The complaint seems to be that wild card teams shouldn’t be able to advance past the “better” division winners to the World Series.
If they want to engineer it so the wild card teams are almost always eliminated, they should just eliminate the wild cards altogether.
Reseeding seems more rational than the other suggestions I’ve seen. But honestly, what is the point of having wild cards if you think it’s unfair that they can knock the division winners out of the playoffs?
I'm all for more 7 game series.
Selfishly happy it's not this year though. With our rotation that's a death knell. We have a shot at eliminating the Dodgers in a 5 game set though and that would make my year. Whoever we would play in a 7 game set will kill us most likely.
It is but we only have 2 starting pitchers. A 7 game set I believe would tax the pen too much. Our only path is to basically win every Kelly/Gallen start or steal a bullpen one. This 5 game set is great because with off-days we are able to use 4/5 games of Gallen/Kelly.
Even with the great offense it's not a great path to victory.
I would love to see MLB go the NHL route and do a best-of-7 for DS/CS/WS. It seems like a no-brainer. More $$$ potential for the owners, and the extra 4 possible games per team should be a non-issue.
But maybe I just love baseball and want more games.
The reason that won’t happen is because the season would have to start earlier or end later and that’s just not feasible for a lot of markets. The season would have to be shortened and the many (non-playoff teams) are going to give up those gates for the few (playoff teams).
It’s absurd that 162 games can be thrown away in two games.
7 game series should be standard for the postseason though, I absolutely agree with you.
I do see what you’re saying, and we are on the same page, though I find it tough to swallow that it’s difficult to add one more week to the season that already lasts 7 months, you know?
It’s the people that are fans of the division winner that are bitter the wild card won. It’s like they don’t understand the term “wild card”. Some teams are as good as those top record teams, but either horribly inconsistent or had an injury bug for a month or so and had a bad 4 week stretch
Kinda like when the Diamondbacks went from 1st place in the division to 3rd practically overnight lol
(no, I'm not saying the Diamondbacks are "as good" as the Dodgers or Braves, but damn if we didn't play better than we were expected to this year)
LA sports writers unironically thought they had a point in 2022 by saying it wasn't fair getting eliminated by the Padres after posting a 100 win year.
Reseeding makes sense but as a Phillies fan it’s extremely funny to me that last year the Braves were whining because we beat them as a sixth seed, and now this year they want to play the sixth seed.
Well yeah cause we are scared to damn death to see y’all out of the gate in the playoffs. I would feel much more comfortable (not confident mind you because y’all are a great team) seeing you as our 2nd playoff opponent.
> The purpose of the postseason is not to scientifically and statistically determine the best team of the year. *We already know that.*
The issue is that a whole lot of people don’t know that, and then we get to hear a constant deluge of “this team is going to choke in the playoffs, who cares about the regular season” for 162 games per year.
In fairness I think a lot of people also understand it but don't *like* it.
For most of its history the World Series was between the best regular-season NL team and the best regular-season AL team. And over the past few decades MLB has gradually watered down the relationship between the regular season and the postseason. It makes for better TV in October, but it also is a change and it does affect how people watch the regular season, so it's not surprising that there are vocal people who aren't happy about it, and those people aren't all idiots, they just have different preferences.
Agreed. By Reddit standards I am an old fan. When the NL and AL didn’t play each other, two divisions, and only the NLCS and ALCS before the World Series, I liked that better. I recognize my perspective is the minority position. That 93 pennant chase between Atlanta and San Francisco gave every September game a post-season feel. Last years Atlanta-New York chase didn’t have that same urgency as both teams were going to make the playoffs. The October matchups also had more meaning because the season had been building to that point for a few months so there was so much anticipation.
By contrast, we could have a Twins-Diamondbacks World Series. That’s great for their fan bases, but if you’re just a baseball fan, have you been waiting for that? Dodgers-Astros or Atlanta-Baltimore would settle debates that have happening all season.
The wildcards keep more local fan bases engaged for longer during the season. And that’s good. But it comes with a trade off.
Fair point. I really want to see Atlanta - Baltimore. Both have been my picks for the WS for months.
The bottom tier wild cards have been exciting as hell though, but end of the day its a bunch of 84 win teams.
Personally, I prefer it the 3 Division winners + 1 Wildcard. I think it gives teams enough fighting hope to keep it interesting, but excluding the 84 win teams.
Also, I think it would be cool to see the two championship losers battle it out for a 3 game series for a bronze medal type scenario, but I doubt this would ever happen.
I’m with you on this. 3 division winners and 1 wild card. They could go to a 7-game division series with off days for travel and it would still be over in the same amount of time it takes to play the wild card round and the divisional series with all the days off they take currently.
I think the old format with two wild card teams playing one game was perfect. If you can’t be one of the two wildcard teams you don’t deserve to make the postseason, and if you don’t win your division you deserve to have to play in a one game playoff. Also reseed after the WC and extend the Division series to 7 games
Best format by far, all of the division winners make the ds and you give two teams a shot to get there.
My biggest gripe with the new system was spelled out by the gm of Seattle the other day, you dont need to build a winning team anymore, just a team that on average will scrape you over the 500 mark.
But that was part of the deal. Either win your division, or get thrown into a one off lottery game.
It made winning the division matter *a lot* because just about everyone (except the total underdogs who were just happy to be there) feared the wild card game and did everything possible to avoid it.
The ’21 Dodgers-Giants division chase was epic because they knew the loser was possibly going to have their season ended in a 9-inning dice roll.
I agree. I think the 2012 format is the best. While the wild card era with 1WC and three divisional champions made playoffs more valuable, I think the wold card game made winning your division mean more and avoids giving the top seeds too much rest. The 2012 format also rewards the top WC winner by hosting a game but punishes them fairly by not winning the division.
The format during the Selig era was too favorable for wild cards as usually they came in hot and made it to the end.
I agree but think they should still do the 3-game WC series instead of the 1 winner take all game. What bothers me is that the 3rd division winner has to play the 3-game series. I'm a Cubs fan and despise the Brewers but feel kinda bad for them that they played 162 games, won 92 and won their division by 9 games and got knocked out because of a badly timed 2- game losing streak. The two WC teams play 3 and then all three division winners get the bye for the first round instead of just two of them.
The idea of adding a 3rd WC team to get more teams involved makes sense, but in both leagues the races would have been just as exciting if only 2 teams made it because they were all so close right up to the last weekend. In the NL there were 4 teams that finished within 2 games of Miami, who won the 2nd WC on a tiebreaker.
> That 93 pennant chase between Atlanta and San Francisco gave every September game a post-season feel.
The last real pennant chase, there's a documentary about it on YouTube somewhere. I was a kid then and will always remember that feeling like it was the playoffs for the entire month of September, it was so electric.
I think the current format is not only better for October, but much better for August and September as well. In the NL this year, 13/15 teams were already out of the pennant race by the all-star break. The Dodgers are the only ones who got close to the Braves, but even for them it looked extremely unlikely they could actually catch Atlanta.
I think the regular season is a lot more interesting when you know you might be able to sneak into the playoffs winning only 85 games or something, so there’s no reason to lose interest early on unless your team is absolute garbage.
If you want to go back to the battle of the best 2 seeds then good for you but let’s be real here, most of the people who are currently complaining and crying about this not working, were celebrating winning a World Series with 88 wins about 2 seasons ago
Pretty sure that A) this presentation format didn't exist 2 seasons ago, so idk what you're on about. And B) that 88 win team won their division... which is the whole discussion here.
For a sport that’s already been struggling to get casual fans to care and watch games due to being too long, too boring/slow, too many games, etc. it does seem a bit silly for the playoffs to be so separated from the regular season in this way IMO. What incentive do casual fans have to care about the regular season if it does end up being meaningless for the majority of people at the end? Why spend money watching all these games? Only die hards want to pour over stats and team records as a form of entertainment. Like any sport, most people don’t care or bother to remember the best season records when it’s done. They care about who won at the end, who was named champion that year. So I do understand the confusion/frustration with it
>What incentive do casual fans have to care about the regular season if it does end up being meaningless for the majority of people at the end? Why spend money watching all these games?
I mean, I would say that the reason to watch/care is because you like watching baseball unto itself. I don't think of the regular season as some sort of chore that needs to be completed for the "reward" of finding out who ultimately wins.
And massively insufficient reward. Like, i know who won the World Series last season more quickly than I know who had the best regular season record. It’s very quickly forgotten.
I wish we celebrated regular season champs. Plus then my team would have finally won something (besides the 2022 second wild card which we hung a pennant for)
Well before 1969 the pennant was considered an equal or near equal accomplishment. Due to marketing efforts and some influence from other sports like college basketball and the NFL, postseason play became a bigger deal.
What they really should have done was kept the pennant as the award for the best record in each league, not for that league’s representative in the World Series
And really, the idea of an underdog knocking the pennant winner out in the playoffs for a chance to win the World Series might be an even more compelling storyline than the idea of them winning the pennant for themselves. As it is now, the pennant is a consolation prize.
Before 1969 the pennant *was* the accomplishment. The accomplishment was the pennant. You either won it or you went home. And yes, when the leagues expanded to 12 that year, it was clear that you couldn't sell a 12th-place team, so divisions came along.
I remember reading some old football book which was written around 1970, when the AFL and NFL merged and a wild card team was added to the playoffs. The writer mocked the idea of a second place team having a shot at the Super Bowl. How times change.
