2012 Playoffs Thread

[TruffleShuffle]

wait, so cubs fans are more respectful toward the cardinals when posting on a (moderated) cardinals message board than they are when posting on a cubs message board? WHAT A FASCINATING DEVELOPMENT, TELL US MORE

[rocket]

 

now whose fans are insane?

[Little Slide Rooter]

Somewhere between pixie dust and thinking the Cards have been just that good the past few years lies the truth.

 

They have been a very shrewd franchise that has made the most of their market standing, and placed themselves in favorable positions with regularity because of it. But they have gotten more than their fair share of positive breaks, with a knack for consistently advancing past teams with superior rosters in often improbable fashion. This cannot be denied.

 

But when a team is in or around contention consistently, good things can happen, which should be the takeaway.

 

This. I just hope that while Cubs fans kvetch about everything that the Cardinals do, our front office is figuring out how to replicate their success, and for that matter, that of the A's. Once they've produced enough star or at least everyday players that way, then they can start breaking out the checkbook to fill the remaining needs.If we wanted to sign Prince Fielder, CJ Wilson, and Aramis Ramirez, we may as well have let Hendry stick around another year.

[sneakypower]

 

now whose fans are insane?

i like the one, "Hey Pujols. How ya like not being in the playoffs and sitting on your ass in piles of money in sunny Calif…"

 

man, that sounds just horrible

[illiniguy]

 

now whose fans are insane?

i like the one, "Hey Pujols. How ya like not being in the playoffs and sitting on your ass in piles of money in sunny Calif…"

 

man, that sounds just horrible

I hope that never happens to me. It won't.

[jersey cubs fan]

Derek Jeter mourning porn is kind of sexy

[Sammys Boombox]

In 2006, 2011 and 2012 (they're going to win, so lets just include it) the Cardinals won the WS with records worse than or equal to teams that did not make the postseason. They finished 13th, tied for 8th (due to the 2 biggest collapses in September history they were not 10th) and tied for 11th. Disgusting.

[javy knows my name]

In 2006, 2011 and 2012 (they're going to win, so lets just include it) the Cardinals won the WS with records worse than or equal to teams that did not make the postseason. They finished 13th, tied for 8th (due to the 2 biggest collapses in September history they were not 10th) and tied for 11th. Disgusting.

 

You embody everything I hate about Cubs fans in one paragraph. Congratulations.

[ManEatingTarp]

In 2006, 2011 and 2012 (they're going to win, so lets just include it) the Cardinals won the WS with records worse than or equal to teams that did not make the postseason. They finished 13th, tied for 8th (due to the 2 biggest collapses in September history they were not 10th) and tied for 11th. Disgusting.

 

In 2004 they won 105 games in the regular season and got swept in the WS by a hot Boston team.

What's your point?

 

With the wild card(s) and expanded playoffs, baseball has become more like every other major sport. There are two seasons now. The regular season, and the playoff season. If the regular season is so important to you, just crown a champ based on the season schedule and then don't watch the playoffs.

[Sammys Boombox]

In 2006, 2011 and 2012 (they're going to win, so lets just include it) the Cardinals won the WS with records worse than or equal to teams that did not make the postseason. They finished 13th, tied for 8th (due to the 2 biggest collapses in September history they were not 10th) and tied for 11th. Disgusting.

 

You embody everything I hate about Cubs fans in one paragraph. Congratulations.

 

So you don't hate the guys who show up to the bleachers just to party, the "We're cursed!" fans, the "Why didn't we sign Pujols or Fielder?" crowd, the "We will never win" crowd? None of that was included in that paragraph.

 

For those of us who live in Missouri we can complain all we want about sub-championship Cardinals teams winning multiple championships in short periods of time. It is extremely irritating and also the truth.

 

For those who don't live here, maybe you need a lesson on why we feel the amount of hatred towards them that we do.

 

1. Their fanbase is more interested in BEATING THE OTHER TEAM than they are about WINNING. I believe there is a huge difference.

 

2. Their media (newspaper, radio, TV) has made it a point to make sure everybody in the world knows A) the Cardinals are God's gift to man and B) the Cubs are, have been and always will be the scum of the earth and it is your job as a Cardinals fan to make sure they know this. I do not remember Harry that much, but Bob Brenly is the only Cubs announcers I have ever known to make negative "meatball" comments towards the Cardinals and it is nowhere near the level coming from the other direction. It is literally every radio and probably every other TV broadcast whether the Cardinals are playing the Cubs or not.

