the end of the season, but not for teams that actually make the playoffs. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sunday Couch Potatoe Posted October 3, 2012 Share Posted October 3, 2012 baseball is meant to be played as a series. I can justify a one game playoff in case of a tie at the end of the season, but not for teams that actually make the playoffs. In full agreement do not like the new Wild Card setup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pope Flick Posted October 3, 2012 Share Posted October 3, 2012 I actually do because I was never a fan of it to begin with. Now, winning your division is that much more important because who wants to play a winner take all game, blow your wad then face the #1 seed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buddahj Posted October 3, 2012 Share Posted October 3, 2012 I actually do because I was never a fan of it to begin with. Now, winning your division is that much more important because who wants to play a winner take all game, blow your wad then face the #1 seed? True, but the higher seed now has to travel for the 1st two games. IMO, MLB has taken away homefield advantage. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godtomsatan Posted October 3, 2012 Share Posted October 3, 2012 (edited) What's wrong with winning your division and getting a truly distinct advantage for it? Home field advantage means nearly nothing in baseball, there were 24 teams with realistic chances at dreaming about a shot at the playoffs come August 1st, and even today, you have the Washington-Philadelphia game, the Oakland-Texas game, the New York-Boston game, and the Baltimore-Tampa Bay game with playoff implications on the final day of the season. Edited October 3, 2012 by godtomsatan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pope Flick Posted October 4, 2012 Share Posted October 4, 2012 True, but the higher seed now has to travel for the 1st two games. IMO, MLB has taken away homefield advantage. That's the part I simply do not understand and honestly had to hear it twice to make sure I heard it correctly. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buddahj Posted October 4, 2012 Share Posted October 4, 2012 What's wrong with winning your division and getting a truly distinct advantage for it? Home field advantage means nearly nothing in baseball, there were 24 teams with realistic chances at dreaming about a shot at the playoffs come August 1st, and even today, you have the Washington-Philadelphia game, the Oakland-Texas game, the New York-Boston game, and the Baltimore-Tampa Bay game with playoff implications on the final day of the season. I beg to differ with the bolded statement. Every team headed to the playoffs are over .500 at home. Eight of ten teams are over .500 on the road. Every team has a better record @ home than on the road. IMHO, playing at home has it's advantages. Going into tonight: Yankees - 20 games over @ home & 7 games over on the road Orioles - 13 games over @ home & 12 games over on the road Tigers - 19 games over @ home & 6 games under on the road A's - 19 games over @ home & 7 games over on the road Rangers - 19 games over @ home & 5 games over on the road Nationals - 19 games over @ home & 15 games over on the road Braves - 15 games over @ home & 11 games over on the road Reds - 19 games over @ home & 14 games over on the road Cardinals - 18 games over @ home & 5 games under on the road Giants - 15 games over @ home & 12 games over on the road Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delusions of grandeur Posted October 4, 2012 Author Share Posted October 4, 2012 I beg to differ with the bolded statement. Every team headed to the playoffs are over .500 at home. Eight of ten teams are over .500 on the road. Every team has a better record @ home than on the road. IMHO, playing at home has it's advantages. And most importantly it's home field advantage for the deciding game if you split the first 4-6. As I said above, this was the reason I boycotted most of the playoffs long ago, when they decided that home field advantage should be decided by a meaningless exhibition game in a non-salary-cap league, where the Yankees-induced arms race all but assured the AL the edge for 7 straight years of home field advantage. They can kiss my ass if they want me to watch the playoffs if the Braves are eliminated. I'm done with their BS ratings ploys that put teams at an unfair disadvantage. As was said above, baseball is a series game, not sudden death in the hands of one starting pitcher. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godtomsatan Posted October 4, 2012 Share Posted October 4, 2012 I beg to differ with the bolded statement. Every team headed to the playoffs are over .500 at home. Eight of ten teams are over .500 on the road. Every team has a better record @ home than on the road. IMHO, playing at home has it's advantages. Take all the Braves games at home and all the Cards games on the road, and if your numbers are right, the home team won 91 games and the visitors won 71 games. That means that the home team won 56% of the games. An advantage yes, but a drastic one? Not really. And that's about as significant a split that you'll find in a playoff matchup. Take all the O's games at home and the Rangers games on the road, and the home team won 85 times and the visitors 77 times. The winner won 52% of the time in those teams' games. Another advantage, but not a drastic one when you're talking about two games, or even one game. Stretch out the playoff series over the last 10 years, and in the ALDS and NLDS respectively, home teams are 38-40 and 41-41. That's a net 79-81. That's not even an advantage. The further you get into the playoffs (LCS and WS), home teams win at a greater clip, but in these first rounds, and on any given day for any given game, I stand by statement that home field means nearly nothing in baseball. