Unfair Schedules

who said the devil rays are a professional baseball team...:laugh:

Let's see, if I remember correctly 1997 world series was won by whom? Over who? for the uninformed, like our future commissioner it was the Marlins over the Indians.

And the Marlins won again in 2003.

So I think that if we're going to eliminate teams, we ought to eliminate team that haven't won a world series in the last 80 or more years and push out the Indians! :tonofbricks: (said entirely with good humor)

 

They do the schedule this way because fans complained about the way they used to do it. A few years ago, the schedule was more balanced, but fans complained that teams didn't play their division rivals enough times in comparison to the number of times they played teams out of their division. Add in the expansion teams and that led to the unbalanced schedule.

Every season, I hear some Tator say, "The Milwaukee Brewers only play the St. Louis Cardinals 3 more times this year, but they play the Arizona Diamondbacks 6 more times." Or whoever the leading teams are. The implication being that the "idiots" who make up the major league schedules screwed up by somehow not knowing that the Brewers were going to be good this year. Or whoever the surprise team is.

I don't have any problem with your changes. I don't mind a 9 game series because we likely wouldn't see teams that barely made it past .500 in the regular season win the World Series, like the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals.

I've never liked the wild card in baseball anyway.

Of course, it's easy to say that I don't mind your changes because they're never going to be enacted anway.

 

If anything, south Florida belongs to the Dolphins and I don't think that will ever change.

 

I don't see how the 5th pitcher would start and I only see the 4th starter going out once. For example, let's say that Selig decrees a 9 game series. If Boston is in it and their choices are Wakefield/Beckett in games 8/9, or Beckett/Schilling in games 8/9, the latter choice is the one they would take. I don't think the pitching depth argument is a compelling one, but the better argument is that the better team is more likely to win a 9 game series than a 7 game series.

Again, it's all academic, because I just don't see MLB making that kind of a change.

 

I did the same thing because there's typically enough time between the end of the LCS and the World Series for a team to start their ace. And I don't think that should change either.

That was one of my gripes about the NBA in the 80s was that they started the Finals so soon after the Conference Championship was decided. In particular, this pretty much killed the 1987 Celtics chances of winning the Finals. I don't think they would have won anyway considering they had 0 depth, but it was just an unnecessary roadblock to throw in front of them.

Sorry, didn't mean to hijack. Sometimes bitterness comes out in the most unexpected places.

 

The unbalanced schedules are what they are. Go out and win your games. Beat your divisional rivals. Besides, just because a team plays the Yankees more or less doesn't matter as when they played. A game against the Yankees now means a heckuva lot more than it did when the Yankees were in the tank earlier this year.

Andy's world is never having to say your team just got beat. Instead, it's a world where the Metrodome is causative of all the world's ills...now the schedule-makers shall incur his wrath. Is there enough to spare, considering how much you hate the Metrodome? :laugh:

That could work in the AL. You'd have to drop two NL teams to have 14 in the NL. I wouldn't cry too loud if we go back. Under the current format, I wish we could add one more team to the AL West and make it fairer all the way around. I would put Houston in the NL West, and send Arizona or the Padres to the AL West. A four-team division? Please.

I would like to see the WS go to 9 games, but I don't know about the 3-4-2. I wish the NL would adopt the DH. I like your scheduling plan, though. However, there's no way the post-season can be finished by 10/15, especially if you're playing two (potentially) 9 game series.

A lot of folks whine about the Cards last year. If they shouldn't be there, then beating them in a series shouldn't be so hard. But to placate these folks, I say the team with the league's lowest win pct in the playoffs (or the WC, or both) 5 in a best of 7 to advance (or 6 in the best of 9). That would never be adopted, though.

 

Uh, how long has this 'conspiracy' been going on against the Tigers??

Ed

 

Oh, come on, Tom, you know how these things work. The Cardinals were hot at the right time and the Tigers weren't. We all know, or should know, that baseball is a game where an inferior team can beat a better team in a series, such as the 1960 Pirates, 85 Royals and 87 Twins. This is not the NBA where the best team wins.

 

So the Jazz were better than the teams they beat in the Playoffs? The Warriors were better than the Mavs?

I understand getting hot...but if you're hot, you're the better team at that moment. Playoffs are not played in a vaccum. And they aren't played in the Regular season, or whenever. They're played right then and there, and that's the nature of the beast.

 

In the NFL, the teams that have the best records get the hardest schedule. Could it be the same in MLB?

I am sure that the Players Association will be glad to toss out a bunch of teams. NOT

To me going to a 9 game World Series is like adding the designated hitter, lights to Wrigley and all night games in the world series... all bad ideas. Leave the game alone.