 

3. Even the Busch Stadium PA announcer gets in on the fun when the Cubs are in town. The way the Cardinals as an organization treat the Cubs organization is nothing short of rude and disrespectful. The fans are one thing. The organization egging it on from their scoreboard, PA booth, radio booth and TV booth is quite another thing. I believe if there is one place where a certain organization could possibly be treated worse would be the Mets when they go to Philadelphia. That is it.

 

I don't know about you, but this has been an amazing postseason. I'd like to enjoy it as a baseball fan without another mediocre Cardinals team winning the whole thing. The 162-game season is supposed to mean something in baseball. Mainly by the design of their front office they find themselves in these situations year after year. I will admit that. Hats off to them. But, I can be pissed when them putting themselves in those situations constantly correlates into postseason series victories due in part to other teams not showing up and/or collapsing. The Braves dominated 14 seasons and only got to 2 World Series. The Yankees won 4 of 5, but they did so with a budget double that of their competitors.

 

If it makes you feel like a more mature person that the Cardinals winning in historically ridiculous ways doesn't piss you off, congratulations. Once is enough. Twice is too much. Three is just insane.

Edited October 15, 2012 by Sammy's Boombox

[UMFan83]

As much as I hate the Cardinals, its hard to look past their 7-1 record in their last 8 postseason series and call them 'sub-championship'. They put up rather mediocre regular season records, but obviously there is something they are doing right to build a team that can win best of 5 or 7 series. We're talking about 44 game sample size since 2006 (27-17 overall record including the 0-3 record in 2009). Maybe they are just the luckiest team in all of professional sports, and I realize they've gotten some pretty fortunate breaks, but the more they win the harder it is to say that.

[Sammys Boombox]

In 2006, 2011 and 2012 (they're going to win, so lets just include it) the Cardinals won the WS with records worse than or equal to teams that did not make the postseason. They finished 13th, tied for 8th (due to the 2 biggest collapses in September history they were not 10th) and tied for 11th. Disgusting.

 

In 2004 they won 105 games in the regular season and got swept in the WS by a hot Boston team.

What's your point?

 

With the wild card(s) and expanded playoffs, baseball has become more like every other major sport. There are two seasons now. The regular season, and the playoff season. If the regular season is so important to you, just crown a champ based on the season schedule and then don't watch the playoffs.

 

The point is, if they win in 2004 I wouldn't have liked it, but hats off to them. Many teams with 100+ wins do not win a WS as there are plenty of other good teams in the postseason. However, they are continuously the worst team in the postseason and somehow win it. I don't see why a fan of a rival team can't be pissed about it.

[Sammys Boombox]

As much as I hate the Cardinals, its hard to look past their 7-1 record in their last 8 postseason series and call them 'sub-championship'. They put up rather mediocre regular season records, but obviously there is something they are doing right to build a team that can win best of 5 or 7 series. We're talking about 44 game sample size since 2006 (27-17 overall record including the 0-3 record in 2009). Maybe they are just the luckiest team in all of professional sports, and I realize they've gotten some pretty fortunate breaks, but the more they win the harder it is to say that.

 

All of this is true. There is still nothing wrong with being pissed about it.

[UMFan83]

As much as I hate the Cardinals, its hard to look past their 7-1 record in their last 8 postseason series and call them 'sub-championship'. They put up rather mediocre regular season records, but obviously there is something they are doing right to build a team that can win best of 5 or 7 series. We're talking about 44 game sample size since 2006 (27-17 overall record including the 0-3 record in 2009). Maybe they are just the luckiest team in all of professional sports, and I realize they've gotten some pretty fortunate breaks, but the more they win the harder it is to say that.

 

All of this is true. There is still nothing wrong with being pissed about it.

 

Not at all. It pisses me off beyond belief. Especially with their new found love affair with going down to their last strike of the season down multiple runs and pulling it out.

[Andy]

As much as I hate the Cardinals, its hard to look past their 7-1 record in their last 8 postseason series and call them 'sub-championship'. They put up rather mediocre regular season records, but obviously there is something they are doing right to build a team that can win best of 5 or 7 series. We're talking about 44 game sample size since 2006 (27-17 overall record including the 0-3 record in 2009). Maybe they are just the luckiest team in all of professional sports, and I realize they've gotten some pretty fortunate breaks, but the more they win the harder it is to say that.

