Confession

[757690]

Originally Posted by 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.

I am not. Of course they will be Champions. I just think that being World Champions of baseball doesn't mean what it used to, and that's a shame.

[Roy Tucker]

I guess I'm just feeling contrary today.

Sure I''d like both. But I'll take a wild card 88 wins and a World Championship trophy over a Division win and a playoff loss every day and twice on Sunday. People remember 1975, 1976, and 1990. Divisions wins are great, but they fade. Who won the WS the last 5 years and who had the best record the last 5 years? I can tell you the former but not at all the latter.

And I don't view the past in such sepia-colored glasses. I think its harder to win the World Series now than it ever has before and means more.

[RedsBaron]

Originally Posted by Roy Tucker

I guess I'm just feeling contrary today.

Sure I''d like both. But I'll take a wild card 88 wins and a World Championship trophy over a Division win and a playoff loss every day and twice on Sunday. People remember 1975, 1976, and 1990. Divisions wins are great, but they fade. Who won the WS the last 5 years and who had the best record the last 5 years? I can tell you the former but not at all the latter.

And I don't view the past in such sepia-colored glasses. I think its harder to win the World Series now than it ever has before and means more.

Absolutely. I will take the World Series every time.

[757690]

Originally Posted by Roy Tucker

I guess I'm just feeling contrary today.

Sure I''d like both. But I'll take a wild card 88 wins and a World Championship trophy over a Division win and a playoff loss every day and twice on Sunday. People remember 1975, 1976, and 1990. Divisions wins are great, but they fade. Who won the WS the last 5 years and who had the best record the last 5 years? I can tell you the former but not at all the latter.

And I don't view the past in such sepia-colored glasses. I think its harder to win the World Series now than it ever has before and means more.

1. Under the old rules, absolutely. But under these new rules, I care about winning the division first and foremost. Anything after that is gravy. Honestly, if the Reds had won the World Series this year, I wouldn't feel any prouder of the team. I'd happier, but only because I wouldn't have to deal with annoying fans from other teams gloating about there team. And if the Reds win the wild card next season and the World Series, I would be less proud of them than I am of this current team.

2. It's harder to win, but for all the wrong reasons, therefore, it's less meaningful. You don't have to be better than you were u dee the old rules, to win now, in fact, history tells us it might be easier to win if you are worse. If they changed the rules that in order to win your playoff series, you didn't have to win more games, you had to guess winning lottery numbers, it would be harder, but less meaningful.

3. I have an easier time remembering who were the dominant teams each of the least five, ten, or fifteen years than I do remembering who won the World Series. Much easier. And that didn't use to be the case.

[DGullett35]

Originally Posted by dougdirt

The 1998 Yankees want to have a talk with you. 114-48, went 11-2 in the playoffs.

I thought the exact same thing

[757690]

Originally Posted by DGullett35

I thought the exact same thing

Funny, looking back over the last 17 years, we seem to only find one example of a team that won the World Series and was also clearly the best team in baseball. While in the previous 25 years, we can only think of one example (Twins '91) in which a team won the World Series that some think didn't deserved it.

[Revering4Blue]

Originally Posted by Roy Tucker

I guess I'm just feeling contrary today.

Sure I''d like both. But I'll take a wild card 88 wins and a World Championship trophy over a Division win and a playoff loss every day and twice on Sunday. People remember 1975, 1976, and 1990. Divisions wins are great, but they fade. Who won the WS the last 5 years and who had the best record the last 5 years? I can tell you the former but not at all the latter.

And I don't view the past in such sepia-colored glasses. I think its harder to win the World Series now than it ever has before and means more.

You are a wise man, Roy.

[Phhhl]

I agree with the concept that the game has been diminished by expanded playoffs. And, it really irritates me that the Cardinals have advanced this far, knowing that they could not have even made the playoffs in any other season in the history of the game. So irritated that I am not even watching baseball again until February...

But, I am not going to pretend I won't be extremely happy one of these years when an underwhelming Reds team takes a wild card spot and turns it into November magic. A lot of this indignance has to do with the perspective we have from watching our team destroy a team over the course of 162 games, only to be sitting at home watching them now. The roles will like be reversed sooner than later under this format.

[vic715]

Originally Posted by 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.

As I stated earlier make it best 2 of 3 and I can live with it.One game isn't fair in my estimation.

[mth123]

This won't be popular.

