Regular Season and Playoff Schedule Thoughts

[apete6]

1. Leagues/Divisions stay as is, regular season remains 162 games.

Regular Season:

18 games vs. division foes (72 games)

6 games vs. rest of your league (60 games)

3 games vs. each team in designated other league division (30 games)

 

I'm lost on the math on the bolded.......what teams are they playing? Just one of the other divisions and it should be 6 games or 2 of the other 3?

 

home and home i think

 

Yes, that should read 6 games (3 home, 3 away).

[SouthSideRyan]

Repeating this since I've seen this worry elsewhere: It is literally impossible for Haren to be the starter in any playoff game unless one or more starters are hurt. In a hypothetical where the Cubs need to play to win every game in order to make the wild card(not guaranteed) and where Arrieta and Lester pitch the last 2 days of the season(not currently how the rotation is arranged), and where Haren is the next starter due up, One of Hendricks/Hammel will be on normal rest and the other will be on 3 days rest. There's another off day between Wild Card and Division series start, at which point Lester and Arrieta would be set to start games 1, 2, and 5 on normal rest.

 

If we tie for the 5th wild card spot(with a "6th" team), we'll have to play a tiebreaker game on Monday, and whatever pitcher is next in the rotation would start the 1 game playoff.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Anything that expands the wild-card round past one game should be a non-starter.

 

It barely moves the needle on lowering variance, and it'd be boring as hell. I have no interest in your 2017 NL Central Champion Chicago Cubs having to sit for four days and let their bats get cold while TBS shows a 4 p.m. Game 2 between the Indians and Orioles that may not even be decisive.

[apete6]

Anything that expands the wild-card round past one game should be a non-starter.

 

It barely moves the needle on lowering variance, and it'd be boring as hell. I have no interest in your 2017 NL Central Champion Chicago Cubs having to sit for four days and let their bats get cold while TBS shows a 4 p.m. Game 2 between the Indians and Orioles that may not even be decisive.

 

Ah, the "bats get cold" argument. Despite the Royals/Giants making the WS last year, hasn't it been disproven that the Wild Card winners win the WS about as much as they should given statistical probabilities in the playoffs?

[jersey cubs fan]

Anything that expands the wild-card round past one game should be a non-starter.

 

It barely moves the needle on lowering variance, and it'd be boring as hell. I have no interest in your 2017 NL Central Champion Chicago Cubs having to sit for four days and let their bats get cold while TBS shows a 4 p.m. Game 2 between the Indians and Orioles that may not even be decisive.

 

Ah, the "bats get cold" argument. Despite the Royals/Giants making the WS last year, hasn't it been disproven that the Wild Card winners win the WS about as much as they should given statistical probabilities in the playoffs?

 

How would you go about proving such a thing 2(?) years into the current system?

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Anything that expands the wild-card round past one game should be a non-starter.

 

It barely moves the needle on lowering variance, and it'd be boring as hell. I have no interest in your 2017 NL Central Champion Chicago Cubs having to sit for four days and let their bats get cold while TBS shows a 4 p.m. Game 2 between the Indians and Orioles that may not even be decisive.

 

Ah, the "bats get cold" argument. Despite the Royals/Giants making the WS last year, hasn't it been disproven that the Wild Card winners win the WS about as much as they should given statistical probabilities in the playoffs?

 

It was mostly a "3-game series three rounds before the World Series is stupid" argument.

[UMFan83]

How about a 2 game home and home with aggregate runs scored advancing?

 

Lol that was mostly a joke but it sounds kind of cool although it would radically change the strategy.

[Guest]

Repeating this since I've seen this worry elsewhere: It is literally impossible for Haren to be the starter in any playoff game unless one or more starters are hurt. In a hypothetical where the Cubs need to play to win every game in order to make the wild card(not guaranteed) and where Arrieta and Lester pitch the last 2 days of the season(not currently how the rotation is arranged), and where Haren is the next starter due up, One of Hendricks/Hammel will be on normal rest and the other will be on 3 days rest. There's another off day between Wild Card and Division series start, at which point Lester and Arrieta would be set to start games 1, 2, and 5 on normal rest.

 

If we tie for the 5th wild card spot(with a "6th" team), we'll have to play a tiebreaker game on Monday, and whatever pitcher is next in the rotation would start the 1 game playoff.

 

Not sure when they'll decide it but that would be dependent on which day we'd play. The last two years, one WC game has been Tuesday and the other Wednesday (NL was Tuesday in 2013 and Wednesday in 2014). I'd imagine, assuming no scheduling conflict with stadium use, that if one league needed a play-in game, that the WC game would be Wednesday to get the day off. But maybe not.