The problem with the "maybe STL is just doing something right" logic is that apart from having an ace or two (STL doesn't have anyone appreciably better than anyone else's playoff ace, the Lance Lynn and Kyle Lohse garbage from this season notwithstanding), there really isn't any way to build a baseball team that is more likely to win a playoff series than to just win games, period.

 

There may be something to the idea that the team has some sort of really special amount of intestinal fortitude that allows it to perform under pressure, though. Not sure how it would be attained, but it's not an indefensible concept.

[ManEatingTarp]

In 2006, 2011 and 2012 (they're going to win, so lets just include it) the Cardinals won the WS with records worse than or equal to teams that did not make the postseason. They finished 13th, tied for 8th (due to the 2 biggest collapses in September history they were not 10th) and tied for 11th. Disgusting.

 

In 2004 they won 105 games in the regular season and got swept in the WS by a hot Boston team.

What's your point?

 

With the wild card(s) and expanded playoffs, baseball has become more like every other major sport. There are two seasons now. The regular season, and the playoff season. If the regular season is so important to you, just crown a champ based on the season schedule and then don't watch the playoffs.

 

The point is, if they win in 2004 I wouldn't have liked it, but hats off to them. Many teams with 100+ wins do not win a WS as there are plenty of other good teams in the postseason. However, they are continuously the worst team in the postseason and somehow win it. I don't see why a fan of a rival team can't be pissed about it.

 

Oh, I understand it. I even understand it from the Chicago football perspective. I'm a Bears fan, and my hatred of the Packers mirrors a lot of Cubs fan's feeling of the Cardinals.

 

My point was that the crying about teams with poor(ish) records winning a championship doesn't hold much water with the expanded playoffs. We see it in every sport. The NY Giants were a wildcard team last year and beat a 15-1 Packers team (bless their hearts). I think we all know that it's about what teams are playing well, and what teams get some lucky bounces. That 2006 Cards team dealt with some crazy injuries and a bullpen that was unstable until Sept. By the time the playoffs started they were a pretty damn good club.

 

My family are all Cubs fans, and they've adopted the idea that the Cardinals can win all they want for the next couple years, and hopefully they'll suck when the Cubs get things turned around in 2014.

[Andy]

Yeah, the sad (or not sad depending on your perspective) reality is that with the exception of the NBA, all pro-sports playoffs now are more or less a coin flip.

 

Not to say that the winner is just blindly lucky, just that there is really no way to predict the results of them anymore with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Yeah, the sad (or not sad depending on your perspective) reality is that with the exception of the NBA, all pro-sports playoffs now are more or less a coin flip.

 

Not to say that the winner is just blindly lucky, just that there is really no way to predict the results of them anymore with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

 

The NFL is still pretty darn deterministic.

[Andy]

Yeah, the sad (or not sad depending on your perspective) reality is that with the exception of the NBA, all pro-sports playoffs now are more or less a coin flip.

 

Not to say that the winner is just blindly lucky, just that there is really no way to predict the results of them anymore with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

 

The NFL is still pretty darn deterministic.

The Giants (twice), Packers and Steelers have all recently won Super Bowls as the last team in the playoffs from their conference. The Cardinals of a few years ago were, IIRC, far and away the worst NFL playoff team ever by most metrics and they damn near won it too.

 

There is some degree of determinance (is that even a word?) from teams that are statistically superior in the regular season, but not a lot.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

The Giants (twice), Packers and Steelers have all recently won Super Bowls as the last team in the playoffs from their conference. The Cardinals of a few years ago were, IIRC, far and away the worst NFL playoff team ever by most metrics and they damn near won it too.

 

There is some degree of determinance (is that even a word?) from teams that are statistically superior in the regular season, but not a lot.

 

NFL is the sport where teams' abilities fluctuate the most over the length of the season. I'd love to see a study correlating teams' strength (DVOA?) over the final six games of the season with their playoff success.

[wolf stansson]

Yeah, the sad (or not sad depending on your perspective) reality is that with the exception of the NBA, all pro-sports playoffs now are more or less a coin flip.

 

Not to say that the winner is just blindly lucky, just that there is really no way to predict the results of them anymore with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

If you want predictability, love soccer.

 

The Cardinals are a testament to the value of bullet proof bullpens (especially high strike out relievers), good defense and avoiding outs in the playoffs. That's pretty much the magic postseason formula. Get in, and have those three things happen.

