MLB To Add More Playoff Teams

[AngelsLakersFan]

18 hours ago, GregAlso said:

I don’t get all the vitriol and frustration at Manfred. I understand nobody likes change and this does diminish the regular season. But it also goes a fair distance in fixing one of the players (and frankly fans) grievances, tanking teams.
 

Teams tank because they don’t see a realistic shot at a playoff spot. More teams in the playoffs means less tanking teams, and not just two each league, but 3-4 more who believe they have a legit shot at making it.
 

It also turns the 1 game playoff into a three game, which fixes the grievance everyone has had about the one game playoff. It gives one team a bye in this 3 game wild card round so that winning the league means something. That feels more like the pre-LCS era. The other division winners have home field through the first round so they have some advantages. 
 

Other than it being foreign and people don’t like change I can see a lot of reasonable things about the proposal. It doesn’t seem completely absurd as some are saying. I mean the wild card round is only 8 years old and the division rounds is 25 years old in current iterations. That isn’t some long history in my mind. Just not worth getting worked up about. 

They can fix the tanking issue without fucking up the postseason. Just add a salary floor that functions like the luxury tax and start punishing teams for losing really bad.

Also the one game play-in doesn't need to be best of three... it's still just a coin flip. This has the added downside of essentially turning the division series into a three game series rather than the 5 games it is currently. (And yes I do know the division series still exists in this new proposal).

[Claude]

They should just take the top eight from both leagues and create a sweet sixteen format regardless of league. Then re-seed a great eight a final four and a championship. This would be a true test of any team. 

1 vs 16

2 vs 15

3 vs 14

4 vs 13

5 vs 12

6 vs 11

7 vs 10

8 vs 9

[Angel Oracle]

4 hours ago, True Grich said:

I believe achieving goals that are harder to attain are more rewarding and more enjoyable than goals that are easily attained.  Awarding nearly half the teams in each league a birth in the postseason is crazy, IMO.  Baseball has to stop trying to be like other sports. It's not. It's unique. It's special. I'm not adverse to change. I'm open to a more precise way of calling balls and strikes. I'd like to see the DH in the NL. I just don't like the idea of prolonging the season and allowing teams to dictate who they want to play, etc. I understand that play-off baseball is exciting and there is more drama - and everyone loves drama - but this idea doesn't resonate with me at all.

+1

What's next?   College bowl games type dilution of in season importance (outside of the one battle for top 4 spots)?  

You can't have a 3 game WC series, because the bye teams' pitchers will get too much rest.   And you really shouldn't have a one game take all.

Should have stuck with the format pre-2012, three divisional winners and one WC in each league.    And as for solving the issue of tanking teams, the proposed solution destroys even more the worth of the regular season, a once sacred thing in MLB.    

Edited February 11, 2020 by Angel Oracle

[AngelsLakersFan]

I might just be being dramatic but I seriously think this new format could negatively impact my fandom potentially.

[ukyah]

7 hours ago, yk9001 said:

I have never heard of this before.

I googled it and I only found articles similar to yours.  From that particular time period.  I never found an article of a team actually picking their region.  As a college basketball fan, I thought I would have heard of that.  And since all the media and fans do is second guess, I am sure we would have heard about it.

 

This article from the NCAA, from last fall, mentions nothing about it.

https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-men/article/2018-10-19/how-field-68-teams-picked-march-madness

Not picking a fight or looking for an argument.  I'd love to hear an example of the #1 seed picking their region.

i'm right there with you. i had never even heard that suggested before, but they were openly referring to it today and they weren't idiots, so there it is. i think it probably comes down to what lou was intimating, which is they are usually going to pick as close to home as possible. so maybe it's not enough of a thing to be interesting.

[ELEVEN]

9 hours ago, RendZone said:

This is perfect. 

Yes

[GregAlso]

6 hours ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

They can fix the tanking issue without fucking up the postseason. Just add a salary floor that functions like the luxury tax and start punishing teams for losing really bad.

