JAYS PLAYOFF TRACKER

[Brownie19]

1 hour ago, jaysblue said:

It's all about the money at the end of the day when it comes to sports. Expanded playoffs in MLB and other leagues means more money.

FIFA wants to expand the World Cup in 2030 to 64 teams now as well lol. 

100%

I do think there's value in just growing the interest in the game when there are more teams chasing the playoffs (and participating in the playoffs) too.

[G-Snarls]

6 minutes ago, Brownie19 said:

100%

I do think there's value in just growing the interest in the game when there are more teams chasing the playoffs (and participating in the playoffs) too.

Guaranteed more fanbases are paying attention and probably watching games right now rather than if all playoff spots were pretty much set in stone already

The counterargument is you may not like the optics of giving an 80-82 or 81-81 team a shot at the WS, small though it may be

[jaysblue]

47 minutes ago, Brownie19 said:

100%

I do think there's value in just growing the interest in the game when there are more teams chasing the playoffs (and participating in the playoffs) too.

Yeah, back in the 2000s, even if the Jays were hovering above .500 at this point in the season, they were usually already pretty much out of playoff contention.

Now they’re 59–64, only 2.0 games back of a playoff spot, and we’re still talking about meaningful baseball in mid-August. Considering how much this team has underperformed, along with all the injuries they dealt with earlier in the season, it’s pretty remarkable that postseason baseball is still a very realistic possibility.

[jaysblue]

54 minutes ago, G-Snarls said:

Guaranteed more fanbases are paying attention and probably watching games right now rather than if all playoff spots were pretty much set in stone already

The counterargument is you may not like the optics of giving an 80-82 or 81-81 team a shot at the WS, small though it may be

I think having six teams from each league make the postseason is better than the older formats, whether it was three division winners plus one Wild Card, or the era of the one-game Wild Card.

I’d prefer the Wild Card round to be best-of-five, but I understand why that’s difficult. It would make an already tight playoff schedule even longer, while also leaving the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds sitting around for quite a while.

The NPB playoff format is interesting in that regard. In the final stage of the Climax Series, the first-place team starts with an automatic 1–0 advantage, meaning they only need three actual wins to advance while the challenger needs four. It’s definitely unconventional, but I can see the logic if you want to put more emphasis on winning the division and give lower-seeded teams a legitimate disadvantage. I wouldn’t necessarily want MLB to copy it exactly, but I do like the idea of rewarding the best regular-season teams more than they currently do.

[max silver]

4 hours ago, BTS said:

The expanded playoff format sucks. Its offensive that a team that has been this s*** all year is in the playoff picture. We used to mock the NHL for this nonsense. 

I'm cool with the expanded playoff format. The post deadline 2021 Blue Jays may have been MLB's best team and they painfully missed the post season by a single game. There are going to be seasons where mediocrity is the norm league wide but I think this is largely the exception and not the rule.

[Brownie19]

30 minutes ago, max silver said:

I'm cool with the expanded playoff format. The post deadline 2021 Blue Jays may have been MLB's best team and they painfully missed the post season by a single game. There are going to be seasons where mediocrity is the norm league wide but I think this is largely the exception and not the rule.

That's a good reminder.  It's easy to point out when some sub .500 team makes the playoffs and go "this is stupid - change the rules", but that doesn't happen every year.  And for every sub .500 team that makes the playoff, there's some really good team that misses the playoffs when they deserved a shot.  

You don't change rules based on outliers.  

[G-Snarls]

For the record, I like the current format, including the lack of play-in games and the the 3 game WC series

I think it's a good balance of enough teams makin it, yet still incentivizing teams to win their division