The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

The Rockies beat the Cubs last night 2-1 in 13 innings if anybody missed it. 

The Rockies won on a two out rally by hitting three successive singles.  When the first guy got a single, the woman in the booth with A-Roid and the other guy said "oh well... that's a win for the Cubs that he only got a single."  Now I understand what she was getting at because the guy was one of the Rockies' more prominent power hitters.  But I still almost put my fist through the TV. 

Here's why the statement was monumentally stupid.  In an extra inning game when runs are at a premium and a team gets a hit, it's a loss for that team.  Whether it's a broken bat single or a triple off the right field corner. 

I'm not complaining because she's a woman.  I don't mind women being in the booth any more than a man.  For the most part I find the booth to be white noise while the actual game is going on.  We've heard men (Joe Theismann immediately springs to mind) say equally and far dumber things during broadcasts.  However it seems that clearly the situation was lost on her and as soon as I heard the statement my fist stopped right at the television. 

The two sports with the most nonsensical postseasons are baseball and college football, but at least college football is getting better.

The one-game wild card is among the dumbest ideas I've ever heard (next to basing home field for the championship on an exhibition game), especially in a sport like baseball where you can roll out your dominant ace for that one game, and promptly get washed in the next round.

to Clarify, I can't stand espn,and their announcers,so, I have a severe bias towards F-them,and anything they say...

I was watching the game on Espn 2,the statcast version,that has different announcers.I actually loved it,so much less let's blow smoke up the ass of this team because they're currently leading,blah,blah,blah B.S. which made somewhat easier to watch...

Personally I'm less angered about the "postseason" format,than I am the 2 game 163 games to make the playoffs.Twitter was a buzz,about how stupid,no tie breakers as in head to head record,or record versus division,league etc,nope tied..F-you you play an extra do or die game after battling 163 games,to go play in another do or die game,while the other team waits...

As a Cubs fan,I knew for quite a while now,we didn't have the horses to have chance in hell to win it all.So the loss,sucked,but the Brewers were going to have their way with us,in the next round..

Best out of three would be fair.

Lets go redsox

The idea of having two wild card teams (with three division champs) is itself the problem.

Either have one wild card team and normal series, or three wild card teams with byes for the top two division champs like the NFL.  The idea of a professional league having a "play-in game" for their postseason is a joke.

The flaw in that is unlike football an extra week bye is detrimental in baseball not benifical.  To make things fairer for the 3 and 4 best record teams you punish the two best teams.  Teams can avoid the one game series by winning more games in the regular season.

Or you could just have a better record and then it wouldn't matter. I have no issue with a play in ... regardless of the best or wildcard. It just makes the stakes that much higher.

Some would argue that in the post season having stronger pitching outweighs having great batters.  So, having your pitching staff well rested would be a bigger advantage.

Well the MLB schedule makers tried to help the Cubs.  In the last five days the Rockies played a 3 game homestand, then went to LA for one game, then had to go to Chicago for last nights game.  If Colorado had lost I'm sure people would be upset over the scheduling.

How do you figure?  Rest is rest.  You have time to optimize your rotation instead of next man up.

The Cubs finished the regular season tied for the best record in the National League.  Their reward was a 1-game playoff to see who wins the division, and then a one-game wild card playoff.  In contrast, two teams with worse records than the Cubs were awarded a 5-game series.

The old wild card system was far superior.

The only problem I have with the baseball playoff system is that I don't think ANYTHING should be one game unless it's the All Star game.  Even Division tiebreakers I feel like should be three games. 

It's just maddening for Cubs fans.  You had the divisional tiebreaker and the wild card play in at home and lost both.   At least you're not the Rays who won 90 games and failed to make the postseason.

In 2008 a 12-4 team (2nd best record in NFL) had to travel to an 8-8 team while an 11-5 team sat home.  Don’t like that...prevent it by winning your division.

That's kind of my thinking. Many sports are like that. You first have to get out of your bracket and then move on. If you happen to place second and draw a wild card because you had a good record then so be it. Your're still a wild card and have to fight to get back to play the team you lost to. Otherwise have no WC teams and just play divisional winners. That's the advantage of "winning" your bracket.

I'm not objecting to seeding, or even byes.  If the Cubs were a #4 seed in a six-team playoff and they were down 0-2 in a best of 5, I would have nothing to say.  Or to flip the script, if the LDS and LCS were also single-game series, that would also be fair.  It's the wildly unbalanced playoff format that I have a problem with.

I think there a ton of problems in the way MLB does these things,and think it's easily something that can be send you down a rabbit hole pigeon holing(sp?) it to death....