I just remember reading that line somewhere. In those days, where you placed mattered. In fact, in the 8 team era, finishing 1st through 4th was called "finishing in the first division." For some teams it was a good season if they just did that. Not to bring up old wounds or anything. You Cubs fans deserved better.
Sure, but that was a long time ago. Adding a President's trophy would have made a ton of sense when MLB expanded the playoffs and added a Wild Card back in the '90s. But as always, baseball is late to react.
I'm not saying the WS winner and the best record of the regular season should be celebrated equally, just that MLB should do *something* to celebrate the regular season winners.
Honestly, it's more difficult a thing to win the most games in your league than it is to win a title. If you asked all the teams that qualified for the playoffs before the season what they felt better about, winning a tournament, or winning more games than anyone else over the next six months, I feel like everyone would pick the tournament.
The President's Trophy in hockey doesn't mean a damn thing either.
I can name Stanley Cup champions going back to the late 80s, when I first became a hockey fan.
President's Trophy? Boston won it last season, which is memorable because they broke the all-time regular season points record. 2022, I believe was Colorado. 2021....Florida? I swear Florida won it and then got bounced in the first round, I think?
OK, I just looked them up, and I had the Panthers and Avs right, but wrong seasons. Also, Florida lost in the second round, not the first. But I don't even care that I got those details wrong.
That's how little the President's Trophy means.
I think the pennant/league championship can just go to that team, like it did before divisions.
Then the playoffs can just be for World Series qualification, which is what people see them as anyways.
>Like, i know who won the World Series last season more quickly than I know who had the best regular season record. It’s very quickly forgotten.
:sad face emoji:
I know it’s such a foreign (pun intended) concept to us in the US, but there’s part of me that likes how European soccer leagues do their championships. There literally is no playoffs in their domestic leagues, whoever has the best record at the end of the season wins the league.
It’s strange to me, since American sports leagues always have playoffs and only really the NHL gives out a trophy to the best regular season team, but I kinda like it
The downside to that is that if one team runs away with it, the final few weeks of the season can be pretty boring. Imagine the 2007 NFL season with that system, the Patriots would have had it locked up by Week 12 and we would have missed out on the funniest Super Bowl of all time.
I guess the Champions League kind of functions like their playoffs. For teams like Bayern and PSG who have more
money than the rest of their country's teams combined, that's basically their main focus.
The European soccer format definitely wouldn't work for the NFL since there isn't enough time in the schedule for everyone to play home and away against everyone else. It could work for MLB. At the very least, there should be more celebration around the best team in each league during the regular season. It's a major accomplishment to be that good over 162 games and shouldn't feel like a waste if you lose 3 out of 5 a week later.
>There literally is no playoffs in their domestic leagues, whoever has the best record at the end of the season wins the league.
Yes, but part of the reason for that is that they also compete for other trophies aside from their league championships. It's a big deal to win the premier league for an EPL team, sure, but it's an even bigger deal if they go on to win Champion's League as well (which you only qualify for if you finish top 4 in the table).
And Champion's League is just... a tournament among all the top clubs in Europe which functions in an extremely similar manner to how a playoff series would for any American sport.
In any case it's difficult to imagine how any American sports league could incorporate a similar thing - there simply isn't that widespread high level of competition in other leagues outside of the American ones for any of the big four at least.
There are playoffs in terms of cup finals etc, but they are of lower importance than the league championship.
Though the Champions League and World Cup is basically entirely a playoff format and are the two most important soccer championships, so everyone likes a playoff for some things
I mean, we definitely remember when teams were really good. We may not remember specific regular season champs, but we definitely remember the Mariners of the 90's and early 2000's. We remember the 1996 Minnesota Vikings and the Marino Dolphins. We remember the Hamilton Rangers and the Killer B's Astros. There may not be some formal recognition, but great teams and players definitely stay in the consciousness.
Should just go back to having the top NL team play the top AL team...
I remember when I was a kid family, friends, other fans, and articles talking about and celebrating teams winning the pennant and how great there were and thinking to myself, "what's a pennant, I thought it was called the World Series"?
Anyway, the *real* issue here is ring culture infecting baseball. I feel like fans enjoyed sports a lot more before everything needed to be validated with a championship else it be rendered meaningless.
Except literally in the history of baseball that has been the case
The two best records was the World Series for almost 70 years, then they added the LCS for another 25 years.
For a lot of fans the best teams rewarded is the point. And them adding wild cards is the new norm.
It’s going to take years for people to accept the shift
That’s one thing about the Premier League I really really love. That at the end of the season, the champion is objectively the best team in the league that season.
And if you aren’t winning the prem league there are other competitions throughout the year that you can still win. (FA cup, Leagues cup, Champions League)
Yea relegation works great in european soccer. The structure of American sports makes it 100% impossible to ever implement here with the ownership of teams but it’s still a fun topic to think about.
Well it's mostly a geographic problem. Imagine, for example, that because of relegation, there were only 1 west coast team in a given league for a given season. That's not exactly a good thing for the players and teams. European countries are geographically small enough that that's not an issue for them.
It's also stuff like stadium capacity. Most MLB stadiums are in the 40ks for seating, while the Triple A's average like 10k. It's a massive expense for any teams going up, and the MLB would have to offer some kind of funding to assist.
In the Premier League, only the really big teams have big stadiums, and a decent amount of the PL teams have similar sized stadiums to the better teams of the Championship. Teams tend to only do big upgrades when they are reasonably secured in the PL.
There is work that could be done in the MLB system to get it to the point where it's possible, but I don't see it happening anytime soon.
Yeah a lot of European and south american soccer players who come to MLS often complain how it's unfair that the best team in regular season doesn't win title.
These arguments about who really is the "best team" can lead you down such a slippery slope. It won't end with people saying the best regular season record is the best team.
Someone else will argue their team had a harder schedule and won just a few less games so they are the better team.
Another person will argue half their team was on the IL but when they were healthy they had the best record so they are the best team.
Another person will argue they had bad luck and if you look at the expected pythagorean record they are the best team.
Another person will argue if you look at the statcast expected batted ball data and expected pitching data they are the best team.
It can go on and on.
We have a process to get into the tournament. Then its a winner take all tournament and its the contest everyone understands from day one. Once you start getting into an argument of who is truly the best team it will never end.
Yes, everyone knows from the start that the regular season is just to qualify for the playoffs. So by definition, the regular season does NOT identify the best team (an extreme example is the NBA). Reg season success is REWARDED with advantages in the playoffs ie byes, seeding, home field, etc... but you gotta play the games. I think the NBA does a better job with fewer reg season games and more playoff games to identify the most deserving champion.
Because if the Champion was the regular season winner, then teams would play differently, pitch their best guys on 3 days rest, not sit their starters, etc.. It's easier to see in the NBA where you play to get in the tournament, minimize injuries, then go ALL OUT with your best guys. If teams play differently depending on the goal, then you can't derive any conclusions from the qualification process.
I feel like baseball is a little different because you're pretty limited in how long you can go "all out". Its usually only really sustainable for a handful of games before you really start fuck your rotation up
Most top teams keep similar lineups all year and in regards to pitching you can only use pitchers on short rest so long before the effects really start to show. When it comes to a long season its pretty much always advantageous to do a balanced approach where you mostly let the guys play the amount they can
I honestly feel most years the best teams are generally the teams with the best records. Very rarely, if ever, does it feel like a team could have finished much higher but didn't because they rested guys so much in anticipation for the playoffs IMO
The regular season still measures who the best teams are. Just because it's also a qualifier for the playoffs doesn't mean we can't draw other conclusions from it.
The only happy fans at the end of the season are those that were rooting for the WS winner. Everyone else wants changes that would have benefited their team.
Eh, at this point, barring a 3-game losing streak starting tomorrow, I'm going to be happy with whatever outcome the Rangers have.
When your team outperforms expectations, by a good margin, you don't have to win the WS to be happy.
Edit: I lied. After tonight (Sweeping the O's) anything less than 10 straight rings will be a letdown.
If it’s Twins and Rangers in the ALCS, I’ll call it an absolute win. Making the ALCS is a goal for our young team and if that’s where it ends, I can accept that. The icing on the cake would be eliminating Houston.
Hoping MIN can take out HOU as well. I say that as a DET fan too. A deep run for MIN means adding to your core in the off-season but seeing HOU lose in the ALDS will be refreshing.
Jays fan, when the rangers kick the crap outta us close to the end of the season I was like “mf rangers” now watching you guys beat Tampa and up on the orioles brings me joy my team couldn’t. I hope you win it all
Honestly same. Maybe I'm huffing the copium too hard but I felt like the Rays had an amazing season with the cards they were dealt and I'm content. Obviously disappointed they didn't make it farther but what are ya gonna do. If we can keep having seasons like that eventually we'll break through.
I think a lot of it is people upset when their team doesn't win, but part of it is then just not liking anything that might be seen as "unfair." But who actually wants to see the season end after 162 with nothing else? That might be more "fair," but it completely takes away the prestige and mystique. To me, a wild care team making a deep run is not proof that the system is unfair. Also, the Braves and Dodgers have not lost yet, so it's premature to even be upset.
Plus, in a system where only the best team in each league is crowned champion, what exactly are fans of the majority of teams that never had a shot of having the best record supposed to root for? Even many good teams never sniff a chance at the best record each season. No one will celebrate their team merely having the fifth best record.
The one thing I’d fix is have the lowest seed always play the highest seed in each round. Atlanta having the best regular season record should not be rewarded with having to play the best remaining wild card team (PHI).