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delusions of grandeur Posted October 4, 2012 Author Share Posted October 4, 2012 What's wrong with winning your division and getting a truly distinct advantage for it? Back to this question you posited earlier, this really adds no advantage whatsoever for the division winners (there's no saying definitively which will be an easier match up of the 2 wildcards), it's an added disadvantage for the wildcards at the mercy of 1 game to decide their fate, total crap when you were the better team all year than the one you're having to play sudden-death. I remember some Braves teams in the 2000's that I swore would be better in a 7 game series than the 5 game series they lost, because teams with a better 1/2 starting pitchers tended to do better in 5 games, whereas a deeper rotation would seem to be favored in a 7 game series. But you know who's favored in a 1-game series? The team with the strongest pitcher or strongest lineup against the opposing pitcher. I'm honestly not even sure who that is in this case, but it really doesn't matter. The point is you're reducing it to how 1 starting pitcher will do (leaving bullpen aside because the game might or might not be saveable by the time they get in) Anyone who's for this new setup obviously isn't thinking about how well they'd like it if it was their team having to playin just so the MLB can boost their ratings... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godtomsatan Posted October 4, 2012 Share Posted October 4, 2012 Back to this question you posited earlier, this really adds no advantage whatsoever for the division winners (there's no saying definitively which will be an easier match up of the 2 wildcards), it's an added disadvantage for the wildcards at the mercy of 1 game to decide their fate, total crap when you were the better team all year than the one you're having to play sudden-death. A wild card team has to potentially travel, play a one game playoff, likely use their best pitcher and their bullpen, potentially travel again, to face a well rested division winning team that's likely throwing their ace in game 1. It's not an impossible task, but it's another road block to the team that doesn't win its division outright. Anyone who's for this new setup obviously isn't thinking about how well they'd like it if it was their team having to playin just so the MLB can boost their ratings... I'd love it if Felix Hernandez was facing off tomorrow afternoon against someone for the M's to get a chance to face the Yankees in the playoffs. I'm sorry you don't enjoy your Braves teams folding year after year in the post-season and are already making excuses for them losing tomorrow, even though they have what 20 other major league baseball teams currently don't have: a chance to win the freakin' World Series. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delusions of grandeur Posted October 4, 2012 Author Share Posted October 4, 2012 A wild card team has to potentially travel, play a one game playoff, likely use their best pitcher and their bullpen, potentially travel again, to face a well rested division winning team that's likely throwing their ace in game 1. It's not an impossible task, but it's another road block to the team that doesn't win its division outright. I was just thinking about this actually, and also about the fact that you then can't use Medlin twice in the series like you would have. That all places the wildcard team at a great disadvantage. A wild card team has to potentially travel, play a one game playoff, likely use their best pitcher and their bullpen, potentially travel again, to face a well rested division winning team that's likely throwing their ace in game 1. It's not an impossible task, but it's another road block to the team that doesn't win its division outright. Dude, sorry but f' off if you think that I'm just making excuses (other than an aside that I thought that some of the recent Braves teams would have done better in 7-game series where the better team wins more often; but that was jsut leading to a point of how silly a 1 game series is). Point is, I don't like the MLB placing ANY teams at an unfair disadvantage, just so that they can boost their ratings. It's a bunch of crap, and anyone should be able to see that if the shoe was on the other foot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
detlef Posted October 4, 2012 Share Posted October 4, 2012 I'm with gts here, at very least about the play-in game. I like that the actual division winners get something that the wildcard teams do not. Hell, 20 years ago, you had to be one of the two division winners in your league to even make the play-offs. At least now, the 4th and 5th placed teams in the league get a shot to move on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delusions of grandeur Posted October 4, 2012 Author Share Posted October 4, 2012 I'm with gts here, at very least about the play-in game. I like that the actual division winners get something that the wildcard teams do not. Hell, 20 years ago, you had to be one of the two division winners in your league to even make the play-offs. At least now, the 4th and 5th placed teams in the league get a shot to move on. 3 game series I'd agree, but sudden death for a playoff spot that was right fully yours in year's past, and even if you win (largely contingent on if your ace is better), you get set up at a huge disadvantage for the next series. Playoff teams should get advantages like better seeding, but not to have the opposing team not be able to use their best rotation... It only adds to the BS of making a series game a 1-and-done thing. I know I should just drop it and not repeat myself, but I still don't understand how this is just. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