The 163's bother me the most,the playoff format of the wildcard is the win or you're out suddenness of game 5,or 7 of a series*

In sports we hear making the regular season count,baseball is grind,marathon...not a sprint,it's your record over the long haul...

I admittedly didn't realize that there aren't any tie breakers,and since brad brought it up...

Dodgers record vs the Rockies 13-7 (12-7+ game 163)
Cubs record vs Brewers 11-7 (11-8 but lost in game 163)

Brewers had a losing record,against the Cubs and Pittsburgh..The Cubs had losing record to the Cardinals...So who really won the division?
Via baseball reference.com...
Cubs https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CHC/2018-schedule-scores.shtml (https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CHC/2018-schedule-scores.shtml)
Brewers https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/MIL/2018-schedule-scores.shtml (https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/MIL/2018-schedule-scores.shtml)
Dodgers https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/LAD/2018-schedule-scores.shtml (https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/LAD/2018-schedule-scores.shtml)
Rockies https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/COL/2018-schedule-scores.shtml (https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/COL/2018-schedule-scores.shtml)

Here is the issue I had with this years 163 games...All teams were in the playoffs,and games weren't do or die games..

Win the division argument is Bullshit to me,both the Dodgers and the Cubs had winning records in the division,against the teams they already played 19 times.(They both had winning records against all but 1 team in their division all this season.) No the Division is decided by a 1 game 163,post trade deadline,with September call ups?  ???

It goes back to masterfins money rant in the Dolphins section.....That's an extra game of revenue,and the wild card high ratings because of the do or die feeling...

I've heard the nitpicking of  the league didn't help the Cubs 4 days off since August 1st (including a double header) versus the Brewers 5 days off (the Thursday before the regular season ended).The Brewers got an interleague series against Detroit to end the season,got a division rival Cardinals.

It's all blah,blah,blah...It's what I mean you can nitpick everything,and baseball likes it that way...

I'm not sour apples the Cubs just blew the chances they had.

(modified said the same thing twice,and accidently deleted a line... ??? :-[ and Added links to reference))

You hit it right on the head.  A perfect example is the 2007 Colorado Rockies who ended up losing the World Series to your boys. 

It wasn't that long ago baseball looked like this:

AL East
AL West

NL East
NL West

That was it.

Under these old rules the following teams would have made / missed the playoffs:

In: Boston (108 games), Houston (103), Brewers (96), Dodgers (92)

Out: Yankees (100), Indians (91), Oakland (97), Atlanta (90), Chicago (95), Colorado (91).

The playoff system is far from perfect.  It's come light years from where it was. 

I liked that system better. Besides being simple, just taking the two best teams in each league and having them fight for the pennant, it didn't prolong the post season to what it is now. I like that it was more like only the 4 best teams can make it, and if you wanted to be in the playoffs, then you should have won another game or two. Suck it up, and be one of the 4 best next season. I guess I like that baseball playoffs used to be a little more exclusionary.

And it wasn't too long before that that there were no league playoffs at all, and the team with the best record from each league went directly to the World Series.

Nevertheless, I think it's fair to say that the previous system (3 division winners + wild card) was better than the system we have now.  You're not supposed to go backwards and make the system worse.

Until the day comes when there is a hard cap (and a hard floor) for MLB, my interest in it is pretty minimal.  Who wants to cheer for a rigged game? ...I mean, aside from fans of the teams it is rigged for, that is.

Agree.  needs hard caps and floors like nfl

I agree as well.   The trouble is, the MLB Players Union is too powerful and will never agree to a salary cap.   If the owners really want to implement one, they need to impose a lockout when the current CBA expires, then bring in replacement players

That is not true.  It would be against there interest to agree to a salary cap that reduced their earning potential.   But a deal with a hard floor, TV revenue shared among all teams and a requirement of how much of total revenue must be spent on players eg what the NFL has could get player support.  Problem is wealthy teams like the Yankees would oppose that.

And your Red Sox...  ;)

I don't necessarily have a problem with a soft cap+luxury tax like the NBA's system.  It has worked extremely well, with the one obvious exception of the huge cap spike in 2016 that allowed the second-best team in the league to give a huge contract to a top-three player.  (Even a hard cap system will not prevent players from taking less-than-market value to play for a winning team, as the Patriots have shown... but KD was able to eat his cake and have it too.)  And ultimately due to the nature of the sport basketball itself, if the best two players in the league are in Cleveland and San Antonio, those will likely be the best two teams in the league no matter what kind of cap you have.

That all said, I think the current MLB playoff system is designed to obscure exactly this problem.  The more teams that "make the playoffs" (even if just for one game), the fewer the cries of a broken system.

Don't pay attention to the jaded Padres fan.

;)

Congratulations Maine and Hoodie.