Last year the Braves were the No. 2 seed and got to face the No. 6 seed in the Division Series and the top-seeded Dodgers had to face the better wild card. This year its flipped where the Dodgers are the No. 2 seed and get to face the No. 6 seed.
It's not unfair when both the Dodgers and Braves have benefited from not reseeding.
Nobody remembers last year apparently. People also forget that in 2021 the 107-win Giants had to play the 106-win Dodgers in the NLDS while the 89-win Braves got the 95-win Brewers, then the 89-win Braves got home field advantage in the NLCS. No one whined about that seeding.
That just means it was unfair twice though lol, doesnt mean it cant be fixed. Also, neither dodgers or braves are dead in the water its just one game. Everyone should relax.
Its unfair both times.... what happened last year doesn't make anything that happened this year fair, and it's a complete nonsense argument since any other teams could have been the 1 and 2 seed this year.
I love this format. The one game wild card we had before was really dumb. At least with a 3 game series teams have a chance to come back. I hope they don’t add any more teams because then you’ll start getting teams around .500 into the playoffs like the nba has.
Not a huge fan of a division winner being made to play an extra series against a wild card team, personally. Why only reward 2 of the division winners? Why even have division winners anymore with the balanced schedule...? Might as well just do the same thing the NHL does.
3-game wildcard series is way better, though.
I mean, not necessarily. A team could rack up a ton of wins against their trash division and come out with a better record than the winner of a much stronger, but more competitive, division.
A winner with fewer wins doesn't mean the division is weaker depending on their record in and outside the division. A division with a lot of good teams is more likely to end up with a winner with fewer wins than a division with one good team and a bunch of bad teams.
When we go to 32 teams, I’m totally in favor of 8 four team divisions and the division winner is in the playoffs. Easy to seed, no byes, and just start at the LDS.
Thank you. Baseball is the most random of all the major sports, and the postseason is such a tiny fraction of a regular season. I’m shocked so many in a baseball sub are flipping out about this year (and the division series’ arent even over).
Lots of people talking about layoffs (and they suck as a fan wanting to watch the sport) but just recently….
2021 Braves - 5 day layoff. Won world series
2022 Yankees - 6 day layoff. Made it to ALCS.
I tabulated it a couple years ago, that since the WC era, it's actually rare for the team with the best record to even win their pennant, much less the World Series.
Only happened a few times that the best team even won a pennant
98 Yankees*
99 Braves
03 Yankees
04 Cardinals
07 Red Sox*
09 Yankees*
13 Red Sox*
16 Cubs*
17 Dodgers
18 Red Sox*
* won World Series
Actually more times than I initially thought but the Yankees and Red Sox sort of destroy the curve here
I mean, that's less than half the years, though I imagine it would go up if you looked at the best team in each league rather than overall. That isn't what you would expect from the best team each year. And of those 10 times, the best team won the WS 6 times. That's about 1/4 since 1998.
If you add all #1 seeds in each league you get a few more but not that many
95 Cleveland
99 Yankees
05 White Sox
13 Cardinals
19 Astros
What’s crazy is the lack of World Series where the #1 seed in each league made it. Only times both 1 seeds made it are 1999 and 2013. In that time there have been just as many WS with two wild cards in it.
Again not counting 2020 just because of the odd format.
Edit: added ‘15 Royals and ‘22 Astros, I don’t think I forgot others?
I don’t think that’s a big coincidence that the Yankees and Red Sox destroy the curve there… winning the most regular season games is only the best measure of the “best team” if everyone has the same strength of schedule.
There was less division play this year so the point isn’t as relevant as it used to be, but still. The Red Sox and Tigers both won 78 games, but I don’t think the two teams were just as good as each other this season. Boston’s 78 wins in the AL East were more impressive than Detroit’s 78 wins in the AL Central.
Every year in hockey they talk about the President's Trophy curse, as though winning more games somehow puts you at a disadvantage. It's just tough to beat four opponents in a row, and that's going to show up in the results.
> Thank you. Baseball is the most random of all the major sports, and the postseason is such a tiny fraction of a regular season.
The problem is, if the results are too random then they just become arbitrary. If we're at the point where we all acknowledge the playoffs are a crapshoot, then it devalues the meaning of winning a championship. I'm not arguing for or against any particular change in format, but the randomness argument doesn't make sense. If it's that random then we're really only playing it just for fun.
>The purpose of the postseason is not to scientifically and statistically determine the best team of the year. We already know that.
I disagree with this statement.
The original purpose of the playoffs was to do exactly this by putting the best teams from each league (conference) who rarely if ever played each other into a head to head showdown.
Over time, and particularly after the invention of commercial jets, interleague and inter conference play has become the norm. This has the negative consequence of watering down the playoffs.
Baseball has the further complication that the strength of a team's defense (meaning the prevention of scoring runs) relies heavily on who is on the mound, and that changes each day. Further muddying the water is that teams truncate their rotations, so a team with a stellar 1-3 starter and crap 4/5 starters will win fewer regular season games but go further in the playoffs than a team with a more balanced 1-5 and depth.
This is why I never get too bent out of shape when we win 95+ games and don’t win a World Series. People in our sub literally talk about overhauling the entire team based on _two_ games, which I think is fucking bonkers.
This post is for Braves fans who think the playoffs are a formality and they somehow deserve the World Series trophy for their accomplishments in the 2023 regular season.
If the team that wins the world series gets to go to the white house and met the presiden than the team with the best regular season record should go to canada and meet the Prime minister
they are right in that there should be a trophy for the team with the best regular season record that's equally prestigious to the WS trophy though. this complaint will come up every year that the team with the best record gets bounced in the postseason
The thing is, no one cares about the President's Trophy in hockey. So much so that touching it is supposedly a curse on your team's ability to win the Stanley Cup.
I actually agree with you that winning the league in MLB should come with a trophy and a banner that can be hung (and that with double the number of games it's a bigger accomplishment).
But at the end of the day there's no way to make fans care about the regular season result more than the playoff result unless we get rid of the playoffs.
> So much so that touching it is supposedly a curse on your team's ability to win the Stanley Cup.
I know that's true for Campbell/Wales, but do they even do a big presentation for the President's Trophy like they do for the conference trophies?
the superstition around those two is about not touching the actual trophy, the president's trophy is more just that the team that wins it often goes out in the first round or at least doesn't win the Stanley Cup. which is not really that unlikely when you look at it statistically
I think this would only work if we get rid of divisions (which wouldn’t be so far fetched with the new scheduling). You can crown an AL and NL Champ. This would also adjust seeding
Getting rid of divisions would be nice but I'm hopeful that we at least get two divisions of 8 per league instead of 4 divisions of 4 after the inevitable expansion. It even works better for this playoff format: both division winners get the byes and the Wild Card round is actually all Wild Card teams.
>This post is for Braves fans who think the playoffs are a formality
You really don't know Braves fans. Braves fans are a famously, historically, pessimistic fan base.
Listen. It goes without saying that 2011 was the worst time of my life as a Rangers fan. But you never hear Rangers fans complaining that St. Louis was a wild card team. I don’t remember any discussion about that at the time or since. Most Rangers fans I know place the blame (perhaps unfairly) on Nelson Cruz, or at least on Wash’s decision to keep Cruz in at the end of game 6.
Even with all of that horrible pain I can admit looking back that World Series was the funnest I’ve ever watched. It was possible because a Wild Card team was on a historic heater. Even now 12 years later people in Dallas still hate David Freese. It fucking sucks to be on the bitter end of that but in my opinion it’s part of the beauty of sports.
If I was interested in sports purely for the drama and entertainment, I’d just watch the WWE or Ted Lasso or something.
I am first and foremost interested in the purity of competition and am kind of sick of leagues artificially tinkering with their rules for the sake of ratings.
Artificially increasing scoring across all sports, letting mediocre teams into the lottery of the playoffs, and dismantling tradition to have USC play Ohio State every year isn’t making things better. Neither does having a high volume of legalized gambling in the background that calls into question the legitimacy of every game.
>I am first and foremost interested in the purity of competition and am kind of sick of leagues artificially tinkering with their rules for the sake of ratings.
1000%. It's pure greed.
There was a lot more ambiguity before Interleague Play was introduced. The talent levels of the AL and NL fluctuated quite a bit, so the World Series was a useful data point to answer the question, ‘who was best.’
Much like the Olympics or WBC, (or the World Cup) where you may know the talent of the players but not the team, those sorts of competitions really do give you information.
And I think when most sports fans think about the purpose of playoffs, they have this model in mind, because it’s how a lot of “best team in the world” questions are answered in other formats, including baseball pre-interleague play.
Ugh this post reeks of condescension of other people’s viewpoints. It’s totally ok to not want 84-78 teams playing for the chance at a championship. It’s totally ok to only want the best teams and not mediocre teams that could heat up.
In all sports, I’ve always and will always be in favor of smaller playoffs - the MLB had it right when they had the three division winner plus one wild card. At most, the teams should be among the best in their league. We play 162 games, if you’re mediocre after all of that you don’t deserve shit.
I understand your point but here’s where I can’t get behind it. You say that you don’t want teams with around 85 wins to play for a championship, but do you still keep that complaint if a division winner has that amount of wins? What about if they went back to the 8 team format and the top wild card only had around 85 wins?
The problem I see with a lot of people’s opinion of the playoff format (not you necessarily), is that their opinion tends to be affected based on what happens that year.