detlef Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 8 of the last 20 teams to play in the WS made it there as wild cards. Basic odds would support 5 of 20 since 25% of the teams are wild cards. So, for whatever reason, wild card teams were getting there more often than they "should". Perhaps it's because they've been likely playing "playoff baseball" for the last few weeks of the season, trying to secure that last spot rather than cruising into home. So, perhaps the league felt that, not only does this create some excitement, but it also tips the scales towards the teams that deserve it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Puddy Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 I'll never agree that the 5th spot was needed. We already had a wildcard team which is essentially what we end up with here. It's just the team who earned it in the regular season has to win a game against a team that didn't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whomper Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 3 game series I'd agree, but sudden death for a playoff spot that was right fully yours in year's past, and even if you win (largely contingent on if your ace is better), you get set up at a huge disadvantage for the next series. Playoff teams should get advantages like better seeding, but not to have the opposing team not be able to use their best rotation... It only adds to the BS of making a series game a 1-and-done thing. I know I should just drop it and not repeat myself, but I still don't understand how this is just. I'll never agree that the 5th spot was needed. We already had a wildcard team which is essentially what we end up with here. It's just the team who earned it in the regular season has to win a game against a team that didn't. Yep Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delusions of grandeur Posted October 5, 2012 Author Share Posted October 5, 2012 8 of the last 20 teams to play in the WS made it there as wild cards. Basic odds would support 5 of 20 since 25% of the teams are wild cards. So, for whatever reason, wild card teams were getting there more often than they "should". Perhaps it's because they've been likely playing "playoff baseball" for the last few weeks of the season, trying to secure that last spot rather than cruising into home. So, perhaps the league felt that, not only does this create some excitement, but it also tips the scales towards the teams that deserve it. They also used to just have the best team in each league play in the World Series, but have expanded it 2 rounds to increase interest. I don't have a huge problem with this however, as it has been applied equally and fairly. But when you say "deserving", that's rather subjective, isn't it? Are your Giants more deserving than the Braves with the same record, because they played in a division where there were no other 90+ game-winning teams, while the Braves happened to be in the same division with a team who who won more than both them and the Giants? The wildcard makes sense for that exact reason (well and also because of the odd number of divisions of course), that one division can be tougher than another, so to assume that all division winners are equal is flawed. It happens frequently that a 2nd best team in a division can be just as good or better record-wise as one in another division. Happens all the time in all sports. So yes, I do agree that some wildcards have had more success because they're already in playoff mode down the stretch to win the wildcard, but that doesn't necessarily make them any less deserving of a playoff spot or of a chance at a title. But back to the point, is that this is not so much a matter of giving division winners an advantage, it's a matter that they're applying an unfair disadvantage to wildcard teams, not for the reason of fairness, quite the opposite, to increase interest with absolutely no regard to fairness. Again, I'd have no problem with a 3-game series, because the better team should still have a fair edge and it doesn't completely screw up their rotation; But sorry, 1 game is not going to ensure that the best wildcard team makes the playoffs, which should be the goal of any play-in. Hell, isn't that the whole point of the playoffs? To ensure that the best teams compete for the title? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big John Posted October 6, 2012 Share Posted October 6, 2012 Did the rule also use replacement umpires? The Braves were just jobbed by a ball that dropped in the outfield and the ump called the infield fly rule. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buddahj Posted October 6, 2012 Share Posted October 6, 2012 Did the rule also use replacement umpires? The Braves were just jobbed by a ball that dropped in the outfield and the ump called the infield fly rule. And now the fans are throwing stuff onto the field. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buddahj Posted October 6, 2012 Share Posted October 6, 2012 And that was a terrible call. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delusions of grandeur Posted October 6, 2012 Author Share Posted October 6, 2012 A total embarassment on all fronts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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