Does the World Series have a credibility problem?

[Terminator]

It's only lucky when it's not their beloved Atkins built Blue Jays teams doing the winning.

 

Dean, you are obsessed with Ross Atkins. Every single post mentions him and it also usually contains references to oral sex or cuckoldry. You might want to bring this up at your next court-ordered session pal. Only trying to help.

[Brownie19]

You're making a good point even though you're being purposely obtuse to try and discredit any changes to the current playoff format.

 

A long regular season isn't the perfect way to determine the best team. There's still plenty of randomness and chance involved. It's simply the best way.

 

Throughout a long season, the "best team in baseball" can change at several different points. Are we trying to find the best team in baseball by the end of the season? or the team that was the best when you average it out over the 6 month period.

[wilko]

Dean, you are obsessed with Ross Atkins. Every single post mentions him and it also usually contains references to oral sex or cuckoldry. You might want to bring this up at your next court-ordered session pal. Only trying to help.

 

I'm thinking it's John Schneider. Ever since Atkins came out and pointed the finger at Schneider, our friend with two first names started posting a LOT.

[connorp]

I shouldn’t have to explain to Toronto fans why regular season wins doesn’t necessarily translate to the best playoff team. Many Bluejay fans are also Raptor fans, the former king of racking up regular season victories with depth and balance. Depth and balance that made them an easy out come playoffs when rotations shrink and the stars shine. Although baseball is not the same, some of the same concepts apply.

 

Nobody wanted to see the s***** Raptors as champions winning 60+ games with a deep rotation and taking all the games serious. They want to see the playoffs

[deanmike]

I'm thinking it's John Schneider. Ever since Atkins came out and pointed the finger at Schneider, our friend with two first names started posting a LOT.

 

I ain't a fan of either Atkins or Schneider and wanted both gone. Before the unfortunate Shapiro presser which confirmed that this organization values people who throw the people they work with under the bus, I had said IMO Shapiro should fire both Atkins and Schneider (who proved himself to be a beta that is okay with getting thrown under the bus), promote World Series winning GM James Click to take Atkins' place, and let Click decide who he wants his Schneider replacement to be.

 

Unfortunate things didn't play out this way, but a silver lining is, at least Shatkins' snake-like nature produced a public calling out of the replacement level DH Vlad Jr. I also straight up loved how they played hardball with Manoah's whining (Atkins basically said f*** your fake injuries fatass you don't deserve major league pay on IL).

[TheHurl]

With the Orioles, Rays, Braves, and Dodgers eliminated, we will have a World Series Champion that in no way represents the best baseball team in 2023

 

I know we can never go back to a single NL Champion playing a single AL champion in as 7 game series

 

But if we continue to add WC teams and short series, the World Series "champion" will become more and more irrelevant.

 

I think the redacted winning 101 games and redacted trumps this years WS pretend champion.

 

Easy answer is playoffs are a credibility issue in all sports. But playoffs are money...if s***** 10th place teams keep winning they get to spin it as an underdog story. It would not surprise me if 2 more teams get added to the playoffs if the view is that it is not an advantage to be a top seed...or of course Arizona makes it and ratings are s***

[deanmike]

The next time the Jays make it to the ALCS or further I will bump this thread and agree with the OP's premise. Let's see what happens to this thread then.

[Dick_Pole]

Yeah. I wouldn't mind a reversion back to the pre-1995 format. Two divisions of eight (assuming expansion to 32 teams). Division winner takes all. But knowing we will never go back to that, an NHL-like wild card format is better than this. Three games series are stupid. One game ones aren't great either, but at least that gives a massive incentive to win the division and generally keeps the flow of the playoffs going instead of all the off days for the top teams.

 

A lot of the issues with the MLB playoff format is that the Central division, and generally also-ran division winners coming from that spot, exists. People talk about the Twins 18 game playoff losing streak like it's some surprise. 2019 aside, they were generally the worst team in the playoffs. And even when they didn't appear to be the worst team just by looking at W-L record, digging deeper you see they racked up a bunch of wins against terrible divisional opponents. They were correctly bounced for years. Which...I guess is evidence that the playoffs aren't so broken after all.

 

I'm also a fan of less off-days. Bullpen usage is getting putrid and it can only occur because everyone gets so much rest. Bring back playoff formats where guys like Jack Morris and Rich Gossage have value. Not a bunch of Fasty McGee clones who can throw 98 over limited workload but are otherwise nameless and completely interchangeable.