 

You can throw 2006 out. That was an absolute crazy fluke. That team was hot garbage.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

The Cardinals are a testament to the value of bullet proof bullpens (especially high strike out relievers), good defense and avoiding outs in the playoffs. That's pretty much the magic postseason formula. Get in, and have those three things happen.

 

Cardinals were 20th in defensive efficiency and 19th in bullpen K% this year.

[illiniguy]

The Cardinals are a testament to the value of bullet proof bullpens (especially high strike out relievers), good defense and avoiding outs in the playoffs. That's pretty much the magic postseason formula. Get in, and have those three things happen.

 

Cardinals were 20th in defensive efficiency and 19th in bullpen K% this year.

Haha.

[illiniguy]

In 2006, 2011 and 2012 (they're going to win, so lets just include it) the Cardinals won the WS with records worse than or equal to teams that did not make the postseason. They finished 13th, tied for 8th (due to the 2 biggest collapses in September history they were not 10th) and tied for 11th. Disgusting.

 

In 2004 they won 105 games in the regular season and got swept in the WS by a hot Boston team.

What's your point?

 

With the wild card(s) and expanded playoffs, baseball has become more like every other major sport. There are two seasons now. The regular season, and the playoff season. If the regular season is so important to you, just crown a champ based on the season schedule and then don't watch the playoffs.

 

The point is, if they win in 2004 I wouldn't have liked it, but hats off to them. Many teams with 100+ wins do not win a WS as there are plenty of other good teams in the postseason. However, they are continuously the worst team in the postseason and somehow win it. I don't see why a fan of a rival team can't be pissed about it.

 

Oh, I understand it. I even understand it from the Chicago football perspective. I'm a Bears fan, and my hatred of the Packers mirrors a lot of Cubs fan's feeling of the Cardinals.

 

My point was that the crying about teams with poor(ish) records winning a championship doesn't hold much water with the expanded playoffs. We see it in every sport. The NY Giants were a wildcard team last year and beat a 15-1 Packers team (bless their hearts). I think we all know that it's about what teams are playing well, and what teams get some lucky bounces. That 2006 Cards team dealt with some crazy injuries and a bullpen that was unstable until Sept. By the time the playoffs started they were a pretty damn good club.

 

My family are all Cubs fans, and they've adopted the idea that the Cardinals can win all they want for the next couple years, and hopefully they'll suck when the Cubs get things turned around in 2014.

All I heard was that I live in Chicago, like the cardinals, but also the bears. Then I quit. Why not cheer for the rams? Don't win enough for you?

[Guest]

In 2006, 2011 and 2012 (they're going to win, so lets just include it) the Cardinals won the WS with records worse than or equal to teams that did not make the postseason. They finished 13th, tied for 8th (due to the 2 biggest collapses in September history they were not 10th) and tied for 11th. Disgusting.

 

In 2004 they won 105 games in the regular season and got swept in the WS by a hot Boston team.

What's your point?

 

With the wild card(s) and expanded playoffs, baseball has become more like every other major sport. There are two seasons now. The regular season, and the playoff season. If the regular season is so important to you, just crown a champ based on the season schedule and then don't watch the playoffs.

 

The point is, if they win in 2004 I wouldn't have liked it, but hats off to them. Many teams with 100+ wins do not win a WS as there are plenty of other good teams in the postseason. However, they are continuously the worst team in the postseason and somehow win it. I don't see why a fan of a rival team can't be pissed about it.

 

Oh, I understand it. I even understand it from the Chicago football perspective. I'm a Bears fan, and my hatred of the Packers mirrors a lot of Cubs fan's feeling of the Cardinals.

 

My point was that the crying about teams with poor(ish) records winning a championship doesn't hold much water with the expanded playoffs. We see it in every sport. The NY Giants were a wildcard team last year and beat a 15-1 Packers team (bless their hearts). I think we all know that it's about what teams are playing well, and what teams get some lucky bounces. That 2006 Cards team dealt with some crazy injuries and a bullpen that was unstable until Sept. By the time the playoffs started they were a pretty damn good club.

 

My family are all Cubs fans, and they've adopted the idea that the Cardinals can win all they want for the next couple years, and hopefully they'll suck when the Cubs get things turned around in 2014.

All I heard was that I live in Chicago, like the cardinals, but also the bears. Then I quit. Why not cheer for the rams? Don't win enough for you?

 

Why are you so upset about this?

 

Are you saying he's a Bears fan because of their great history of winning championships?