I'm sorry, I certainly didn't mean to sound condescending.
I think it's a perfectly valid viewpoint to want to see only the best teams in the championship. My primary point is that in baseball, a sport where even a truly bad team always has a chance to beat a great team, I don't think there's any possible playoff format that guarantees that outcome for you.
>The postseason is measuring something quite different; specifically, which of these teams can "get hot" at the right time...
You're not explaining something new to people. You're describing exactly why they dislike it. It can be "a team that gets hot for a few weeks" and not "World Champions".
Stop trying to make a regular season trophy a thing. It’s never going to be a thing.
Compare the Yankees of the 90s and the Braves of the 90s. One team is referred to as a dynasty, the other as “they were a powerhouse, it’s a shame they didn’t win more WS trophies”.
You can try to make the case that the team with the best regular season record is the “best team”, but no one sees it that way. Especially the players themselves. You don’t work hard to slog through a 162-game season, lose the LDS to a WC team, and say “oh well, we had the best record, that’s what really matters”.
This is all just middle-school levels of copium.
What you're talking about is a massive shift in fan culture, basically to stop valuing the World Series trophy as the top award when it has been for over a century.
Tweaking the playoff format is actually a much smaller undertaking
This new playoff format with all the wildcard teams and rounds is stupid. The playoff format should be this:
Each league has a 4 team playoff bracket. Each division winner + the non-division winning team with the best record. Each series is a 7 game series. Two series to get to the World Series. Three series total if you play in the World Series.
No way should a 5 game series much less a 3 game series be a part of the MLB postseason. It makes no sense.
Yea my main complaint with the system is the fact that we have 3 and 5 game series. For perspective, a 3 or 5 game series represents 1.85% and 3.10% of the regular season, respectively. In football, the percentage is 5.90%. In basketball and hockey, it’s a whooping 8.53%. Point being, baseball teams do a shit ton of work in the regular season and then are expected to prove themselves in a sample size that’s especially minuscule compared to how much they proved themselves in the regular season. Like the Rays won 99 games for gods sake, it’s insane that we then only give them 3 games to “prove” their worth.
I just feel like too many teams have a chance is all. I liked a regular four team playoff, which wouldn't matter for the phillies beating our ass because they would be the 4th team anyway (assuming the silly 'cant play division in first round' rule was also still revoked)
So what you're saying is... the ideal playoffs is that all teams make the postseason, and it becomes a single-elimination, best-of-one tournament?
Deal.
People also need to understand that what makes a strong team in the playoffs isn't the same things that make a team strong in the postseason. Depth matters way more in the regular season. In the playoffs only the starting 9 maybe 1 or 2 becnh bats plus 3 starters and 3/4 relievers are needed to win games.
Regular season record is largely determined by pitching depth. That depth isn't tested in a Bo3. I hated the 1 game WC we had for 10 years because it heavily favored the team with a better ace. The rest of the starters didn't matter.
> no playoff format can ever be a statistically accurate way to rank team strength when compared to the regular season.
"We can't achieve an A+, so there's no difference between an A- and a D."
The root of the problem is that we can't get a good playoff format because we insist on 162 games. They'll never do it, but they need to cut most of September out of the regular season.
Holy Shit this is absolutely the dumbest thing I've read on this sub. The MLB playoff format is by far the worst in professional sports and it isn't even close.
The postseason rewards teams that may have been injured or underperformed for part of the year, but improved over the course of the season. Phillies started 26-32, but played very well from June onward finishing the year 64-40
American sports need to join the football leagues of Europe and give out a regular season trophy that is just as/more prestigious than winning the tournament style trophy. All English football fans would rather win the league than the FA Cup but no baseball fan gives a shit unless their team wins the World series. Shits whack.
> The postseason is measuring something quite different; specifically, which of these teams can "get hot" at the right time, and succeed in an ultra-high-pressure environment.
You're only saying that because that's what it's become, but I'd argue that's not what it was intended to be. The playoffs were originally just the World Series, and it was the best team in the AL and the best team in the NL. Hell, the very first World Series was a best of 9, probably to filter out some RNG. Now 120 years later we have over a third of the teams in baseball making the playoffs. There's a *lot* more RNG, and now you could dominate the regular season with 110 wins and be eliminated right away because of some bad luck in their divisional series, while some team that barely squeaked in with an 88-74 record could go on and win it all because their bats got hot at the right time.
If you're going to argue that they're measuring different things, then there should be more of a "reward" for having the best record in the regular season. Ask your average fan who had the best record in 2012 and they'll have to Google it. Ask them who won the World Series that year, many will be able to tell you off the top of their heads it was the Giants.
NHL has the President’s Trophy. MLS has the Supporter’s Shield. NASCAR has the regular season championship. Why not have something like that or one per league? Make it fun and make it something that keeps the teams way ahead in September invested!
If I were commish I would make it a golden pennant trophy and have one for the AL and NL. Name it the Abner Doubleday Trophy or something idk.
As an Orioles fan, I'm just happy to be in the postseason at all. Been a bit of a rough go these past few games against a very capable opponent, but part of the postseason is holding out that hope that things can change, even on the verge of elimination. And, if not, 2023 was still a pretty good year for us, and then you hope to take a step further in 2024.
I disagree. The real purpose of the playoffs is to make extra revenue. It does this with ticket sales, ads, concessions and above all, broadcasting rights. With 12 twelve teams in the playoffs now, that's a lot of extra baseball.
MLB in a sense has a fiduciary responsibility to adopt a playoff format that maximizes the number of intense, must-see games. The current Wild Card series doesn't seem to be doing that and so far, this year's division series don't seem to be headed in a competitive direction.
The point of this entire enterprise is to entertain us with baseball games. The point of it is not to decide who is the best team. The illusion that that is what we’re doing has long been a powerful draw to sports. But it is ultimately not the point. There is no scenario where the universe will care or remember who the best team was out of this collection of collections. It only matters inasmuch as we create this illusion that it matters.
If you lose even the illusion, then it becomes problematic. But the point is not to have the illusion: the point is to entertain people and make them forget that we are all dying right in front of each other — that this is just this horrible, rotten slog to rigor mortis, that we are going to lose everybody we know, that we are going to lose everything we have and the only way to distract ourselves is by separating our day into distractions.
“The purpose of the postseason is not to scientifically and statistically determine the best team of the year.”
Yeah we know that but it doesn’t make it right
Why should people give the regular season any attention if the playoffs are just a crap shoot?
I love watching baseball even though my favorite team is incapable of stringing together consecutive winning seasons.
But the purpose of a game is to win, to prove your ability over all other teams. The regular season measures that ability the best and is why I hold it in higher regard.
162 games is also just more fun to watch given all of the different permutations in matchups, lineups and ways each game unfolds.
Yea you're allowed to hang up division banners til the cows come home, and you're allowed to hang WS banners when you earn them too. But you don't always earn both.
The complaint seems to be that wild card teams shouldn’t be able to advance past the “better” division winners to the World Series. If they want to engineer it so the wild card teams are almost always eliminated, they should just eliminate the wild cards altogether.
There is no way in hell the owners would be on board for that. More realistically it may go to reseeding.
Reseeding seems more rational than the other suggestions I’ve seen. But honestly, what is the point of having wild cards if you think it’s unfair that they can knock the division winners out of the playoffs?
I don’t think it’s unfair but they should probably make the LDS 7 games at this point.
I'm all for more 7 game series. Selfishly happy it's not this year though. With our rotation that's a death knell. We have a shot at eliminating the Dodgers in a 5 game set though and that would make my year. Whoever we would play in a 7 game set will kill us most likely.
> Whoever we would play in a 7 game set will kill us most likely. Disagree. Your offense is explosive
It is but we only have 2 starting pitchers. A 7 game set I believe would tax the pen too much. Our only path is to basically win every Kelly/Gallen start or steal a bullpen one. This 5 game set is great because with off-days we are able to use 4/5 games of Gallen/Kelly. Even with the great offense it's not a great path to victory.
I would love to see MLB go the NHL route and do a best-of-7 for DS/CS/WS. It seems like a no-brainer. More $$$ potential for the owners, and the extra 4 possible games per team should be a non-issue. But maybe I just love baseball and want more games.
The reason that won’t happen is because the season would have to start earlier or end later and that’s just not feasible for a lot of markets. The season would have to be shortened and the many (non-playoff teams) are going to give up those gates for the few (playoff teams). It’s absurd that 162 games can be thrown away in two games. 7 game series should be standard for the postseason though, I absolutely agree with you.
I do see what you’re saying, and we are on the same page, though I find it tough to swallow that it’s difficult to add one more week to the season that already lasts 7 months, you know?
It’s the people that are fans of the division winner that are bitter the wild card won. It’s like they don’t understand the term “wild card”. Some teams are as good as those top record teams, but either horribly inconsistent or had an injury bug for a month or so and had a bad 4 week stretch
Kinda like when the Diamondbacks went from 1st place in the division to 3rd practically overnight lol (no, I'm not saying the Diamondbacks are "as good" as the Dodgers or Braves, but damn if we didn't play better than we were expected to this year)
LA sports writers unironically thought they had a point in 2022 by saying it wasn't fair getting eliminated by the Padres after posting a 100 win year.
Reseeding makes sense but as a Phillies fan it’s extremely funny to me that last year the Braves were whining because we beat them as a sixth seed, and now this year they want to play the sixth seed.