[Marew]

Good conversation. verlander is finished. Also f*** the orioles.

[Jimcanuck]

Two years of the current format:

 

2022 - 2/4 teams with a bye lost in LDS

 

2023 - 3/4 teams with a bye lost in LDS

 

1 week interval between wild card series and LDS. Is that enough to f*** with the bye team hitters?

[connorp]

Whatever happened to the Ace starting 1-4-7. Pussy generation. Shouldn’t be a #4 SP slot in the playoffs

[Cynical]

All of Shatkins' bootlicker cucks will swarm this thread to gleefully agree with this participation trophy premise.

 

My answer is f*** no it doesn't have a credibility problem.

 

Well, the Jays seem to be even further away in the non credible world series since they can't seem to win even one game. So this argument isn't exactly helping Atkins..

[Boxcar]

Weren’t you guys crying about Baltimore being lucky winning so many games. Would you grant the division to the team with the best xWPCT in that case. You nerds wouldn’t be happy with anything other than if mlb was a roto league

 

Never change

[Marew]

The orioles are a very uncredible team. Starting to thing they are the problem and not the format.

[L54]

The orioles are a very uncredible team. Starting to thing they are the problem and not the format.

 

Other than the Braves the other “top teams” all had major flaws

 

The Dodgers had no pitching

The Orioles staff sucks ass

The Brewers lost their ace

The Rays lost like three of their five best players (Franco, Rasmussen, Springs)

 

For instance looking back on it you can easily argue the Phillies are much more prepared for the playoffs than Baltimore and probably LAD.

 

I’m more interested in who can bring the best 26 men in October than who has the deepest 40 man roster to endure the 6 month regular season

[Marew]

Agreed. It was very clear the dodgers always sucked, based on that series we played them in the summer. Mookie and Fred is that team and pretty sure we shut them down. Orioles don’t really have a superstar, just a handful of solid-good position players isn’t enough.

 

Was shocked to see the graves get 25% odds with 12 teams remaining, it was also clear their pitching wasn’t top tier. Their games were usually high scoring and probably an anomaly from half their position players during the reg season.

 

Don’t know what to say about the rays, it was sheer luck they kept going after losing all of the good players. Chalk that one up to karma for supporting Wander.

[L54]

True. Braves have Strider and then Fried but after that it’s like Bryce Elder and AJ Smith Shawver with an injured Charlie Morton. Phillies might have a better 1-2-3 in Wheeler-Nola-Suarez by comparison

 

The Rays were a shell of themselves by the time October came. Sure they had 99 wins but they weren’t the same team as they were early on

[max silver]

The orioles are a very uncredible team. Starting to thing they are the problem and not the format.

 

This post is best when imagining it read out loud in Ralph Wiggum's voice.

[jaysblue]

Other than the Braves the other “top teams” all had major flaws

 

The Dodgers had no pitching

The Orioles staff sucks ass

The Brewers lost their ace

The Rays lost like three of their five best players (Franco, Rasmussen, Springs)

 

For instance looking back on it you can easily argue the Phillies are much more prepared for the playoffs than Baltimore and probably LAD.

 

I’m more interested in who can bring the best 26 men in October than who has the deepest 40 man roster to endure the 6 month regular season

 

Best post of the thread!

[Terminator]

Other than the Braves the other “top teams” all had major flaws

 

The Dodgers had no pitching

The Orioles staff sucks ass

The Brewers lost their ace

The Rays lost like three of their five best players (Franco, Rasmussen, Springs)

 

For instance looking back on it you can easily argue the Phillies are much more prepared for the playoffs than Baltimore and probably LAD.

 

I’m more interested in who can bring the best 26 men in October than who has the deepest 40 man roster to endure the 6 month regular season

 

The Phillies definitely have a good roster. They won 90 games and had a +81 RD. And that's with Schwarber having to play the field a bunch (that alone cost them about 2 wins) and Trea Turner playing like complete ass for half the year. Both of those are fixed now so they are more like a 95 win team based on that alone.

 

But they also have great pitching as they lead the league in pitching WAR this season and a lot of power. The only knock is defense but that's been fixed to a large degree with Schwarber DHing.

 

So they definitely brought one of the best 26 man rosters to the playoffs.

 

But of course, they are also one game away from getting bounced by the Diamondbacks who most definitely did not bring one of the best 26 man rosters to October.

