Confession

[Chip R]

Originally Posted by westofyou

1968

The last true season.

And my first

1900. That was the last year that there was one league and one champion. No stinking playoffs like we have now.

[REDREAD]

Originally Posted by Always Red

My solution (and I think I read it above as well) is to go back to NL and AL, get rid of divisions and wild cards, winner goes to the WS. You will still have all of the excitement and with this many teams, most years the race will go down to the wire. With all the excitement of drummed up "wild card games," except the winner will truly deserve to go to the WS.

But if we did that system this year, only Wash makes it to the playoffs. Reds aren't even in the playoffs, despite winning 97 games.
Now maybe if only one team gets in, Baker rests the players less, burns up his pen or whatever, and the results change.. But Washington would likely pull out all the stops too.

Even though the Reds were eliminated in the first round, it was fun to make the playoffs. The thing I remember most about 1999 was losing 2-3 to Milwaukee, then not making the playoffs thanks to the tie breaking game. Under the current system, the 1999 Reds would've made the playoffs.. Wouldn't that have been fun, even if we didn't advance?

The wildcards kept a lot more teams interested this year. There were a lot less salary dump trades (like in the "good old days").. IMO, this is good for baseball.
Keep more fans interested in September. Lots of teams were within a few games of the WC in the last few weeks of the season.

[AtomicDumpling]

Originally Posted by George Anderson

I understand your point better now and maybe adding another team to mix might dilute the playoffs a bit but at the same time having the WC race adds to the excitement of the regular season. Would you be in favor of going back to pre 1969 when only 2 teams made the playoffs?

Yes, I would go back to the pre-1969 system that worked so great for many decades when baseball was the most popular sport in the country.

Baseball's decline in popularity relative to other sports has coincided exactly with the dilution of the playoffs and diminished integrity of the World Series.

I don't think having the Wild Card race adds to the excitement of the regular season. It just transfers the excitement down from the top of the pack to the middle of the pack. The folks who are excited with this system are the fans of the mediocre teams rather than the fans of the best teams.

It is much more exciting to be fighting several teams in September for a berth in the World Series rather than fighting for the final berth in a big post-season tournament. You can't get all that excited over winning something that 1/3 of the whole league also got. What is so special about that?

The best teams in the National League all knew weeks in advance that they were going to the playoffs. There was no excitement there. But if the Reds, Nationals and Giants had all been competing in a winner-takes-all cage match for the league pennant and a place in the World Series it would have been tremendously exciting. The divisional structure and two Wild Cards cheated Reds fans out of what could have been a historic and memorable season.

Rather than address the true cause of competitive imbalance ( e.g. payroll inequity) by creating a system offering a level playing field where every franchise has an equal chance to build a great team based solely on their skill and aptitude, the league has opted to essentially distribute the championships randomly by creating a playoff structure that rewards mediocrity by giving run-of-the-mill teams who have already proven themselves second-rate to upset far better teams in short playoff series and claim a meaningless title.

Leave it up to Bud Selig to create a system where the 5th best team in each league makes it to the World Series.

[George Anderson]

Originally Posted by AtomicDumpling

Yes, I would go back to the pre-1969 system that worked so great for many decades when baseball was the most popular sport in the country.

Baseball's decline in popularity has coincided exactly with the dilution of the playoffs and diminished integrity of the World Series.

I don't think having the Wild Card race adds to the excitement of the regular season. It just transfers the excitement down from the top of the pack to the middle of the pack. The folks who are excited with this system are the fans of the mediocre teams rather than the fans of the best teams.

It is much more exciting to be fighting several teams in September for a berth in the World Series rather than fighting for the final berth in a big post-season tournament. You can't get all that excited over winning something that 1/3 of the whole league also got. What is so special about that?

The best teams in the National League all knew weeks in advance that they were going to the playoffs. There was no excitement there. But if the Reds, Nationals and Giants had all been competing in a winner-takes-all cage match for the league pennant and a place in the World Series it would have been tremendously exciting. The divisional structure and two Wild Cards cheated Reds fans out of what could have been a historic and memorable season.