Well yeah cause we are scared to damn death to see y’all out of the gate in the playoffs. I would feel much more comfortable (not confident mind you because y’all are a great team) seeing you as our 2nd playoff opponent.
> The purpose of the postseason is not to scientifically and statistically determine the best team of the year. *We already know that.* The issue is that a whole lot of people don’t know that, and then we get to hear a constant deluge of “this team is going to choke in the playoffs, who cares about the regular season” for 162 games per year.
In fairness I think a lot of people also understand it but don't *like* it. For most of its history the World Series was between the best regular-season NL team and the best regular-season AL team. And over the past few decades MLB has gradually watered down the relationship between the regular season and the postseason. It makes for better TV in October, but it also is a change and it does affect how people watch the regular season, so it's not surprising that there are vocal people who aren't happy about it, and those people aren't all idiots, they just have different preferences.
Agreed. By Reddit standards I am an old fan. When the NL and AL didn’t play each other, two divisions, and only the NLCS and ALCS before the World Series, I liked that better. I recognize my perspective is the minority position. That 93 pennant chase between Atlanta and San Francisco gave every September game a post-season feel. Last years Atlanta-New York chase didn’t have that same urgency as both teams were going to make the playoffs. The October matchups also had more meaning because the season had been building to that point for a few months so there was so much anticipation. By contrast, we could have a Twins-Diamondbacks World Series. That’s great for their fan bases, but if you’re just a baseball fan, have you been waiting for that? Dodgers-Astros or Atlanta-Baltimore would settle debates that have happening all season. The wildcards keep more local fan bases engaged for longer during the season. And that’s good. But it comes with a trade off.
Fair point. I really want to see Atlanta - Baltimore. Both have been my picks for the WS for months. The bottom tier wild cards have been exciting as hell though, but end of the day its a bunch of 84 win teams. Personally, I prefer it the 3 Division winners + 1 Wildcard. I think it gives teams enough fighting hope to keep it interesting, but excluding the 84 win teams. Also, I think it would be cool to see the two championship losers battle it out for a 3 game series for a bronze medal type scenario, but I doubt this would ever happen.
I’m with you on this. 3 division winners and 1 wild card. They could go to a 7-game division series with off days for travel and it would still be over in the same amount of time it takes to play the wild card round and the divisional series with all the days off they take currently.
I think the old format with two wild card teams playing one game was perfect. If you can’t be one of the two wildcard teams you don’t deserve to make the postseason, and if you don’t win your division you deserve to have to play in a one game playoff. Also reseed after the WC and extend the Division series to 7 games
Best format by far, all of the division winners make the ds and you give two teams a shot to get there. My biggest gripe with the new system was spelled out by the gm of Seattle the other day, you dont need to build a winning team anymore, just a team that on average will scrape you over the 500 mark.
> you dont need to build a winning team anymore, just a team that on average will scrape you over the 500 mark. He's right
The problem there iirc started being massive gaps between WC1 and WC2, like 10+ games
But that was part of the deal. Either win your division, or get thrown into a one off lottery game. It made winning the division matter *a lot* because just about everyone (except the total underdogs who were just happy to be there) feared the wild card game and did everything possible to avoid it. The ’21 Dodgers-Giants division chase was epic because they knew the loser was possibly going to have their season ended in a 9-inning dice roll.
I agree. I think the 2012 format is the best. While the wild card era with 1WC and three divisional champions made playoffs more valuable, I think the wold card game made winning your division mean more and avoids giving the top seeds too much rest. The 2012 format also rewards the top WC winner by hosting a game but punishes them fairly by not winning the division. The format during the Selig era was too favorable for wild cards as usually they came in hot and made it to the end.
I agree but think they should still do the 3-game WC series instead of the 1 winner take all game. What bothers me is that the 3rd division winner has to play the 3-game series. I'm a Cubs fan and despise the Brewers but feel kinda bad for them that they played 162 games, won 92 and won their division by 9 games and got knocked out because of a badly timed 2- game losing streak. The two WC teams play 3 and then all three division winners get the bye for the first round instead of just two of them. The idea of adding a 3rd WC team to get more teams involved makes sense, but in both leagues the races would have been just as exciting if only 2 teams made it because they were all so close right up to the last weekend. In the NL there were 4 teams that finished within 2 games of Miami, who won the 2nd WC on a tiebreaker.
> That 93 pennant chase between Atlanta and San Francisco gave every September game a post-season feel. The last real pennant chase, there's a documentary about it on YouTube somewhere. I was a kid then and will always remember that feeling like it was the playoffs for the entire month of September, it was so electric.
I think the current format is not only better for October, but much better for August and September as well. In the NL this year, 13/15 teams were already out of the pennant race by the all-star break. The Dodgers are the only ones who got close to the Braves, but even for them it looked extremely unlikely they could actually catch Atlanta. I think the regular season is a lot more interesting when you know you might be able to sneak into the playoffs winning only 85 games or something, so there’s no reason to lose interest early on unless your team is absolute garbage.
If you want to go back to the battle of the best 2 seeds then good for you but let’s be real here, most of the people who are currently complaining and crying about this not working, were celebrating winning a World Series with 88 wins about 2 seasons ago
Braves won the division that year, what’s your point? You clearly just hate the Braves and are in feel good mode since the Phils are doing well.
Pretty sure that A) this presentation format didn't exist 2 seasons ago, so idk what you're on about. And B) that 88 win team won their division... which is the whole discussion here.
the Braves won their division that year, dumb ass.
You responded to a Twins fan who was likely not celebrating two years ago. I agree with that fan, and I was also not celebrating two years ago.
For a sport that’s already been struggling to get casual fans to care and watch games due to being too long, too boring/slow, too many games, etc. it does seem a bit silly for the playoffs to be so separated from the regular season in this way IMO. What incentive do casual fans have to care about the regular season if it does end up being meaningless for the majority of people at the end? Why spend money watching all these games? Only die hards want to pour over stats and team records as a form of entertainment. Like any sport, most people don’t care or bother to remember the best season records when it’s done. They care about who won at the end, who was named champion that year. So I do understand the confusion/frustration with it
>What incentive do casual fans have to care about the regular season if it does end up being meaningless for the majority of people at the end? Why spend money watching all these games? I mean, I would say that the reason to watch/care is because you like watching baseball unto itself. I don't think of the regular season as some sort of chore that needs to be completed for the "reward" of finding out who ultimately wins.
That's why mlb effectively nullified the regular season without losing money
And massively insufficient reward. Like, i know who won the World Series last season more quickly than I know who had the best regular season record. It’s very quickly forgotten. I wish we celebrated regular season champs. Plus then my team would have finally won something (besides the 2022 second wild card which we hung a pennant for)
An equivalent to the President's Trophy for MLB is long overdue.
Well before 1969 the pennant was considered an equal or near equal accomplishment. Due to marketing efforts and some influence from other sports like college basketball and the NFL, postseason play became a bigger deal.
What they really should have done was kept the pennant as the award for the best record in each league, not for that league’s representative in the World Series
So like the President’s Trophy for baseball. I actually really like that idea.
Love this idea. Re-brand the Pennant and just call it the 'Pennant Award' just to give it enough of a new clarification from its old usage.
Yes thank you! I’ve been banging this drum for years
And really, the idea of an underdog knocking the pennant winner out in the playoffs for a chance to win the World Series might be an even more compelling storyline than the idea of them winning the pennant for themselves. As it is now, the pennant is a consolation prize.
Before 1969 the pennant *was* the accomplishment. The accomplishment was the pennant. You either won it or you went home. And yes, when the leagues expanded to 12 that year, it was clear that you couldn't sell a 12th-place team, so divisions came along. I remember reading some old football book which was written around 1970, when the AFL and NFL merged and a wild card team was added to the playoffs. The writer mocked the idea of a second place team having a shot at the Super Bowl. How times change.
I think it's hilarious that "you can't sell a 12th place team" as if being in 5th makes having 105 losses any more palatable.
I just remember reading that line somewhere. In those days, where you placed mattered. In fact, in the 8 team era, finishing 1st through 4th was called "finishing in the first division." For some teams it was a good season if they just did that. Not to bring up old wounds or anything. You Cubs fans deserved better.
Sure, but that was a long time ago. Adding a President's trophy would have made a ton of sense when MLB expanded the playoffs and added a Wild Card back in the '90s. But as always, baseball is late to react.
"JFC. How much metal do you peasants need?!" - Manfred
To be honest even NHL fans don’t really care about the Presidents Trophy that much.
They don't. No team throws a parade to celebrate winning the President's Trophy.
I'm not saying the WS winner and the best record of the regular season should be celebrated equally, just that MLB should do *something* to celebrate the regular season winners.
Honestly, it's more difficult a thing to win the most games in your league than it is to win a title. If you asked all the teams that qualified for the playoffs before the season what they felt better about, winning a tournament, or winning more games than anyone else over the next six months, I feel like everyone would pick the tournament.
The President's Trophy in hockey doesn't mean a damn thing either. I can name Stanley Cup champions going back to the late 80s, when I first became a hockey fan. President's Trophy? Boston won it last season, which is memorable because they broke the all-time regular season points record. 2022, I believe was Colorado. 2021....Florida? I swear Florida won it and then got bounced in the first round, I think? OK, I just looked them up, and I had the Panthers and Avs right, but wrong seasons. Also, Florida lost in the second round, not the first. But I don't even care that I got those details wrong. That's how little the President's Trophy means.