The Cardinals run differential of 117 was second best in the NL. It was better than the Braves (100), the Reds (81) or the Giants (69). Only the Nationals, with a Run Differential of 137, was better than the Cardinals in the 2012 NL season and the Cards did beat them head to head in a fair series.

Maybe the Wild Card and the Cards' post season run is righting an injustice that was reflected in the regular season standings. Being 36 net runs better than the Reds suggests that they were a better team by about 3 to 4 games which is a far cry from finishing 9 games back.

In general, I've been in the camp of trying to maintain the sanctity of the 162 game regular season, but this Cards' team is hardly the best example of why the wild card is such an injus,tice. I somehow think if it were any other team, and if the Reds had not just laid an egg in their post-season appearance, that this topic would be getting barely a wimper.

[mth123]

Originally Posted by vic715

As I stated earlier make it best 2 of 3 and I can live with it.One game isn't fair in my estimation.

I think the whole idea is for it to be unfair. Want to avoid it? Win the Division.

[Tony Cloninger]

Baseball did not lose it's popularity with football beacuse it went to 4 divisions in 1969.

It lost it and continued to lose it due to the sport not translating as well on TV....football just became more popular and fun to watch, and it's only once a week. Rozelle did a better job of marketing the game compared to Eckett and then Kuhn. And anyone who remember watching football in the 70's with the zone defense and teams running 70% of the time will tell you it was not even that exciting.

Baseball however messed itself up in the 60's with the increased strike zone to avoid any Maris like implosions with expansion here. The game got lower scoring....with minimal speed (Besides Dodgers and the Cardinals)

It became popular again with scoring, speed picking up and then the 1975 WS. It just kept shooting itself in the foot however in 1981 and the battles between the MLBPA and the owners. Fans do not seem to care that football players strike (1982) or owners get replacement players (1987)
and the NBA also got out of it's cocaine induced fog in the early 80's and Magic and Bird and then Jordan happened.

I remember watching NBA 1980-81-82 finals on Tape Delay.

The WS does still mean something, even with IL play....and it means a lot to win it.
The cardinals get lucky but still find ways to come through.....and I have been harping all year on how they are able to pluck hitters out of the minors like the Reds used to in the 70's. Well now that depth is helping them, along the usual Denny Doyle/David Eckstien type of player just showing up and hitting out of nowhere.

The Reds blew a 2-0 lead with 3 at home. They have no one to blame but themselves. So do the Nationals and basically Gonzales was terrible for them. Turned almost Rick Ankiel with his control problems.

[757690]

Originally Posted by mth123

This won't be popular.

The Cardinals run differential of 117 was second best in the NL. It was better than the Braves (100), the Reds (81) or the Giants (69). Only the Nationals with a Run Differential of 137 was better than the Cardinals in the 2012 NL season and the Cards did beat them head to head in a fair series.

Maybe the Wild Card and the Cards' post season run is righting an injustice that was reflected in the regular season standings. Being 36 net runs better than the Reds suggests that they were a better team by about 3 to 4 games which is a far cry from finishing 9 games back.

In general, I've been in the camp of trying to maintain the sanctity of the 162 game regular season, but this Cards' team is hardly the best example of why the wild card is such an injustice. I somehow think if it were any other team, and if the Reds had not just laid an egg in their post-season appearance, that this topic would be getting barely a wimper.

Pythag is way overrated. A good run differential doesn't mean a team was good. A bad run differential doesn't mean a team was bad. It's a very blunt tool that kinda works in broad generalizations, but doesn't mean much in individual instances.

This year, Dave Cameron, the founder of Fangraphs, said this:

The entire concept of pythag record is now actively doing more harm than good. We'd all be better off if no one ever talked about it again.

And this question and response in a chat:

If you reject pythag, how do you measure team quality?

Dave Cameron:
Just look at the true talent levels of each player on the active roster. It might take more work, but it's worth it.

I personally think the best way to judge a team's quality is to look at their won lost record. The goal of baseball is to win games, not to accumulate stats.

[mdccclxix]

If you reject pythag, how do you measure team quality?

Dave Cameron:
Just look at the true talent levels of each player on the active roster. It might take more work, but it's worth it.

Even by this metric would I say the Cardinals were a great team this year.

[Tadasimha]

Originally Posted by AtomicDumpling

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.

Gotta call BS on this: we all would be thrilled to have the Reds have a World Series title and it wouldn't matter if they had the worst record of any of the teams in the playoffs or not, we all would be trumpeting it to the moon and back.