Also the one game play-in doesn't need to be best of three... it's still just a coin flip. This has the added downside of essentially turning the division series into a three game series rather than the 5 games it is currently. (And yes I do know the division series still exists in this new proposal).

Do you not see the danger in that? What if a team tried, looses badly, then gets punished because they failed. You set a loop that spirals downward and can go out of control. You have to incentivize winning not make loosing worse. Some team is going to loose, its inevitable. The goal is to make winning more valuable than throwing away wins.  

[Lou]

7 hours ago, GregAlso said:

Do you not see the danger in that? What if a team tried, looses badly, then gets punished because they failed. You set a loop that spirals downward and can go out of control. You have to incentivize winning not make loosing worse. Some team is going to loose, its inevitable. The goal is to make winning more valuable than throwing away wins.  

*losing

*lose 

 

[Bronson]

18 hours ago, RendZone said:

They should just take the top eight from both leagues and create a sweet sixteen format regardless of league. Then re-seed a great eight a final four and a championship. This would be a true test of any team. 

1 vs 16

2 vs 15

3 vs 14

4 vs 13

5 vs 12

6 vs 11

7 vs 10

8 vs 9

 

 

[Claude]

31 minutes ago, Bronson said:

lol and thank you for your honest response. 

[Taylor]

5 hours ago, Lou said:

*losing

*lose 

 

*loses

[yk9001]

Man, there are some ballplayers on twitter who have actual brains.  I like this - 

 

[AngelsLakersFan]

14 hours ago, GregAlso said:

Do you not see the danger in that? What if a team tried, looses badly, then gets punished because they failed. You set a loop that spirals downward and can go out of control. You have to incentivize winning not make loosing worse. Some team is going to loose, its inevitable. The goal is to make winning more valuable than throwing away wins.  

There is no practical difference between incentivizing winning and disincentivizing losing. 

If teams are trying they won't lose 100 games 4 years in a row like the Astros. All the league has to do is reduce a teams share of revenue sharing the more they lose and reduce their draft slots when they fail to reach a salary floor. There is a sliding scale of possibilities that will discourage tanking without putting teams at risk of getting caught in a death spiral of suck. There is no risk here except that some owners will have to stop being shitty.

[Hubs]

I had a thought about this last night when I couldn't sleep in the middle of the night.

7 teams with a single first round bye sounds weird. What if two division winners tie for the best record? Do they have a playoff? Coin flip?

But...I do like the 3 game, one city series.

SO...

2 expansions teams, reorganize divisions into 2 @ 8 team divisions. Some teams will have to switch leagues, some will have to switch back.

AL WEST: Angels, A's, Mariners, Rockies, Brewers, Royals, Twins, White Sox.

AL EAST: Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Orioles, Nashville Expansion, Indians, Tigers, Rangers.

NL WEST: Dodgers, Padres, Giants, Diamondbacks, Portland Expansion, Cardinals, Cubs, Reds.

NL EAST: Mets, Phillies, Braves, Astros, Nationals, Marlins, Pirates, Rays/Expos.

 

Alternatively, you could leave the Brewers and the Astros in their respective new leagues, and swap the expansion teams. Portland moves to the AL West, Astros to the AL East, Nashville to the NL East, Brewers to the NL West.

 

Play each division opponent 12 times = 84 in division games up from 76 now. Play other division in your league 6 times, = 48 games. Play 30 interleague games as follows. 3 against your rival home and away every year.  24 games against the rest of the same division, which means they will get one extra series when West plays West besides Rival, and will play the entire East division when West plays East, plus Rival home and away.

Season ends on the last weekend in September. Latest season End Date would be Sept. 30. Earliest would be 25th of September.

 

Division winners get byes. 4 Wild Cards per league, play the three game series the first week as in the proposal. The top wild card gets to pick their opponent. But so do Division Winners. Wild Card top seed picks matchup, Top division winner picks the matchup that will face them in the divisional round.

 

I'd play the 3 game series on Wednesday-Friday. That leaves Monday for tiebreaker games (for division winner or for last wild card spot) In the event of a three way tie for a division or for the last wild card spot, there would have to be tiebreakers of some sort. The TV Show would be Monday Night, not Sunday Night. Latest series end date would be October 5th. Earliest would be Sept. 30th.