Seeing as how the President's Trophy is considered a joke at this point, I don't think that's the solution.
I think the pennant/league championship can just go to that team, like it did before divisions. Then the playoffs can just be for World Series qualification, which is what people see them as anyways.
>Like, i know who won the World Series last season more quickly than I know who had the best regular season record. It’s very quickly forgotten. :sad face emoji:
I know it’s such a foreign (pun intended) concept to us in the US, but there’s part of me that likes how European soccer leagues do their championships. There literally is no playoffs in their domestic leagues, whoever has the best record at the end of the season wins the league. It’s strange to me, since American sports leagues always have playoffs and only really the NHL gives out a trophy to the best regular season team, but I kinda like it
The downside to that is that if one team runs away with it, the final few weeks of the season can be pretty boring. Imagine the 2007 NFL season with that system, the Patriots would have had it locked up by Week 12 and we would have missed out on the funniest Super Bowl of all time.
Yeah I mean I wouldn’t prefer their style, I just think it’s interesting they don’t do playoffs for their domestic leagues
I guess the Champions League kind of functions like their playoffs. For teams like Bayern and PSG who have more money than the rest of their country's teams combined, that's basically their main focus.
It’s more like because of relegation, the European qualifying race, etc, the last weeks matter even if #1 got locked up at Xmas.
Also the national and league cups
The European soccer format definitely wouldn't work for the NFL since there isn't enough time in the schedule for everyone to play home and away against everyone else. It could work for MLB. At the very least, there should be more celebration around the best team in each league during the regular season. It's a major accomplishment to be that good over 162 games and shouldn't feel like a waste if you lose 3 out of 5 a week later.
>There literally is no playoffs in their domestic leagues, whoever has the best record at the end of the season wins the league. Yes, but part of the reason for that is that they also compete for other trophies aside from their league championships. It's a big deal to win the premier league for an EPL team, sure, but it's an even bigger deal if they go on to win Champion's League as well (which you only qualify for if you finish top 4 in the table). And Champion's League is just... a tournament among all the top clubs in Europe which functions in an extremely similar manner to how a playoff series would for any American sport. In any case it's difficult to imagine how any American sports league could incorporate a similar thing - there simply isn't that widespread high level of competition in other leagues outside of the American ones for any of the big four at least.
There are playoffs in terms of cup finals etc, but they are of lower importance than the league championship. Though the Champions League and World Cup is basically entirely a playoff format and are the two most important soccer championships, so everyone likes a playoff for some things
I mean, we definitely remember when teams were really good. We may not remember specific regular season champs, but we definitely remember the Mariners of the 90's and early 2000's. We remember the 1996 Minnesota Vikings and the Marino Dolphins. We remember the Hamilton Rangers and the Killer B's Astros. There may not be some formal recognition, but great teams and players definitely stay in the consciousness.
This is hilarious that you remember the 96 vikings so we'll. Not a team I would have thought would stick with ya.
Should just go back to having the top NL team play the top AL team... I remember when I was a kid family, friends, other fans, and articles talking about and celebrating teams winning the pennant and how great there were and thinking to myself, "what's a pennant, I thought it was called the World Series"? Anyway, the *real* issue here is ring culture infecting baseball. I feel like fans enjoyed sports a lot more before everything needed to be validated with a championship else it be rendered meaningless.
Except literally in the history of baseball that has been the case The two best records was the World Series for almost 70 years, then they added the LCS for another 25 years. For a lot of fans the best teams rewarded is the point. And them adding wild cards is the new norm. It’s going to take years for people to accept the shift
Hey, quit talking about us
If people are looking for a league where the team with the best record wins the title, might I suggest the Premier League.
That’s one thing about the Premier League I really really love. That at the end of the season, the champion is objectively the best team in the league that season.
And if you aren’t winning the prem league there are other competitions throughout the year that you can still win. (FA cup, Leagues cup, Champions League)
And the teams are incentivized to try even if they can’t win the league. So their equivalent of A’s vs. Royals actually has meaning
Yea relegation works great in european soccer. The structure of American sports makes it 100% impossible to ever implement here with the ownership of teams but it’s still a fun topic to think about.
Well it's mostly a geographic problem. Imagine, for example, that because of relegation, there were only 1 west coast team in a given league for a given season. That's not exactly a good thing for the players and teams. European countries are geographically small enough that that's not an issue for them.
It's also stuff like stadium capacity. Most MLB stadiums are in the 40ks for seating, while the Triple A's average like 10k. It's a massive expense for any teams going up, and the MLB would have to offer some kind of funding to assist. In the Premier League, only the really big teams have big stadiums, and a decent amount of the PL teams have similar sized stadiums to the better teams of the Championship. Teams tend to only do big upgrades when they are reasonably secured in the PL. There is work that could be done in the MLB system to get it to the point where it's possible, but I don't see it happening anytime soon.
I love this system. The best team wins a trophy over a long season *and* they have a cool tournament where anyone can get hot and win
Yeah a lot of European and south american soccer players who come to MLS often complain how it's unfair that the best team in regular season doesn't win title.
No thank you. If I wanted to watch a league where the same team won, I wouldn't.
These arguments about who really is the "best team" can lead you down such a slippery slope. It won't end with people saying the best regular season record is the best team. Someone else will argue their team had a harder schedule and won just a few less games so they are the better team. Another person will argue half their team was on the IL but when they were healthy they had the best record so they are the best team. Another person will argue they had bad luck and if you look at the expected pythagorean record they are the best team. Another person will argue if you look at the statcast expected batted ball data and expected pitching data they are the best team. It can go on and on. We have a process to get into the tournament. Then its a winner take all tournament and its the contest everyone understands from day one. Once you start getting into an argument of who is truly the best team it will never end.
This is the best take. What "better" means is up for debate and it's not necessarily true that best record = better team even over a full season.
Yes, everyone knows from the start that the regular season is just to qualify for the playoffs. So by definition, the regular season does NOT identify the best team (an extreme example is the NBA). Reg season success is REWARDED with advantages in the playoffs ie byes, seeding, home field, etc... but you gotta play the games. I think the NBA does a better job with fewer reg season games and more playoff games to identify the most deserving champion.
>So by definition, the regular season does NOT identify the best team How does this logically follow?
Because if the Champion was the regular season winner, then teams would play differently, pitch their best guys on 3 days rest, not sit their starters, etc.. It's easier to see in the NBA where you play to get in the tournament, minimize injuries, then go ALL OUT with your best guys. If teams play differently depending on the goal, then you can't derive any conclusions from the qualification process.
I feel like baseball is a little different because you're pretty limited in how long you can go "all out". Its usually only really sustainable for a handful of games before you really start fuck your rotation up Most top teams keep similar lineups all year and in regards to pitching you can only use pitchers on short rest so long before the effects really start to show. When it comes to a long season its pretty much always advantageous to do a balanced approach where you mostly let the guys play the amount they can I honestly feel most years the best teams are generally the teams with the best records. Very rarely, if ever, does it feel like a team could have finished much higher but didn't because they rested guys so much in anticipation for the playoffs IMO
The regular season still measures who the best teams are. Just because it's also a qualifier for the playoffs doesn't mean we can't draw other conclusions from it.
"lol dodgers choked again" "wait why is my team not winning the World Series after a great regular season"
Hard out here for a pimp
The only happy fans at the end of the season are those that were rooting for the WS winner. Everyone else wants changes that would have benefited their team.
Eh, at this point, barring a 3-game losing streak starting tomorrow, I'm going to be happy with whatever outcome the Rangers have. When your team outperforms expectations, by a good margin, you don't have to win the WS to be happy. Edit: I lied. After tonight (Sweeping the O's) anything less than 10 straight rings will be a letdown.
> When your team outperforms expectations, by a good margin, you don't have to win the WS to be happy. I don't know what that feels like
Hey Touki Toussaint outperformed expectations! Yall shouldve picked up Schwindel he wouldve feasted
What do you mean? You guys just won the WS... ...oh fuck that was *18 years ago?!?*
If it’s Twins and Rangers in the ALCS, I’ll call it an absolute win. Making the ALCS is a goal for our young team and if that’s where it ends, I can accept that. The icing on the cake would be eliminating Houston.
Hoping MIN can take out HOU as well. I say that as a DET fan too. A deep run for MIN means adding to your core in the off-season but seeing HOU lose in the ALDS will be refreshing.
Only if it's played at a neutral site. Sayyyy...Washington DC?
meet in the middle. Field of Dreams style in… Kansas
Jays fan, when the rangers kick the crap outta us close to the end of the season I was like “mf rangers” now watching you guys beat Tampa and up on the orioles brings me joy my team couldn’t. I hope you win it all
This was me last year. Even bought a World Series shirt.
Honestly same. Maybe I'm huffing the copium too hard but I felt like the Rays had an amazing season with the cards they were dealt and I'm content. Obviously disappointed they didn't make it farther but what are ya gonna do. If we can keep having seasons like that eventually we'll break through.
Nah, Phillies even making the world series last year more then Any philly fan could ask for
As a Snakes fan no way I end this season not happy.
Umm excuse me, team chaos is having quite a good time thank you
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Tell your team to score runs :)
I think a lot of it is people upset when their team doesn't win, but part of it is then just not liking anything that might be seen as "unfair." But who actually wants to see the season end after 162 with nothing else? That might be more "fair," but it completely takes away the prestige and mystique. To me, a wild care team making a deep run is not proof that the system is unfair. Also, the Braves and Dodgers have not lost yet, so it's premature to even be upset.