[L54]

The Phillies definitely have a good roster. They won 90 games and had a +81 RD. And that's with Schwarber having to play the field a bunch (that alone cost them about 2 wins) and Trea Turner playing like complete ass for half the year. Both of those are fixed now so they are more like a 95 win team based on that alone.

 

But they also have great pitching as they lead the league in pitching WAR this season and a lot of power. The only knock is defense but that's been fixed to a large degree with Schwarber DHing.

 

So they definitely brought one of the best 26 man rosters to the playoffs.

 

But of course, they are also one game away from getting bounced by the Diamondbacks who most definitely did not bring one of the best 26 man rosters to October.

 

I find beauty in playing the games. I understand not everyone feels this way

[Dick_Pole]

My extremely stupid idea for playoff reform:

 

Two divisions. Two division winners. Four wild cards.

 

First round: The two division winners play a best of nine. The other four teams play a round robin tournament, 3 games each. Best record advances, tie breaker goes to highest wild card seed.

 

The winner of the round robin and division winners round plays the LCS. Best of nine, also World Series best of nine because it seems silly that prelim rounds get a best of nine and the later rounds don't.

 

Nobody takes a rest, still a major advantage for the division winners as they have a 1 in 2 vs. 1 in 4 shot of advancing to the LCS, even more playoff games. Everyone's complaint is solved. Discuss.

[Stangstag]

My extremely stupid idea for playoff reform:

 

Two divisions. Two division winners. Four wild cards.

 

First round: The two division winners play a best of nine. The other four teams play a round robin tournament, 3 games each. Best record advances, tie breaker goes to highest wild card seed.

 

The winner of the round robin and division winners round plays the LCS. Best of nine, also World Series best of nine because it seems silly that prelim rounds get a best of nine and the later rounds don't.

 

Nobody takes a rest, still a major advantage for the division winners as they have a 1 in 2 vs. 1 in 4 shot of advancing to the LCS, even more playoff games. Everyone's complaint is solved. Discuss.

 

Game 9 doesn’t have the same ring to it

[Marew]

It should be best of 10 but the regular season tie breaker rules apply if it goes 5-5. 6 and 4 will do it. They wouldn’t play game 10 if the team ahead 5-4 held the tiebreaker of course. The tiebreakers don’t mean enough IMO. Make it matter.

[TheHurl]

My extremely stupid idea for playoff reform:

 

Two divisions. Two division winners. Four wild cards.

 

First round: The two division winners play a best of nine. The other four teams play a round robin tournament, 3 games each. Best record advances, tie breaker goes to highest wild card seed.

 

The winner of the round robin and division winners round plays the LCS. Best of nine, also World Series best of nine because it seems silly that prelim rounds get a best of nine and the later rounds don't.

 

Nobody takes a rest, still a major advantage for the division winners as they have a 1 in 2 vs. 1 in 4 shot of advancing to the LCS, even more playoff games. Everyone's complaint is solved. Discuss.

 

How about one AL division, one NL division.

1 plays 2 best of 7 for a bye to the CS. 4 wild card teams play a home and home round robin. With the winner going on to play the 1 vs 2 loser for the chance to play in the CS. Could have 1 vs 2 playing 14 times in October (which could suck if it is the Rays and O's)

[Laika]

How about one AL division, one NL division.

1 plays 2 best of 7 for a bye to the CS. 4 wild card teams play a home and home round robin. With the winner going on to play the 1 vs 2 loser for the chance to play in the CS. Could have 1 vs 2 playing 14 times in October (which could suck if it is the Rays and O's)

 

This is the way

[Terminator]

How about one AL division, one NL division.

1 plays 2 best of 7 for a bye to the CS. 4 wild card teams play a home and home round robin. With the winner going on to play the 1 vs 2 loser for the chance to play in the CS. Could have 1 vs 2 playing 14 times in October (which could suck if it is the Rays and O's)

 

That's a great idea. Did you come up with that on your own? I'm impressed.

[Marew]

It’s not a great idea. I’m sure Connor has some great ideas if we give him a chance. Super bright kid.

[Omar]

How about one AL division, one NL division.

1 plays 2 best of 7 for a bye to the CS. 4 wild card teams play a home and home round robin. With the winner going on to play the 1 vs 2 loser for the chance to play in the CS. Could have 1 vs 2 playing 14 times in October (which could suck if it is the Rays and O's)

 

[Laika]

The possible ten off days for the team that gets a bye would be problematic