 

All Four Division Series start on Saturday. No Days off. They are played at the same time, with Broadcasts at the same time on different channels. 12 PM (PST) and 4:30 PM (PST) Start. Same Thing on Sunday.  Monday night off. Tuesday Game 3. Wednesday Game 4. Thursday Game 5 if Necessary. Friday Game 6 if Necessary and Saturday game 7 if Necessary.  Latest End Date would be October 13th. Earliest would be October 8th.

 

Both Championship Series start on Monday night. They are played staggered on Different channels, but on the same schedule. Say 4 Pm and 6 Pm PST starts. Tuesday Game 2, Wednesday Off. Thursday Game 3. Friday Game 4, and Saturday Games are played as a Day Night Double Header. Same Thing on Sunday for Game 5 if Necessary. Monday Game 6, Tuesday Game 7. Latest End Date would be October 23rd. October 16th.

 

World Series is Played on a 7 game in 9 night detail. Thursday Game 1, Friday Game 2, Saturday off, Sunday Game 3, Monday Game 4, Tuesday Game 5, Wednesday off Thursday Game 6 and Friday Night Game 7. Nov 2nd is the latest end date. Earliest is October 27th, the day the Angels won their game 7 in 2002.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lou]

I was thinking about Salma Hayek, but you do you, buddy. 

[Angel Oracle]

29 minutes ago, Lou said:

I was thinking about Salma Hayek, but you do you, buddy. 

 

[Claude]

On 2/12/2020 at 10:28 AM, yk9001 said:

Man, there are some ballplayers on twitter who have actual brains.  I like this - 

 

They should award an at-large bid to hard luck teams. 

Edited February 21, 2020 by RendZone

[Stradling]

There’s still a huge money disparity in baseball.  A team just sold for a billion dollars, big deal.  The Yankees, Dodgers, Cubs and Red Sox would sell for $5 billion or more.    It’s about how much revenue a team brings in and there are teams that won’t break even if they try to carry the $200 million payroll like a handful of teams. 

[Junkballer]

On 2/12/2020 at 10:28 AM, yk9001 said:

 

 

If all teams allocate salary based on supposed franchise value, and not on operating, television and other yearly revenue, and the stock of baseball talent remains static, that wouldn't have any impact on player salaries would it?  As in, a huge influx of money divided among a fixed pool of recipients?   Alex Wood is a very clear thinking individual.

 

 

[Tank]

18 hours ago, Lou said:

I was thinking about Salma Hayek, but you do you, buddy. 

[Tank]

Wait . . . Is that her G spot?

[Lou]

7 minutes ago, Tank said:

Wait . . . Is that her G spot?

That reminds me of an episode in Season 6 of The Blacklist:

 

Elizabeth : He's a myth. 

Reddington : That's what they said about Deep Throat ... and the G-spot.

[Puget Sound Angel]

Nothing would make baseball better than to make it more like the NHL.

Said no one ever.

[ScruffytheJanitor]

On 2/10/2020 at 4:59 PM, Fish Oil said:

The movie had this backward. Thumbs down meant "bury the sword in the sand."

It's more complicated, actually. There is no clear evidence which way meant what. It's not even clear that they even did "thumbs down" like that; it's more probable they would use thumbs up to kill, then wrap their fingers around their thumb for sparing a life. But anything is possible because no one  bothered to write it down.

[Fish Oil]

1 hour ago, ScruffytheJanitor said:

It's more complicated, actually. There is no clear evidence which way meant what. It's not even clear that they even did "thumbs down" like that; it's more probable they would use thumbs up to kill, then wrap their fingers around their thumb for sparing a life. But anything is possible because no one  bothered to write it down.

Yepper. No one knows for certain. The consensus (whatever that may mean) seems to be a thumb to the throat was death and thumb down meant life. But, who knows.
One interesting fact that surprises lots of people is that gladiators usually fought to first blood and that a gladiator could actually be charged with murder if he killed his opponent.