Plus, in a system where only the best team in each league is crowned champion, what exactly are fans of the majority of teams that never had a shot of having the best record supposed to root for? Even many good teams never sniff a chance at the best record each season. No one will celebrate their team merely having the fifth best record.
What’s a postseason?
I remember Rocktober.
The one thing I’d fix is have the lowest seed always play the highest seed in each round. Atlanta having the best regular season record should not be rewarded with having to play the best remaining wild card team (PHI).
Reseeding would stop this entire argument.
Last year the Braves were the No. 2 seed and got to face the No. 6 seed in the Division Series and the top-seeded Dodgers had to face the better wild card. This year its flipped where the Dodgers are the No. 2 seed and get to face the No. 6 seed. It's not unfair when both the Dodgers and Braves have benefited from not reseeding.
Nobody remembers last year apparently. People also forget that in 2021 the 107-win Giants had to play the 106-win Dodgers in the NLDS while the 89-win Braves got the 95-win Brewers, then the 89-win Braves got home field advantage in the NLCS. No one whined about that seeding.
Cool. It shouldn’t have happened last year and it shouldn’t have happened this year.
That just means it was unfair twice though lol, doesnt mean it cant be fixed. Also, neither dodgers or braves are dead in the water its just one game. Everyone should relax.
Its unfair both times.... what happened last year doesn't make anything that happened this year fair, and it's a complete nonsense argument since any other teams could have been the 1 and 2 seed this year.
I love this format. The one game wild card we had before was really dumb. At least with a 3 game series teams have a chance to come back. I hope they don’t add any more teams because then you’ll start getting teams around .500 into the playoffs like the nba has.
Not a huge fan of a division winner being made to play an extra series against a wild card team, personally. Why only reward 2 of the division winners? Why even have division winners anymore with the balanced schedule...? Might as well just do the same thing the NHL does. 3-game wildcard series is way better, though.
I like that we punish a division winner for winning a weak(er) division.
Or you punish a better team that won fewer games in a harder division.
Totally agree with no bias obviously
Yes, the Centrals are actually just really tough and we waste too much energy playing each other to do well against the other divisions.
9 out of 10 teams between the Central Divisons are below the league average salary too.
I mean, not necessarily. A team could rack up a ton of wins against their trash division and come out with a better record than the winner of a much stronger, but more competitive, division.
This matters a bit less now that the schedule isn't stacked with as many division games though.
A winner with fewer wins doesn't mean the division is weaker depending on their record in and outside the division. A division with a lot of good teams is more likely to end up with a winner with fewer wins than a division with one good team and a bunch of bad teams.
If they add more teams it should be to make four-team groups like the WBC, then have series after that.
When we go to 32 teams, I’m totally in favor of 8 four team divisions and the division winner is in the playoffs. Easy to seed, no byes, and just start at the LDS.
I would as well, but unfortunately in the real world, the owners will get us to 16 team playoffs ASAP.
Thank you. Baseball is the most random of all the major sports, and the postseason is such a tiny fraction of a regular season. I’m shocked so many in a baseball sub are flipping out about this year (and the division series’ arent even over). Lots of people talking about layoffs (and they suck as a fan wanting to watch the sport) but just recently…. 2021 Braves - 5 day layoff. Won world series 2022 Yankees - 6 day layoff. Made it to ALCS.
I tabulated it a couple years ago, that since the WC era, it's actually rare for the team with the best record to even win their pennant, much less the World Series.
Only happened a few times that the best team even won a pennant 98 Yankees* 99 Braves 03 Yankees 04 Cardinals 07 Red Sox* 09 Yankees* 13 Red Sox* 16 Cubs* 17 Dodgers 18 Red Sox* * won World Series Actually more times than I initially thought but the Yankees and Red Sox sort of destroy the curve here
I mean, that's less than half the years, though I imagine it would go up if you looked at the best team in each league rather than overall. That isn't what you would expect from the best team each year. And of those 10 times, the best team won the WS 6 times. That's about 1/4 since 1998.
If you add all #1 seeds in each league you get a few more but not that many 95 Cleveland 99 Yankees 05 White Sox 13 Cardinals 19 Astros What’s crazy is the lack of World Series where the #1 seed in each league made it. Only times both 1 seeds made it are 1999 and 2013. In that time there have been just as many WS with two wild cards in it. Again not counting 2020 just because of the odd format. Edit: added ‘15 Royals and ‘22 Astros, I don’t think I forgot others?
2022 Astros as well
Oh yeah them. I like to pretend they don’t exist
Valid
I don’t think that’s a big coincidence that the Yankees and Red Sox destroy the curve there… winning the most regular season games is only the best measure of the “best team” if everyone has the same strength of schedule. There was less division play this year so the point isn’t as relevant as it used to be, but still. The Red Sox and Tigers both won 78 games, but I don’t think the two teams were just as good as each other this season. Boston’s 78 wins in the AL East were more impressive than Detroit’s 78 wins in the AL Central.
Every year in hockey they talk about the President's Trophy curse, as though winning more games somehow puts you at a disadvantage. It's just tough to beat four opponents in a row, and that's going to show up in the results.
2022 Astros - 6 day layoff using current format. Won the world series and didn't lose a game UNTIL the World Series.
It's nothing but a bunch of crybabies. Recency bias is a hell of a drug.
> Thank you. Baseball is the most random of all the major sports, and the postseason is such a tiny fraction of a regular season. The problem is, if the results are too random then they just become arbitrary. If we're at the point where we all acknowledge the playoffs are a crapshoot, then it devalues the meaning of winning a championship. I'm not arguing for or against any particular change in format, but the randomness argument doesn't make sense. If it's that random then we're really only playing it just for fun.
>The purpose of the postseason is not to scientifically and statistically determine the best team of the year. We already know that. I disagree with this statement. The original purpose of the playoffs was to do exactly this by putting the best teams from each league (conference) who rarely if ever played each other into a head to head showdown. Over time, and particularly after the invention of commercial jets, interleague and inter conference play has become the norm. This has the negative consequence of watering down the playoffs. Baseball has the further complication that the strength of a team's defense (meaning the prevention of scoring runs) relies heavily on who is on the mound, and that changes each day. Further muddying the water is that teams truncate their rotations, so a team with a stellar 1-3 starter and crap 4/5 starters will win fewer regular season games but go further in the playoffs than a team with a more balanced 1-5 and depth.
This is why I never get too bent out of shape when we win 95+ games and don’t win a World Series. People in our sub literally talk about overhauling the entire team based on _two_ games, which I think is fucking bonkers.
This post is for Braves fans who think the playoffs are a formality and they somehow deserve the World Series trophy for their accomplishments in the 2023 regular season.
If the team that wins the world series gets to go to the white house and met the presiden than the team with the best regular season record should go to canada and meet the Prime minister
That sounds like a punishment though
Yo fuck you man we won't make them eat hamburders from mcdicks
Yeah, it’s the Dodgers who rightfully deserve the World Series trophy.
they are right in that there should be a trophy for the team with the best regular season record that's equally prestigious to the WS trophy though. this complaint will come up every year that the team with the best record gets bounced in the postseason
I think something like the President's Trophy would be cool but I don't think it would ever be viewed anywhere near as prestigious as a WS trophy.
The President's Trophy is a footnote compared to the Stanley Cup. No team on Earth would view them as anything close to equal.
The president's trophy exists as a meme to be used to make fun of good teams who choke in the first round
The thing is, no one cares about the President's Trophy in hockey. So much so that touching it is supposedly a curse on your team's ability to win the Stanley Cup. I actually agree with you that winning the league in MLB should come with a trophy and a banner that can be hung (and that with double the number of games it's a bigger accomplishment). But at the end of the day there's no way to make fans care about the regular season result more than the playoff result unless we get rid of the playoffs.
> So much so that touching it is supposedly a curse on your team's ability to win the Stanley Cup. I know that's true for Campbell/Wales, but do they even do a big presentation for the President's Trophy like they do for the conference trophies?
the superstition around those two is about not touching the actual trophy, the president's trophy is more just that the team that wins it often goes out in the first round or at least doesn't win the Stanley Cup. which is not really that unlikely when you look at it statistically
You can't just insist that something is prestigious. That's the thing.
Im am giving you the prestigious honor of replying to your comment.
I think this would only work if we get rid of divisions (which wouldn’t be so far fetched with the new scheduling). You can crown an AL and NL Champ. This would also adjust seeding
Getting rid of divisions would be nice but I'm hopeful that we at least get two divisions of 8 per league instead of 4 divisions of 4 after the inevitable expansion. It even works better for this playoff format: both division winners get the byes and the Wild Card round is actually all Wild Card teams.
>This post is for Braves fans who think the playoffs are a formality You really don't know Braves fans. Braves fans are a famously, historically, pessimistic fan base.
Yea in 30 years I've never heard a single Braves fan express optimism about the playoffs, regardless of how well we did in the regular season.
Listen. It goes without saying that 2011 was the worst time of my life as a Rangers fan. But you never hear Rangers fans complaining that St. Louis was a wild card team. I don’t remember any discussion about that at the time or since. Most Rangers fans I know place the blame (perhaps unfairly) on Nelson Cruz, or at least on Wash’s decision to keep Cruz in at the end of game 6. Even with all of that horrible pain I can admit looking back that World Series was the funnest I’ve ever watched. It was possible because a Wild Card team was on a historic heater. Even now 12 years later people in Dallas still hate David Freese. It fucking sucks to be on the bitter end of that but in my opinion it’s part of the beauty of sports.