Rather than address the true cause of competitive imbalance ( e.g. payroll inequity) by creating a system offering a level playing field where every franchise has an equal chance to build a great team based solely on their skill and aptitude, the league has opted to essentially distribute the championships randomly by creating a playoff structure that rewards mediocrity by giving run-of-the-mill teams who have already proven themselves second-rate to upset far better teams in short playoff series and claim a meaningless title.

Leave it up to Bud Selig to create a system where the 5th best team in each league makes it to the World Series.

For money purposes MLB will never go for this. To much money to be made with the playoffs.

Personally I don't want to see MLB end up like the NHL where about everyone makes the playoffs. However I have no problem with the system prior to this year. Having 2 WC's with a one game playoff is something I don't like.

[AtomicDumpling]

Originally Posted by George Anderson

For money purposes MLB will never go for this. To much money to be made with the playoffs.

Personally I don't want to see MLB end up like the NHL where about everyone makes the playoffs. However I have no problem with the system prior to this year. Having 2 WC's with a one game playoff is something I don't like.

Yes, obviously money is the reason they sold the integrity of the World Series. There is no question about that. They will no never go back to the days when the goal of a season was to find out which team was best and crown them as champion. Baseball is just a business now more than ever, competition doesn't have much to do with it anymore. It is all about the money.

They will eventually have a 32 team March Madness style single-elimination tournament because boy wouldn't that be exciting!

Perhaps they shouldn't have a regular season at all. It is too boring. They should just have a World Series Championship Tournament every 3 months. Imagine the TV ratings.

[reds44]

The more playoff teams that are added, the less the regular season means and the more random the playoffs become.

The fact baseball plays 162 games and then a 5 game first round is one of the dumbest things in sports. They all should at least be best of 7's. I wouldn't even mind if the World Series was best of 9.

[RedsBaron]

Originally Posted by vic715

I think the Mets only won 82 that year as there was a rainout that wasn't made up but the thing that gripes me about that series was the Mets had home field advantage.Thats when they alternated every year and best record meant nothing.

Yes, and home field was huge in the 1973 NLCS, with Met "fans" throwing everything except hand grenades at Reds players.

[Red in Chicago]

So if the Cards win it all again, are they considered a dynasty
To me, that's ludicrous.

[RedsBaron]

Originally Posted by reds44

The more playoff teams that are added, the less the regular season means and the more random the playoffs become.

The fact baseball plays 162 games and then a 5 game first round is one of the dumbest things in sports. They all should at least be best of 7's. I wouldn't even mind if the World Series was best of 9.

The problem with that is the post season already is touching on November. Unless the regular season is shortened (and that is unlikely), an expanded post season increases the risk of extended weather delays as the weather turns more and more unbaseball like.

[westofyou]

Originally Posted by Red in Chicago

So if the Cards win it all again, are they considered a dynasty
To me, that's ludicrous.

Actually They already are, at least based on some criteria that Bill James came up with on his web site this summer, I'll dig it up this weekend and add it here

[kaldaniels]

Why don't we just award the trophy to the team with the most total WAR at the end of 162 games and be done with it?

[Joseph]

Look, I'm no Cards fan either, but are we really debating that they aren't the champs if they win? If thats the case we should just stop the World Series altogether and just award it to the best regular season.

I love baseball, I love the playoffs. I have no issues with the extra wildcard, it works.

Baseball will likely never again be the top sport. It's just not that world anymore. People don't like lulls or 'boring'. They want things that go 10000 miles an hour and explode when you touch them.

[Roy Tucker]

Maybe we should have a BCS-style computer rankings. Or maybe an NCAA-style commottee that looks at strength of schedule and records against power teams.

[Roy Tucker]

And I'd like to see a poll of Reds fans to see which you would rather win, the regular seaon championship or the World Series.

[AtomicDumpling]

Originally Posted by Roy Tucker

And I'd like to see a poll of Reds fans to see which you would rather win, the regular seaon championship or the World Series.

I would like to win both, but I would be much more proud of having the best record in the league (they used to call that "winning the pennant"), which is an achievement that is actually based on the skill and talent level of your team.