 

ETA: That makeup game against the Royals would screw us over in such a scenario. We would have had the final Monday of the season off and if there was a possibility of a tie for the 2nd WC spot, the Cubs could have adjusted the rotation if necessary to make sure Haren didn't pitch one of those two games.

[apete6]

Theo and I had the same idea. The rest of you guys are clearly morons: http://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/7/71/961800/one-done-cubs-proposed-3-game-2-day-wild-card-format

[Sammys Boombox]

Theo and I had the same idea. The rest of you guys are clearly morons: http://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/7/71/961800/one-done-cubs-proposed-3-game-2-day-wild-card-format

 

I am all-in on 2 divisions and 4 wild cards with the 4 WC playing 3 games in 2 days all in the higher-seeded teams' parks. I would love the March Madness effect.

[Guest]

stop stop stop with this doubleheader insanity. it's a terrible idea. you can tell theo i said that too.

 

^not directed at that post

[Banedon]

Oh that wouldn't screw up the rotation for the 2nd round at all......

[Aaron_Kennelly]

Theo probably said that because he knows he won't have to worry about playing in it ever again.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Theo probably said that because he knows he won't have to worry about playing in it ever again.

 

Pretty cocky from a guy with fewer division titles than Jim Hendry.

[Sammy Sofa]

Not sure why it matters how many division titles Duke has vs. Hendry. Kyle works in mysterious ways.

[Sammys Boombox]

Len and JD want to get rid of divisions entirely. I'm not opposed to this, but in general I'm pushing for larger divisions. Thoughts on the drastic idea of getting rid of NL/AL entirely and going to three divisions of 10 teams?

 

Playoff field:

 

3 divisions winners and 1 Wild Card get LDS berths.

8 more wild cards play a Wild Card round. I'm not rehashing the 1-game vs 3-game argument for the Wild Card round. Pick whichever one you want and assume I said that.

[Banedon]

Len and JD want to get rid of divisions entirely. I'm not opposed to this, but in general I'm pushing for larger divisions. Thoughts on the drastic idea of getting rid of NL/AL entirely and going to three divisions of 10 teams?

 

Playoff field:

 

3 divisions winners and 1 Wild Card get LDS berths.

8 more wild cards play a Wild Card round. I'm not rehashing the 1-game vs 3-game argument for the Wild Card round. Pick whichever one you want and assume I said that.

 

I think there's a few different ways this could be done. While I don't like his division set up (Cards and Cubs in different divisions), Jesse Spector wrote an article doing a full realignment into 5 divisions.

 

http://www.sportingnews.com/list/4655541-mlb-radical-realignment-divisions-dh-rob-manfred

 

Sorry in advance for the slide show.

[Sammys Boombox]

Honestly, there are a lot of ways to do it that in my opinion are better than what we have now and I would be plenty happy with completely mixing AL/NL. One positive is that any two teams could meet in the World Series.

[Bull]

Death to inter league play.

[rocket]

interleague play rules

[Guest]

http://www.hardballtimes.com/proposing-a-third-option-for-mlbs-schedule

 

This is a better version of the framework I'd been puzzling over for a long time. While I'd tweak his proposal slightly(I'd still have a World Series of the two best records in the Top Conference, and if worse came to worse I wouldn't *need* the promotion/relegation aspect), I think there's some elegant and more importantly, practical solutions.

[jersey cubs fan]

Every year, the baseball playoffs roll around. Nearly every year, people observe the unfairness of it all—the teams that make the playoffs aren’t always the ones that deserve it the most, and the less deserving teams have a nasty habit of doing pretty well once they get to October. And every year those whiny babies whine more and more about their stupid ideas that they think somehow make things "fair" as if that was the goal of professional sports entertainment and not some subjective nonsense. And more and more people ignore those whiny babies and their whiny baby whining about fairness and "unworthy" teams winning titles

[jersey cubs fan]

oh my god that is an incredibly stupid idea.

[jersey cubs fan]

I mean, it's like painfully stupid. Just a bunch of convoluted nonsense that basically destroys the very fabric of an incredibly successful sport just for the completely nonsensical desire to reward the team with a better record during the regular season with a trophy that will take years and years to become cherished by fans. And it doesn't even accomplish what it attempts to do fairly because it makes schedules unbalanced anyway.

[Guest]

It's really a terrific idea. Makes the long regular season of paramount importance, reduces incentive to be bad(or even worse than you could be), still offers a title(complete w/ randomness and entertainment value) of a playoff, and does so without the normal impractical suggestions that would be nonstarters for the union, owners, or both. It also does have a balanced schedule(or very close to it) that decides the champion(or in my suggestion, world series participants). IMO it's an improvement in every facet.