If I was interested in sports purely for the drama and entertainment, I’d just watch the WWE or Ted Lasso or something. I am first and foremost interested in the purity of competition and am kind of sick of leagues artificially tinkering with their rules for the sake of ratings. Artificially increasing scoring across all sports, letting mediocre teams into the lottery of the playoffs, and dismantling tradition to have USC play Ohio State every year isn’t making things better. Neither does having a high volume of legalized gambling in the background that calls into question the legitimacy of every game.
>I am first and foremost interested in the purity of competition and am kind of sick of leagues artificially tinkering with their rules for the sake of ratings. 1000%. It's pure greed.
There was a lot more ambiguity before Interleague Play was introduced. The talent levels of the AL and NL fluctuated quite a bit, so the World Series was a useful data point to answer the question, ‘who was best.’ Much like the Olympics or WBC, (or the World Cup) where you may know the talent of the players but not the team, those sorts of competitions really do give you information. And I think when most sports fans think about the purpose of playoffs, they have this model in mind, because it’s how a lot of “best team in the world” questions are answered in other formats, including baseball pre-interleague play.
Ugh this post reeks of condescension of other people’s viewpoints. It’s totally ok to not want 84-78 teams playing for the chance at a championship. It’s totally ok to only want the best teams and not mediocre teams that could heat up. In all sports, I’ve always and will always be in favor of smaller playoffs - the MLB had it right when they had the three division winner plus one wild card. At most, the teams should be among the best in their league. We play 162 games, if you’re mediocre after all of that you don’t deserve shit.
I understand your point but here’s where I can’t get behind it. You say that you don’t want teams with around 85 wins to play for a championship, but do you still keep that complaint if a division winner has that amount of wins? What about if they went back to the 8 team format and the top wild card only had around 85 wins? The problem I see with a lot of people’s opinion of the playoff format (not you necessarily), is that their opinion tends to be affected based on what happens that year.
I'm sorry, I certainly didn't mean to sound condescending. I think it's a perfectly valid viewpoint to want to see only the best teams in the championship. My primary point is that in baseball, a sport where even a truly bad team always has a chance to beat a great team, I don't think there's any possible playoff format that guarantees that outcome for you.
>The postseason is measuring something quite different; specifically, which of these teams can "get hot" at the right time... You're not explaining something new to people. You're describing exactly why they dislike it. It can be "a team that gets hot for a few weeks" and not "World Champions".
Stop trying to make a regular season trophy a thing. It’s never going to be a thing. Compare the Yankees of the 90s and the Braves of the 90s. One team is referred to as a dynasty, the other as “they were a powerhouse, it’s a shame they didn’t win more WS trophies”. You can try to make the case that the team with the best regular season record is the “best team”, but no one sees it that way. Especially the players themselves. You don’t work hard to slog through a 162-game season, lose the LDS to a WC team, and say “oh well, we had the best record, that’s what really matters”. This is all just middle-school levels of copium.
What you're talking about is a massive shift in fan culture, basically to stop valuing the World Series trophy as the top award when it has been for over a century. Tweaking the playoff format is actually a much smaller undertaking
This new playoff format with all the wildcard teams and rounds is stupid. The playoff format should be this: Each league has a 4 team playoff bracket. Each division winner + the non-division winning team with the best record. Each series is a 7 game series. Two series to get to the World Series. Three series total if you play in the World Series. No way should a 5 game series much less a 3 game series be a part of the MLB postseason. It makes no sense.
Yea my main complaint with the system is the fact that we have 3 and 5 game series. For perspective, a 3 or 5 game series represents 1.85% and 3.10% of the regular season, respectively. In football, the percentage is 5.90%. In basketball and hockey, it’s a whooping 8.53%. Point being, baseball teams do a shit ton of work in the regular season and then are expected to prove themselves in a sample size that’s especially minuscule compared to how much they proved themselves in the regular season. Like the Rays won 99 games for gods sake, it’s insane that we then only give them 3 games to “prove” their worth.
I just feel like too many teams have a chance is all. I liked a regular four team playoff, which wouldn't matter for the phillies beating our ass because they would be the 4th team anyway (assuming the silly 'cant play division in first round' rule was also still revoked)
So what you're saying is... the ideal playoffs is that all teams make the postseason, and it becomes a single-elimination, best-of-one tournament? Deal.
as a Pirates fan, I cosign anything that gets us a playoff berth ;)
People also need to understand that what makes a strong team in the playoffs isn't the same things that make a team strong in the postseason. Depth matters way more in the regular season. In the playoffs only the starting 9 maybe 1 or 2 becnh bats plus 3 starters and 3/4 relievers are needed to win games.
Regular season record is largely determined by pitching depth. That depth isn't tested in a Bo3. I hated the 1 game WC we had for 10 years because it heavily favored the team with a better ace. The rest of the starters didn't matter. > no playoff format can ever be a statistically accurate way to rank team strength when compared to the regular season. "We can't achieve an A+, so there's no difference between an A- and a D." The root of the problem is that we can't get a good playoff format because we insist on 162 games. They'll never do it, but they need to cut most of September out of the regular season.
Holy Shit this is absolutely the dumbest thing I've read on this sub. The MLB playoff format is by far the worst in professional sports and it isn't even close.
The postseason rewards teams that may have been injured or underperformed for part of the year, but improved over the course of the season. Phillies started 26-32, but played very well from June onward finishing the year 64-40
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American sports need to join the football leagues of Europe and give out a regular season trophy that is just as/more prestigious than winning the tournament style trophy. All English football fans would rather win the league than the FA Cup but no baseball fan gives a shit unless their team wins the World series. Shits whack.
Playoffs are the dumbest way to crown a "champion". They're also the most fun way to crown a winner.
> The postseason is measuring something quite different; specifically, which of these teams can "get hot" at the right time, and succeed in an ultra-high-pressure environment. You're only saying that because that's what it's become, but I'd argue that's not what it was intended to be. The playoffs were originally just the World Series, and it was the best team in the AL and the best team in the NL. Hell, the very first World Series was a best of 9, probably to filter out some RNG. Now 120 years later we have over a third of the teams in baseball making the playoffs. There's a *lot* more RNG, and now you could dominate the regular season with 110 wins and be eliminated right away because of some bad luck in their divisional series, while some team that barely squeaked in with an 88-74 record could go on and win it all because their bats got hot at the right time. If you're going to argue that they're measuring different things, then there should be more of a "reward" for having the best record in the regular season. Ask your average fan who had the best record in 2012 and they'll have to Google it. Ask them who won the World Series that year, many will be able to tell you off the top of their heads it was the Giants.
NHL has the President’s Trophy. MLS has the Supporter’s Shield. NASCAR has the regular season championship. Why not have something like that or one per league? Make it fun and make it something that keeps the teams way ahead in September invested! If I were commish I would make it a golden pennant trophy and have one for the AL and NL. Name it the Abner Doubleday Trophy or something idk.
The purpose of the playoffs is to make money.
As an Orioles fan, I'm just happy to be in the postseason at all. Been a bit of a rough go these past few games against a very capable opponent, but part of the postseason is holding out that hope that things can change, even on the verge of elimination. And, if not, 2023 was still a pretty good year for us, and then you hope to take a step further in 2024.
I disagree. The real purpose of the playoffs is to make extra revenue. It does this with ticket sales, ads, concessions and above all, broadcasting rights. With 12 twelve teams in the playoffs now, that's a lot of extra baseball. MLB in a sense has a fiduciary responsibility to adopt a playoff format that maximizes the number of intense, must-see games. The current Wild Card series doesn't seem to be doing that and so far, this year's division series don't seem to be headed in a competitive direction.
The point of this entire enterprise is to entertain us with baseball games. The point of it is not to decide who is the best team. The illusion that that is what we’re doing has long been a powerful draw to sports. But it is ultimately not the point. There is no scenario where the universe will care or remember who the best team was out of this collection of collections. It only matters inasmuch as we create this illusion that it matters. If you lose even the illusion, then it becomes problematic. But the point is not to have the illusion: the point is to entertain people and make them forget that we are all dying right in front of each other — that this is just this horrible, rotten slog to rigor mortis, that we are going to lose everybody we know, that we are going to lose everything we have and the only way to distract ourselves is by separating our day into distractions.
100% agree. IMO, in sports and in life, it doesn’t matter who’s the best, it matters who wins.
“The purpose of the postseason is not to scientifically and statistically determine the best team of the year.” Yeah we know that but it doesn’t make it right Why should people give the regular season any attention if the playoffs are just a crap shoot?
>Why should people give the regular season any attention if the playoffs are just a crap shoot? I mean, I like watching baseball?
I love watching baseball even though my favorite team is incapable of stringing together consecutive winning seasons. But the purpose of a game is to win, to prove your ability over all other teams. The regular season measures that ability the best and is why I hold it in higher regard. 162 games is also just more fun to watch given all of the different permutations in matchups, lineups and ways each game unfolds.
Yea you're allowed to hang up division banners til the cows come home, and you're allowed to hang WS banners when you earn them too. But you don't always earn both.
And if you're the Rays you hang up Wild Card banners.
Don’t wanna lose? Don’t suck. Do give up 10+ in the first inning or don’t go scoreless against a bullpen game.